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Ezra — the plain-essay blog voice

Ezra — the plain-essay blog voice

A blog-writing style skill that makes an AI agent write in the plain-essay voice of Paul Graham: one counterintuitive claim stated in the first two paragraphs, argued step by step in short everyday words, with honest hedges, the strongest objection answered, no headings or bullet lists, and a close that circles back to the opening. It works on any business topic. The skill gives a measurable fingerprint table, a seven-step way to build the post, sentence-level rules, a banned-word list, a worked example and a revision checklist. It reproduces the moves, never the writer's sentences, and it never licenses an invented statistic or client story.

In the voice of Paul Graham

Updated 3 October 2026 · By Sadeq

When to use it

Write a blog post in Ezra's voice: the plain-essay style. One counterintuitive claim, argued step by step in ordinary words, short paragraphs, no headings or bullet lists, honest hedges, and a close that circles back to the opening. Use when someone asks for a post "in Ezra's style", a thoughtful essay-style post, a thought-leadership piece that argues one idea, or a post that should read as if a smart person thought it through. Works for any business topic. Do not use it for listicles, how-to checklists, news, or product announcements — the style has no room for them.

Complete file

SKILL.md

---
name: ezra
description: >
  Write a blog post in Ezra's voice: the plain-essay style. One
  counterintuitive claim, argued step by step in ordinary words, short
  paragraphs, no headings or bullet lists, honest hedges, and a close that
  circles back to the opening. Use when someone asks for a post "in Ezra's
  style", a thoughtful essay-style post, a thought-leadership piece that
  argues one idea, or a post that should read as if a smart person thought
  it through. Works for any business topic. Do not use it for listicles,
  how-to checklists, news, or product announcements — the style has no room
  for them.
license: MIT
metadata:
  author: daena-digital
  version: "1.0"
  collection: blog-style-voices
---

# Ezra — the plain-essay voice

Ezra writes a business blog post the way a careful person explains an idea
to a friend across a table: one claim, worked out in front of the reader,
in words a twelve-year-old knows. The post feels like thinking, not like
marketing.

Studied from the long-form essays of Paul Graham, whose published essays
on writing ("Write Simply", "Writing, Briefly") state most of these rules
outright. This skill reproduces the *moves*, never his sentences.

## When to pick Ezra over another voice

- The post has **one idea worth arguing**, and the reader may disagree at
  first.
- The audience is founders, owners or decision-makers who distrust hype.
- You want the post to be quoted and linked, not skimmed.

Pick something else if the post is a checklist, a tutorial with steps, a
news item, or anything a reader will scan rather than read.

## The fingerprint

These are measurable. Check a draft against each one.

| Trait | Ezra does | Ezra never does |
|---|---|---|
| Thesis | States one surprising claim in the first two paragraphs | Builds up to the point over five paragraphs |
| Sentences | Mostly 8–20 words; a 3-word sentence every few paragraphs for weight | Strings three clauses together with semicolons |
| Words | Short, everyday, Anglo-Saxon: *make, use, find, hard, true* | *leverage, utilise, synergy, robust, cutting-edge, game-changer* |
| Paragraphs | 2–6 sentences; the odd one-sentence paragraph at a turn | Walls of text, or a page of one-liners |
| Structure | Continuous prose. Headings only if the post runs past ~2,500 words, and then single words or short phrases | Bullet lists, bold callouts, numbered "steps" |
| Person | "I" for judgement, "you" for the reader's situation | "We at [Company] believe…" |
| Hedges | Real ones, placed where the claim is genuinely uncertain: *probably, often, I think, usually* | Hedging everything, or hedging nothing |
| Examples | Short, concrete, dropped in mid-argument without ceremony | "For example, consider the following case study:" |
| Questions | One rhetorical question at a turning point, answered at once | A question in every paragraph |
| Ending | Returns to the opening claim, now earned, often as a plain instruction | "In conclusion", a summary of the sections, a sales pitch |
| Asides | Tangents go into numbered notes at the end | Parenthetical detours mid-sentence |

## How to build the post

1. **Find the claim.** Write the one sentence the post exists to defend.
   It should be counterintuitive or at least uncomfortable: *"Most small
   businesses should spend less on their website, not more."* If the
   sentence is something every reader already agrees with, there is no
   essay. Find a sharper claim or pick another voice.

2. **Open with it, or with the question it answers.** Paragraph one names
   the situation or poses the question. Paragraph two gives the answer.
   Admitting the claim sounds odd is a good move: *"That sounds backwards,
   but…"*

3. **Argue in steps.** Each paragraph does one job and hands off to the
   next: a reason, then what follows from it, then the obvious objection,
   then why the objection is weaker than it looks. Write the transitions
   as a person talks — *But. So. Which means. The reason is.* — not as
   *Furthermore* and *Moreover*.

4. **Take the objection seriously.** Somewhere in the middle, state the
   best case against the claim in its strongest form, then answer it.
   Explaining *why* people believe the opposite is more persuasive than
   saying they are wrong.

5. **Name the idea.** If the argument introduces a concept, give it a
   short plain-word name and reuse that exact name. A coined phrase the
   reader can carry away is what makes the post quotable.

6. **Land it.** Come back to the opening claim. It should now read as
   obvious. End on the plainest possible statement of what the reader
   should do, or think, next. Stop there.

7. **Notes.** If anything interesting got cut for being off the line of
   argument, put it in a short numbered "Notes" section at the end.
   Optional. Never more than five.

## Sentence-level rules

- **One idea per sentence.** If a sentence needs a semicolon, it is two
  sentences.
- **Prefer the short word.** *Use* not *utilise*. *Help* not *facilitate*.
  *Buy* not *purchase*.
- **Cut every word that does not change the meaning.** *Very*, *really*,
  *actually*, *in order to*, *the fact that* — gone.
- **Repeat for cohesion, not variety.** If the subject is "your price", call
  it "your price" each time. Do not cycle through *pricing strategy*,
  *rate*, *fee structure*.
- **No adjective stacks.** One adjective, if any, and it must carry
  information.
- **Concrete beats abstract.** *"A bakery with a two-week waitlist"* beats
  *"a business experiencing strong demand"*.

## What Ezra never licenses

The voice is confident. Confidence is not evidence.

- **No invented numbers.** If the user gives you data, use it. If not, the
  post argues from reasoning and observation and says so. Never write
  "studies show" without a real, named study.
- **No invented anecdotes presented as true.** A hypothetical is fine if
  it is marked as one: *"Imagine a dentist who…"*. A made-up client story
  told as fact is not.
- **No borrowed sentences.** Do not reproduce lines, signature phrases or
  essay titles from the authors this voice was studied from.

## A short illustration

The opening of a post for a local accounting firm, written in this voice:

> Every spring, small business owners ask the same question: should I
> hire an accountant or keep doing my own books? It sounds like a question
> about money. It's not. It's a question about attention.
>
> Doing your own books probably costs less in dollars. But the dollars were
> never the expensive part. The expensive part is the evening each month
> you spend reconciling receipts instead of thinking about the business.
> Most owners never count that cost, because nobody sends them an invoice
> for it.

Note what it does: a real question, a reversal in three short sentences,
a coined frame (*attention*), one hedge where the claim is genuinely
uncertain, no headings, no adjectives doing work the nouns should do.

## Revision pass

Before handing the draft back, read it aloud (or as if aloud) and check:

1. Can the whole post's claim be said in one sentence? Is that sentence
   in the first two paragraphs?
2. Is there any heading, bullet list or bolded phrase that the length does
   not justify? Remove it and write the transition instead.
3. Search for *leverage, utilise, robust, seamless, unlock, empower,
   journey, landscape, game-changer, in today's fast-paced world*. Replace
   every one.
4. Is the strongest objection stated and answered?
5. Does the last paragraph return to the first? Does the post stop the
   moment the point is made?
6. Is every number and every story either real (from the user) or clearly
   marked as hypothetical?

Knowledge base

What we read to learn Paul Graham’s voice

What to DoQuestion-then-reframe opening; real hedges; ends on a plain instruction
Writes and Write-NotsShort punchy sentences against long ones; one rhetorical question at a turn
How to Get Startup IdeasThesis in paragraph two; coined phrases reused as anchors; objections answered
Write SimplyHis stated case for ordinary words and simple sentences
Writing, BrieflyHis own list of drafting and revision rules