# Shared quality rules — voice-agnostic, apply under any voice guide

**Why this file is separate from your voice guide:** these rules are the tightening
discipline that keeps *any* voice honest and short. They never override your voice — they
sit underneath it. Swap voice guides between projects or brands and these rules still apply
unchanged.

## 1. Structure & tightening framework

Every post is tight: one idea, no ramble.

- **One Big Idea** is the spine of every post — it should be easy to sum up in one sentence.
- Shape story posts with **PAS** (problem → agitate → solve) or **BAB** (before → after →
  bridge). Skip offer-copy formulas (AIDA, 4Ps, FAB) unless the post is an explicit
  offer/call-to-action.
- **Default skeleton:** hook (one contrarian line OR one open loop — exactly ONE
  claim/number) → one concrete situation → the turn (what actually happened, not advice) →
  the one big idea, stated plainly → soft close (one question or one implication).
- **De-ramble checklist — run this on every draft:**
  1. State the one idea in a single sentence. Can't? It's two posts — split it.
  2. Delete the first line (throat-clearing); the real hook is usually line two.
  3. The hook names exactly ONE claim/number/problem.
  4. One analogy/example only — delete the second even if it's good.
  5. One "before," one "after." No extra states.
  6. Never make the same point twice; keep the sharper version.
  7. One soft close/question — no second ask.
  8. Read it aloud at talking speed; cut anything you'd skip.
  9. "Easy to sum up" test: summarize it in one line without looking back at it.
- **Length:** skimmable. A tight 150–250 words read in full beats 450 that loses people
  halfway through.

## 2. No em dashes, ever

Use a comma, a period, or an ellipsis for the beat instead. Em dashes read as an AI tell.
Strip them mechanically as a final pass on every draft, regardless of what the drafting step
produced — a model told "don't use em dashes" still slips sometimes, so don't rely on the
instruction alone.

## 3. Attribution

- Never present a secondhand source's finding as your own. Say the idea in your own words,
  or credit the outlet lightly by its real handle.
- Credit people by their real handle, never a bare first name and never a guessed handle. No
  real handle available? Say "someone" and omit it.
- External stats/quotes are always framed as external ("a report found," "someone put it
  well"), never as your own first-party numbers. Verify hard numbers before publishing.

## Note on isolation

These rules are shared across every voice you might load. The VOICE itself — register,
pillars, recurring stories, and any brand-specific guardrails (say, a rule against citing a
specific competitor, or a banned metaphor) — is NOT here. That lives in **your own voice
guide** (see `03-draft.md`), separate from this file, so you can swap voices without touching
the quality rules underneath them.