Craft Library

LLM tics & tells — the de-LLM catalog

Companion to the Craft Glossary — the named sentence-level habits that make prose read as machine-written. Each tell below links to a full explainer; this page is the quick catalog with BAD → GOOD examples you can self-audit against. The studio counts these deterministically (./run.sh tics) and hunts them in the de-LLM loop — not to ban rhetoric, but to restore modulation: plain where plain belongs, sharp where sharp earns it.

0. What a "tell" is

A tic is a small recurring habit — yours or the model's. An LLM tell is a tic so common in AI prose that readers feel the machinery even when they cannot name it.

The deepest tells are not individual words. They are statistical habits:

• mathematically even cadence (every sentence the same weight)
• uniform gravitas (nothing allowed to be throwaway)
• prose from nowhere (no situated speaker with a stake)
• compulsive over-significance (everything "underscores" something)

The word-lists below are symptoms. Fix the rhythm and stance; the words often fall away on their own.

→ Full theory: Tic / machine-tell / LLM tell · Evenness of register · The root cause: no situated speaker

1. The headline tells (hunt these first)

"Not X. Y." / "Not X, but Y." — the reframe

The model's default way of sounding deep. Powerful once; a tell in bulk (~6% of ChatGPT output uses a "not just X, but Y" variant).

BAD: It wasn't fear. It was recognition.

GOOD: Her hands stopped shaking. She knew that face.

BAD: Not just a tunnel — a machine.

GOOD: The tunnel was a machine.

BAD: No panic, no flinch — just focus.

GOOD: She focused.

→ Negative parallelism / the reframe · Reframe device

Em-dash addiction

The dash doing a comma's or full stop's job — every sentence interrupted, nothing allowed to end cleanly.

BAD: She opened the door — the hinge screamed — and stepped inside — the air cold — older than the stone.

GOOD: She opened the door. The hinge screamed. The air inside was cold and old.

BAD: He wasn't angry — not exactly — more tired than anything — though tired wasn't the word.

GOOD: He looked tired. That wasn't the word, but it would do for now.

Rule: Reserve the em dash for genuine interruption or apposition. Track density per book.

→ Em-dash & punctuation tics

"The way…" — the simile template

Often the single most over-used construction in AI prose: the way a [noun] [verbs], repeated until every comparison sounds stamped from the same die.

BAD: The silence settled the way dust settles on unused furniture.

GOOD: The silence settled.

BAD: He moved the way a man moves when he already knows the answer.

GOOD: He moved like he already knew.

BAD: It hit her the way bad news always hits — slow, then all at once.

GOOD: Bad news. She felt it in her teeth first.

Rule: Cut roughly half. Keep the ~40% where the comparison only that comparison could carry the meaning. Else state the thing directly.

→ The "the way…" simile

Even cadence / gravitas inflation

Every sentence the same length and weight; every moment made profound; nothing plain.

BAD: The chamber was ancient. The stone was patient. The air was heavy with meaning.

GOOD: The chamber was old. Dust. A drip somewhere she couldn't see.

BAD: She understood, in that moment, the true cost of knowing.

GOOD: She wished she didn't know.

→ Cadence · Gravitas / evenness of register · Modulation

2. Vocabulary & construction tells

• AI vocabulary cluster — delve, tapestry, underscore, pivotal, nuanced, landscape, foster, nestled… → Rewrite for specificity; not a banned-word purge. → The "AI vocabulary" cluster
• Rule of three — three adjectives, three parallel clauses, everywhere → Break the rhythm. → Rule-of-three overuse
• Verb-of-significance — serves as, stands as, represents → Plain is/was; dramatize instead. → "Serves as / stands as"
• Caption tell — show, then explain what you showed → Trust the reader. → Over-explanation
• The hedge — ultimately, in many ways… → End on the image, not a summary. → The hedge
• Generic over specific — smooth abstraction replaces the odd true detail → Restore the precise noun. → Generic over specific
• Frictionless transitions — every paragraph topic-sentence → support → tidy close → Allow hard cuts. → Frictionless transitions

3. The self-audit (one pass)

Read a chapter aloud. Flag any paragraph where:

1. More than one "Not X…" reframe appears
2. More than two em dashes in five lines
3. "The way" appears twice on the same page
4. Every sentence is roughly the same length
5. A line states what the previous line already showed

Cut or rewrite the worst three instances. Re-read. Stop when only earned rhetoric remains.

→ The one revision rule · Anti-Patterns (structural habits above the sentence)

4. What the workshop does with tells

The engine does not silently rewrite your voice. It:

• counts each tell band against per-book targets
• flags clusters in finish reports and cold-reads
• blocks only when craft gates fail (continuity, mythos — separate from tics)
• leaves surgical cuts to the author (or author-approved edit passes)

That is why a Rothfuss-tier manuscript can run through the pipeline and still sound like Rothfuss — the tells are measured and thinned, not replaced with generic "humanizer" slop.

→ The workshop — for authors & editors · The technology (de-LLM loop)

Back to the Craft Glossary · Craft Library overview

Overview · Glossary · Doctrine · Anti-patterns · Triptych form

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