Full transcript
0:00Welcome to another video where we talk
0:01about Claude co-work and building Claude
0:04skills. Now, as with the last couple of
0:06videos we've done on this topic, I'm
0:08going to be handing a mic over to Akello
0:10and he is going to go through the entire
0:13process of creating a skill and in
0:14particular a really important skill to
0:17have inside of Claude co-work, which is
0:20a skill on how to make the AI write in
0:23your voice. This is one of the hardest
0:25skills to build but is one of the most
0:28valuable that we can build. I highly
0:30suggest that you watch all the way
0:32through to the end of this video and see
0:34just how you can make the writing sound
0:37a little bit more like you using Claude
0:39skills. Take it away, Akello. Hello, my
0:41name is Akello Herod. I'm still happy to
0:44be a nerdy novelist. Last [snorts]
0:46video, we built a blurb using a skill.
0:50We showed you kind of the basics of a
0:53skill, how to build one from scratch,
0:55and now that's done. Now we know that
0:59you can build one from scratch, but we
1:01also know that
1:04Claude has the ability to actually
1:08build the skill for you and it's really
1:10good at it. So, I wanted you to
1:12understand the basics so that when we
1:14got to this part, you would really have
1:17a leg up. Okay, at the end I told you
1:21that the next one was the hardest skill
1:23to build. Now, that is true. It is the
1:27hardest skill to build, but it's also
1:30one of the most valuable. This is
1:32capturing your voice. And that right
1:36there is the essence of your publishing
1:38business. I'm going to show you exactly
1:42how we do this. Okay.
1:45So, I've heard this from a lot of
1:48writers. This is the phrase, "I'm
1:50worried AI is going to make my writing
1:53sound like everybody else." Oh,
1:56that's not a dumb fear. Default AI
1:59output actually sounds like everybody
2:02and nobody all at the same time. Here's
2:05what I figured out.
2:07I [snorts] figured out that it's not
2:08Claude's problem, it's a skills problem.
2:13When Claude doesn't know your voice, it
2:16guesses. It absolutely figures out that
2:19it you probably want this even though
2:22you haven't told it anything. And it
2:24guesses the average of everything it's
2:29ever read, okay? So, it's just bland,
2:32mediocre, but a voice skill it fixes all
2:35of that. You can stop being anonymous,
2:38you can use it as a tool and make this
2:41sound like you. Your voice isn't at risk
2:44from AI, your voice is at risk from a
2:48blank setting, okay? The blank setting
2:51is the death of all creativity.
2:55Before we build anything, I just want to
2:57nail down what exactly we're talking
3:00about because voice Voice is one of
3:02those words that writers use constantly
3:06and almost never define. Voice isn't
3:09your genre, it isn't your theme, it
3:12isn't your story. Voice
3:15is [snorts] how your sentences move, how
3:18long they run before they stop, what
3:21words you reach for, it's whether your
3:24POV character thinks in full paragraphs
3:27or thinks in like punchy lines. It's
3:29whether you write with she said or
3:32whether you write with she said nothing
3:34and the silence did the talking. It's
3:36the stuff that's not so automatic, you
3:40don't even notice that you're doing it,
3:43you know?
3:44You you just you the craft has become
3:47you, okay? And so, you have this issue
3:50of not being aware of exactly what it is
3:55your voice actually is. You don't even
3:57notice it when you're doing it, okay?
4:00Until you look at your own writing like
4:03a forensic editor, which you are not.
4:06You are a writer. You do not do that.
4:08And that's exactly what we're going to
4:10do today is kind of look at your stuff
4:13like you're a forensic writer. Now, the
4:15first thing I want you to do is think
4:17about this thing called the extraction
4:20step. You are going to take some of your
4:22own writing. And what we are going to do
4:25is we're going to extract your style out
4:27of it. Now, it's incredibly important
4:31that the if you've actually already
4:33published a book or two or three and you
4:36have done extensive editing or had it
4:38extensively edited, you should take that
4:42particular version because that is
4:44probably the closest to what your actual
4:47voice is. Here's the thing about
4:49building a voice skill that's different
4:52than every other skill that we've built,
4:55okay? You can't just describe your
4:57voice. You can't. You have to bring an
5:01actual example. You have to show it,
5:04okay?
5:05You need samples, real prose, scenes you
5:09actually wrote, not blog posts, not
5:14emails, not any of that. It has to be
5:17fiction. The closer to your finished
5:19book quality, the better. I want at
5:22least 2,000 words, maybe more. Honestly,
5:26I know that right now people have heard
5:29of this thing called fine-tuning.
5:32And that's what we're kind of going to
5:33do is give the AI the ability to
5:38understand your writing and fine-tune
5:41whatever it's about to write. So, I want
5:442,000 words. That's at least the amount.
5:47I want you to grab different types of
5:49scenes, something like action and quiet
5:52scenes and heavy dialogue scenes. Once
5:54you have all of that, we're going to run
5:57what I call the extraction step. It is
6:00an actual prompt that I've built with
6:03artificial intelligence to pull out
6:06everything there is. Okay? So, let's
6:10open up a new chat and then we will
6:13We're going to use Claude. I think
6:16that's what we're going to use. As a
6:17matter of fact, we're we're absolutely
6:19going to use Claude. We are in Claude
6:23co-work right now, okay? And we're going
6:26to work in my second brain. That way, I
6:30have a workspace for it to work in. I'm
6:32going to get some sample prose. Isn't
6:35this cool? Look at all these different
6:37skills that are right here and ready to
6:39go.
6:41And we can add skills and all those
6:42sorts of things. But, that's for another
6:44day. We are talking about the actual
6:47skill right now. So, I'm going to Okay,
6:50so here is my extraction prompt. This is
6:55my extraction prompt, okay? Paste this
6:57prompt into a fresh Claude chat. Then
7:01paste your prose. I'll make sure to get
7:04this I'll make this available to all of
7:07you. And then here's the prompt. I'm
7:08going to read it real quick. You are
7:10forensic editor writing and
7:13analyst. Your job is not to evaluate
7:15quality, it is to identify pattern.
7:18Below is a body of prose from a single
7:20fiction author. Read it carefully, then
7:23produce a voice
7:25a voice fingerprint with for this
7:29writer. This fingerprint will be used to
7:32build a Claude skill that generates new
7:35prose in the style. Analyze the
7:37following dimensions and be specific.
7:40Always be specific.
7:43>> [laughter]
7:44>> Not vague descriptors like lyrical or
7:46gritty, but architectural observations I
7:49can turn into instructions. Sentence
7:52rhythm and and length. How long do
7:56sentences typically run? All of that
7:59stuff. And it just goes through all of
8:01these things and it uses this to extract
8:06the information. I cannot explain to you
8:08how important it is for you to take this
8:11run and really have you and I built this
8:14with an AI. You can build something very
8:17similar saying, "I want to extract my
8:19narrative voice out of my actual
8:23literature and so that I can feed this
8:25information into another large language
8:27model so that it can in turn mimic my
8:29voice." If that's all you do and you
8:32take the transcript from this actual
8:34video, that will be enough to get you
8:36started down this road. I made this
8:38actual prompt with Claude.
8:41So, Anthropic's really good at this sort
8:44of thing and that's really an exciting
8:48development that you can use AI to help
8:51you create really good, perfect sort of
8:55prompts for AI. And now that you have
8:59seen this and you will have this
9:00available, I don't know whether it'll
9:02probably it'll either be in the
9:04description, it will be disseminated in
9:06some other way. All right, so here's the
9:09usage notes. There's a bunch of usage
9:11notes down here. Minimum
9:14sample size 2,000 words, ideal 3,000 to
9:185,000.
9:19As you can see, I've really thought
9:21through this entire thing and now you
9:23have strong fingerprints that say this
9:26and that and the other and I so was
9:28actually built I created this looks like
9:314 days ago. I created this file and
9:35transferred this voice extraction thing
9:37over here. So, you can just build this
9:40yourself, okay? All right. So, now that
9:43we have established how we are going to
9:46do this extraction, let's copy this,
9:50which is what I'm doing. Okay, I'm going
9:53to paste this in and I'm actually not
9:56going to use this zealot thing until No,
10:00nope. I'mma paste in my sample prose.
10:03Let
10:05Claude read it and return the
10:07fingerprint for me. I'm just reading my
10:10instructions because I was like, "Wait a
10:12minute. What's my next thing that I have
10:13to do?" And there we go. Now, it's going
10:15to look at the zealot. It's going to
10:17look at the prose, look at the way it's
10:19all built out, and then it's going to
10:21tell me comprehensively what this is.
10:24And right now, I'm getting close to the
10:27end of my session limit, but that's
10:29okay. So, watch what it's doing. It's
10:31reading my files. It's actually coming
10:33up with uh some information right here
10:36that it's building, okay? It's pulling
10:39out the sentence rhythm. It's looking at
10:42vocabulary level, how I handle all the
10:44dialogue, every single thing. How does
10:47it close, what POV it's in, uh the
10:50naming patterns, every single thing.
10:53This is the thing a lot of writers find
10:56genuinely surprising, seeing their own
10:59habits, every single thing, kind of just
11:02like laid out in front of them. Most
11:04writers they know they have a voice.
11:06Very few have ever seen it described in
11:10writing, believe you me. And look at how
11:13comprehensive this is, how much it kind
11:17of gives you this huge report. Now, it's
11:20a very cool thing because this is what
11:24we're going to use to build the script.
11:26Now, we do the same thing we did in the
11:29last video, except instead of making
11:32blurb formulas, we're going to feed it
11:35this. And all I have to say is, "Now,
11:38write a voice skill file using this
11:41fingerprint. Include a short passage
11:44from the sample as the example anchor."
11:48And Claude writes a skill. Same
11:50structure as always, labels, rules,
11:53examples, all of that stuff the same way
11:56we laid it out last week. The difference
11:59is what's in the rule section. This
12:02time, it's you. It's actually your
12:05voice. Let me show you the file after we
12:07get done with this. All right, so let me
12:09put this in here, and then I'm going to
12:12say, let's see here. Let me just make
12:15sure I have the exact phrase. "Now,
12:18write a voice skill file using this
12:21fingerprint, including a short passage
12:23from the sample as the example anchor."
12:27Okay? Now, it's going to use a skill to
12:30build this. And
12:33if I'm not mistaken, I have 90% of my
12:36session limit. You know what? Let's do
12:38this. I'm going to Actually, this is a
12:41brand new one. I don't care if I'm at
12:43session limit. I don't. Sample example,
12:46and we're off to the races. So, it's
12:50actually loading tools, and it's looking
12:52at skills and different things like
12:54that. It's writing a voice skill file
12:57that it's going to basically make your
13:00voice your voice. And then we will do a
13:04quick voice comparison, okay? I don't
13:07know what we're going to name this
13:08skill. I guess we could name it voice
13:10skill, or we could name it your whatever
13:13that PIN name that you're working with.
13:16Uh you may be doing a cozy mystery as
13:18opposed to your steamy thrillers or
13:20something like that. But
13:22I think that this could actually be the
13:26thing that makes the difference between
13:29generic and like everybody's writing and
13:34your writing. And it's done. All right,
13:37it says
13:38view your voice skill file. So let's
13:43view voice skill lucky seven. Okay,
13:46let's see here. View my voice skills
13:49file. This is the whole skill voice
13:52skill lucky seven series. Now, this is
13:56very interesting. So this is for the
13:59lucky seven, so my space opera and it
14:02should write like this through the
14:04entire space opera. So you can have
14:08multiple multiple
14:10actual voices that you build up over the
14:14years. You could literally work on a
14:17specific style for three, four, five
14:20thousand words and make that into a
14:23specific voice that you have. It's It
14:27blows my mind. And now we have the
14:30skill, we have the voice skill. One more
14:32quick question. Did you implement the
14:34skill inside of Claude? Now it's
14:36thinking. What I The reason I asked that
14:38is cuz it built the thing, but I think
14:40it might have built it just so that I
14:42could review it. Short answer, no. Not
14:45automatically. Here's the distinction.
14:48What I built is a prompt document, a
14:51structured instruction set. You can
14:53paste in as a system prompt. Include the
14:57top blah blah blah. I want you to make
15:00it into a formal skill that can be used
15:02by Claude co-work and Claude code.
15:05Please use the skill creator. All right,
15:07so that is a lesson for you. Please make
15:09sure that you say use the skill creator.
15:12And now it's going to create the skill
15:14completely from scratch. It's got a very
15:16good scaffolding, which is very nicely
15:19put together. Rule five, description
15:21checklist. No adverbs used
15:25unnecessarily. No emotions named
15:28directly. No long subordinate clauses.
15:31Oh, very nicely done. All description is
15:34doing two jobs simultaneously. Oh, very
15:37nice. I'm going to always allow. And now
15:40it's going to build this skill. As you
15:42can see, I've got tons and tons of
15:45detail in here, and this detail is
15:48exactly the reason why you aren't going
15:52to sound generic. And I'm very excited
15:55for all of you because you get to really
15:57experience the power of a top-level
16:01artificial intelligent. This is like the
16:03third video. I apologize. I don't mean
16:06to make so much work for you, sir.
16:08Anyway, here's where I was. So, you
16:10didn't describe your voice. Your writing
16:14described your voice. So, Claude can now
16:17translate that into something that it
16:19can load. All right, we're almost done.
16:21Now, this is fascinating. I want you to
16:23understand the process that we're going
16:25through here.
16:26It said right now, good, it's done
16:29building the skill, and now it's testing
16:32the cases. Since this is a subjective
16:35style skill, I'll write three realistic
16:38prompts, a cold open, a tense
16:40two-character scene, and a solo action
16:43sequence, and evaluate qualitatively.
16:47Skill drafted test case written. Now
16:50launching all six agents simultaneously.
16:53Three with the skill, three baseline, no
16:56skill. All six agents done. Now writing
16:59timing data. Now grading assertions and
17:03building the viewer. That's pretty cool.
17:05Let me write the evaluation metadata and
17:08run grading. Now grading all assertions.
17:12Good data. Red relief facial term not
17:15emotion false positive. The width scale
17:18output is clean. Now writing all grading
17:21files. Nice. Can I see those examples,
17:23please? Yes, the skill should give me a
17:27actual breakdown of those things that
17:29it's writing right now. I'm I was hoping
17:31to do a contrasting compare. So, we'll
17:34see. Okay, so now it's finished with its
17:36evaluation. It's actually gone through,
17:39used the skill, and created a
17:43which is pretty cool to me. A actual
17:46outputs sort of thing so that we could
17:48take a look at it, right? I could
17:51actually download this. I could do
17:53whatever I want. But, what I'm going to
17:54do is we can look at this as it's
17:58written and then we will look at it
18:00This is with the skill and what I'm
18:02going to do is I'm going to grab this,
18:07copy it, and say, "Okay, I want to
18:10create this story again, but without
18:13using the skill so that I can contrast
18:15and compare." And now it's got exactly
18:17the same thing in here except for the
18:20last part, three words in the
18:22established voice. 300 words. I'm going
18:25to not say in the established voice,
18:28okay? But, without using Okay, I want to
18:31the
18:32create the story again, but without
18:33using the skill so that we can contrast
18:35and compare. Write a cold opening for
18:37the Lucky Seven chapter. Right. Okay.
18:40So, here we go. Now, I'm going to read
18:42you the what it feels like with the
18:45voice. Not the med lab, not home. The
18:49angle was wrong. The hum all wrong. The
18:52gravity pressed sideways. She pushed
18:54herself up on an elbow. The holding cell
18:58resolved around her. A flat wall,
19:01recycled air, a drainage grate near the
19:05far corner. 3 m by 4. No furniture, no
19:09light source except the thin bleeding
19:11edge panel in the ceiling casting
19:14everything in stale light.
19:17That's pretty good. It's pretty good.
19:19Now, let's see. Here we go. And
19:22the ceiling was the wrong color. Okay,
19:24so here's the contrast and compare. So
19:27this right here Sable Orne work with her
19:29face against the composite flooring.
19:32Okay, here's the ceiling was the wrong
19:34color. Sable Orne noticed that before
19:37she noticed anything else a pale
19:39institutional gray instead of the warm
19:42amber panels of the Kestrel common deck.
19:46She lay still for a moment letting her
19:49eyes adjust letting her body take
19:51inventory no pain beyond a a dull
19:54pressure behind her temples no
19:57restraints the surface beneath her was
20:00smooth composite slightly warm the kind
20:03of flooring you find in transit hubs.
20:06Yes. Yes ladies and gentlemen, that is
20:09what is called generic. All right. So
20:11what I want you to understand is that
20:14what we did today and it did take a
20:16while what we did today was build
20:19something from scratch understand why we
20:22were doing it how we were doing it and
20:25then we dissected
20:27that voice from existing samples and
20:31created the world in an oyster. So now
20:35you have your voice. I'll make sure that
20:37we have that prompt linked in the
20:40description below. I hope you all
20:42enjoyed this because my goodness we live
20:44in the future and in this future you can
20:47use your voice to do anything you want.
20:51You can even have multiple voices.
20:52Remember, this isn't one paradigm. You
20:56could have a voice for every single pen
21:00name that you have. All right. Thanks.
21:04And make sure you like and subscribe. We
21:06love it when you like and subscribe.
21:09Check out the Story Hacker community. We
21:11love you to We would love it if you came
21:13over there, too. Links in the
21:15description below. Have a good day.