Controlling LLM Prose

Controlling LLM Prose

A field guide to rhetorical, linguistic & length precision

Language models write competently by default, but competence is not control. This guide is organized four ways—after the Diátaxis framework—so you can learn a technique, solve a specific problem, look up an exact definition, or understand the theory. Start wherever your need sits.

Learning-oriented

Tutorials

Start here · learn by doing

Guided, step-by-step lessons that take you from a plain draft to a controlled one. No prior theory assumed—each step shows the move and its result.

3 lessons Task-oriented

How-to guides

Recipes for a specific goal

Practical, goal-first recipes for problems you already have: hit a reading time, strip ambiguity from a spec, make a procedure scannable. Assumes you know the basics.

7 guides Information-oriented

Reference

Every technique, precisely defined

The dry, complete catalogue—every concept across nine areas, each with a definition, a worked example, and a copy-ready prompt. Look things up here.

33 concepts Understanding-oriented

Explanation

The why behind the techniques

Discursive essays that connect the techniques—why syntax sets pace, why distance is a dial, why constraint breeds clarity. Read these to build a mental model.

4 essays
New · diagnostic LLM Prose Smells → The tell-tale signs of AI slop—wordiness, hedging, corporate sheen, emoji confetti—each paired with a copy-ready prompt that fights back.

A taste · one sentence, five registers

Every page here shows its work

The whole guide runs on worked examples. Here is the flavor: a single neutral sentence, rewritten in five named registers. See Micro-Register for the full treatment.

One sentence, five registers. The facts never change—only the linguistic mode.
Source (neutral)The old house was empty now, and it made him sad to see it.
  • Clinical detachment

    The structure was unoccupied. The observer reported a lowered mood on viewing it.

    Emotionally neutral diction; phenomena reported as if for a case file.

  • Pulp-noir

    The house stood empty. Something about those dark windows put a fist around his heart and squeezed.

    Hard-boiled rhythm; sensation rendered as physical violence.

  • Elegiac

    The house stood hollow now, and something in its silence mourned the voices it had once held.

    Mournful, cadenced; loss elevated to the near-sacred.

  • Bureaucratic

    The property was recorded as vacant. Per the site visit, its condition was noted as adversely affecting occupant sentiment.

    Passive, nominalized, procedural; feeling laundered into a record.

  • Hymnal

    Empty stood the house, and heavy grew the heart; for gone were the voices, and still was the door.

    Inverted syntax and anaphora borrow the cadence of scripture.