Drop in a draft that came from a podcast transcript or coaching call. Get back a polished, scannable guide that keeps your message, your stories, and your voice, and reads like you sat down at your desk and wrote it.
← All Claude SkillsA great draft that came out of a transcript still reads like talking. Guide Polish reads the whole draft and rewrites how it lands on the page, keeping every story, every teaching point, and your voice. What comes back reads like you sat down and wrote a guide for your best client. Copy the two blocks below and give them to your Claude.
Step 1. Copy the skill block below.
Step 2. Open Claude and paste this instruction first, then paste the block underneath it:
Turn the block below into a Claude skill and install it. Create the skill file exactly as written. Then personalize it with smart defaults from what you know about me: my business, my voice, and how I like my writing to read. Confirm when it is installed and tell me how to run it.
--- name: guide-polish description: Elevate a transcript-based blog post draft into a polished, guide-quality piece that reads like you sat down and wrote it. Use this skill whenever you say "polish this," "clean this up," "make this read like a guide," "this reads like a transcript," "tighten this up," "revision pass," "guide polish," "run guide polish," "make this client-ready," or drop an edited draft and say it needs to be elevated. Also trigger when you have a blog post draft that came from a podcast transcript or coaching call and want it to feel like a written guide you would hand to a client. This is the revision layer that sits between your drafting step, which creates the draft, and your publishing step, which packages the post for publishing. If a draft exists and you want it to read better while keeping the message intact, this is the skill. --- # Guide Polish Elevate a transcript-based blog post draft into a polished, guide-quality piece that reads like you sat down at your desk and wrote a guide for your clients. This skill keeps the message, the structure, and the stories exactly as they are. It changes how they read on the page. The draft goes in sounding like you talking into a microphone. It comes out reading like you sat down and wrote a guide for your best client. ## When This Skill Sits In The Workflow **Your drafting step** creates the draft from transcript material. **Guide Polish** elevates that draft into client-ready quality. **Your publishing step** packages the polished post for publishing. This skill is the revision layer. It sits between a finished draft and publishing. It makes good drafts great. ## When To Use - A blog post draft exists that was built from a podcast transcript or coaching call - The draft has the right message, stories, and structure and reads heavy, spoken, or rough - You say any variation of: "polish this," "clean this up," "this reads like a transcript," "make this a guide," "tighten this," "revision pass," "make this client-ready" - The output is a long-form guide or flagship blog post - You want to hand this piece to a client or feature it as a resource ## The Six Revision Principles These are the operating instructions for every Guide Polish pass. Apply all six to the full draft in a single revision. Hold all six lenses at once rather than running them one at a time across multiple passes. ### 1. Separate Spoken Rhythm From Written Rhythm Transcripts carry patterns that work when talking and feel heavy when reading. Identify and rewrite these: **Filler transitions:** "right? So..." / "so now let's get to..." / "and the next part of this is..." Replace with clean section breaks or let the structure do the transition work. **Restated emphasis:** Speakers often say the same idea twice for emphasis. On a mic, this builds momentum. On a page, it reads as redundant. Keep the strongest version, cut the echo. **Run-on thought chains:** Speakers connect ideas with "and" or "because" to maintain flow. Writers split these into separate sentences or paragraphs. If a sentence has more than two commas connecting distinct ideas, it probably needs to be broken apart. **Verbal momentum builders:** "right? Those little things right there." / "that's the thing." / "and that's what I mean by this." These are mic patterns. Cut them. The writing should trust the reader to follow. **The test:** Read every sentence and ask, "Did someone write this, or did someone say this?" If the answer is "said," rewrite it so it reads as written. The story stays. The energy stays. The rhythm changes. ### 2. Give Every Idea Its Own Space To Breathe The draft will have paragraphs doing multiple jobs. A personal story bleeds into a teaching point which bleeds into an action step, all in one block. This creates walls of text that readers bounce off of. **The rule:** Each major idea or emotional shift gets its own paragraph. If a paragraph is doing more than one job, split it. **Personal story** gets its own space. **The lesson it teaches** gets its own paragraph. **The action step** the reader takes gets its own space. **Line breaks between thoughts.** Short paragraphs. One-sentence paragraphs for emphasis when earned. Each thought gets room to land before the next one starts. **Bold subheaders** within pillar sections to break up long stretches. These give the reader's eye a place to land when scanning. **Numbered lists** where action steps are given. Keep three options out of a run-on paragraph and put them in a clean list. **The test:** Scroll through the draft at arm's length. If any section looks like a wall of text, it needs to be broken up. A reader should be able to scan the piece and get the architecture before committing to reading. ### 3. Shift The Camera From "Me Sharing" To "You Receiving" The transcript naturally centers on you telling your story. That's how podcasts work. In a written guide, the reader is the subject. **Before a personal story:** Set up why it matters to them. "I'll share something personal here because it connects directly to what you might be feeling." The story is serving their journey. **After a personal story:** Turn the lens back to the reader. "You've been through this exact same process." / "That's the growth mindset. Everybody starts somewhere." The reader should feel like the story was told for them. **Connective tissue between sections** should be reader-facing. "Let me walk you through each one" is guide energy. "So now I'm gonna talk about" is podcast energy. **Your stories stay.** They're the proof, the relatability, the EEAT signal. The revision keeps every story. It reframes the tissue around them so the reader is always the main character. **The test:** After every personal story or anecdote, check: does the next sentence turn the camera back to the reader? If it stays on you, add a bridge sentence that connects the story to the reader's experience. ### 4. Clean The On-Ramps And Off-Ramps Between Sections Transcripts jump between ideas with verbal transitions that work in real time and feel clunky in writing. **Verbal bridges to cut:** "so now let's get to the second pillar" / "and the next part of this is all around" / "so once you understand those things about precision, now we're gonna get to the final pillar" **Replace with:** Clean section breaks (horizontal rules or headers) that let the structure do the transition work. If a transition sentence is needed, make it one clean line: "Let me walk you through each one." / "Here's how each one works." **The principle:** Let the structure carry the navigation. Headers and section breaks tell the reader where they are. The writing inside each section delivers value and lets the headers narrate the journey between sections. ### 5. Remove Performative Energy While Keeping Real Energy Transcripts sometimes restate ideas for verbal emphasis or build momentum through repetition that works out loud and reads as padding on a page. **Repetition for emphasis (cut):** When the same idea appears in three sentences that circle the same point, keep the strongest sentence and cut the other two. **Verbal confirmation patterns (cut):** "right?" / "you know what I mean?" / "those little things right there" / "that's the thing." These are mic patterns that read as filler on a page. **Real energy (keep):** Short punchy sentences. Bold declarations. The pace speeding up when excitement builds. Caps used sparingly and deliberately. This is your actual energy and it stays. **The test:** If removing a sentence leaves the meaning of the paragraph intact, the sentence was padding. Cut it. ### 6. Format For Scanners Most people scan before they commit to reading. The draft needs to work for both. **Bold subheaders** within long sections to break up the visual weight and let scanners know what's coming. **Short paragraphs.** Each thought gets its own space. One-sentence paragraphs for emphasis when the idea earns it. **Numbered or bold-formatted lists** for action steps, options, or sequences. Keep parallel options out of prose paragraphs and put them in a list. **Strategic bold text** on key phrases that anchor the reader's eye when scanning. **The test:** If someone scrolled through the piece in five seconds, could they get the structure and the key ideas from the headers, bold text, and paragraph breaks alone? If the answer is no, add more visual scaffolding. ## Workflow ### Step 1: Read The Full Draft Read the entire draft before making any changes. Understand the message, the structure, the stories, and the arc. Note where the transcript artifacts are heaviest and where the draft is already clean. ### Step 2: Apply All Six Principles In One Pass Rewrite the full draft applying all six principles simultaneously. This is one revision that holds all six lenses at once. Preserve: - Every story and personal anecdote (reframe the tissue around them, keep them all) - The overall structure and section order - Your actual language, phrases, and teaching points - The energy and warmth of how you communicate - Any frameworks, named concepts, or specific terminology Change: - Spoken rhythm to written rhythm - Walls of text to breathing, scannable paragraphs - "Me sharing" connective tissue to "you receiving" guide energy - Verbal transitions to structural transitions - Padding and repetition to tight, single-delivery points - Dense formatting to scannable formatting ### Step 3: Present The Polished Draft Present the full revised draft in conversation. Create a file only when you ask for one. You'll want to read it, make edits, and iterate before it moves to your publishing step. When presenting, briefly note what changed at a high level. Skip the line-by-line changelog. Something like: "Cleaned up the transcript rhythm throughout, broke up the dense sections in Pillar 2, reframed the stretching story so it bridges back to the reader, and added bold subheaders in the Intention section for scannability." ### Step 4: Iterate If Needed You may want to tighten specific sections, adjust tone in certain spots, or flag areas that still feel off. Apply the same six principles to any revision requests. ## What This Skill Does NOT Do - Does not change the message, thesis, or core teaching - Does not add new stories, frameworks, or content that wasn't in the draft - Does not remove stories (it reframes the tissue around them) - Does not restructure the piece (reorder sections, merge pillars, and so on) - Does not do the AEO optimization pass (that happens after this skill, before publishing) - Does not create the publishing prompt (that's your publishing step) - Does not write from scratch (that's your drafting step) ## Quality Standard The polished draft should read like you sat down at your desk with a cup of coffee and wrote a guide for your best client. Like you, the writer, created this piece with intention. Every sentence should pass the test: "Did someone write this, or did someone say this?" The answer should always be "wrote."
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Talking and writing follow different rhythms. A draft pulled from a transcript carries the patterns of speech, the fillers, the restarts, the run-on chains that build momentum out loud and slow a reader down on the page. Guide Polish reads the whole draft and rewrites the rhythm while keeping the message, the stories, and the voice. The words start reading like you wrote them.
Spoken fillers, restated points, and run-on chains get rewritten into tight sentences that carry your energy and read like prose.
Walls of text break into short paragraphs, one idea each, so a reader can follow the piece and feel the pace.
The camera shifts from you telling your story to the reader receiving it. Your stories stay as the proof, and the tissue around them turns reader-facing.
Verbal bridges become clean section breaks and headers, so the structure guides the reader from one idea to the next.
Bold subheaders, short paragraphs, and lists let someone get the whole architecture in a five-second scroll, then commit to the read.
Guide Polish is a revision method for turning a transcript-based blog post draft into a polished, guide-quality piece. It reads the full draft and rewrites how it lands on the page, keeping the message, the structure, and every story exactly as they are. What comes back reads like you sat down at your desk and wrote a guide for your best client.
Guide Polish applies six principles to the full draft in one pass: separate spoken rhythm from written rhythm, give every idea its own space to breathe, shift the camera from you sharing to the reader receiving, clean the on-ramps and off-ramps between sections, remove performative energy while keeping your real energy, and format for scanners. Held together, they turn a spoken draft into a piece that reads like written prose.
Guide Polish keeps your message, your structure, and every story exactly as they are. It changes how the words read on the page and reframes the tissue around your stories so the reader stays the main character. Your voice, your teaching points, and your named frameworks all stay intact.