Writing fingerprint · Voice
Voice is who your text talks to, and whether it tells what happened.
Two measures track it: how often a draft says "you", and how much of it is in the past tense. Advice lives in the present and points at the reader. Stories happened, to somebody.
In numbers
Where Claude sits on the two voice measures.
| Measure | Writers | Claude before W10 | Claude after W10 |
|---|---|---|---|
| You per 100 words | 1.1 ± 1 | 0.8 in range | 0.5 in range |
| Past tense % of sentences | 46.6 ± 11.5 | 45.7 in range | 54.9 in range |
Our writer already keeps "you" in check, so both versions sit in range here. The change W10's rules made is in tense: more of the drafts after the rules tell what happened.
You
"You" is warm in small doses.
Writers say "you" about once per 100 words. A sales page says it five times as often. The count matters less than the job "you" does. Pointed at the reader with an instruction, it turns a post into a pitch. Placed inside a scene, it lets the reader stand in a moment they recognise.
Your blog moves at the speed of the hours you have to review it.
By the time you opened the third tab, the naming fight had stopped mattering.
The first "you" receives a rule. The second "you" is a character: someone who opened three browser tabs, which most readers have done.
Be stingy with yourself, since the right number is the one you'd still hit in a bad week.
It marks the exact spot where your company's explanation broke under pressure, in front of someone who was deciding whether to pay you.
Both address the reader. The first coaches them. The second shows them a moment from their own sales calls.
Past tense
Advice floats in the present. Stories happened.
About 47% of a good writer's sentences have a past-tense verb. Evidence lives there: a study that was run, a launch that happened, a call that went wrong. A draft in the present tense can only state how things are, and that is where it starts to sound like a manual. After W10's rules, Claude's past tense rose from 46% to 55%.
An IT reader wants to know what the tool touches and who can switch it off. A boss wants to know what happens to the team's week.
Nobody in finance heard it. Nobody in IT heard it either. The boss, who approves anything above a number no vendor is ever told, got a two-line summary in a corridor between two other meetings.
Same brief, same people. The first describes what such readers want, in the present, forever. The second tells what happened to this boss, in a corridor, between two meetings.
Questions
About voice.
How often should a blog post say "you"?
Why does past tense matter?
Is present tense wrong?
"Claude before W10": 12 drafts our writer, running on Claude, produced on 8 briefs for our own blog between 26 and 29 October 2026. "Claude after W10": 4 drafts on 4 of those briefs, with W10's rules added to its instructions. Every quote is copied from those drafts as written. Coloured with W10V4's reference set. "Writers" is the middle and spread of our reference set of essayists, authors and company blogs.
Paste a draft and see where it sits.
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