Prose Revision Skill for Claude

A Claude Skill for revising draft prose — essays, papers, memos, reports — by finding the best structure for the ideas the author already wants to express. Its guiding principle is idea flow before linguistic flow.

What It Does

This skill treats awkward writing as a symptom of structural problems, not just bad phrasing, and fixes the structure before polishing the words. When active, Claude will:

• Diagnose idea flow before wording — order, emphasis, and what each unit is trying to do come before sentence-level smoothing
• Work at every level — sentence, paragraph, section, and whole — fixing the larger structure (paragraph and section order) before rewriting inside paragraphs
• Lead with the main claim and push qualifications after the claim they modify, so the reader isn't kept waiting for the point
• Stay conservative on content — preserve the author's voice, substantive claims, and claim strength (no turning "suggests" into "shows")
• Offer revised versions distinguished by how much they restructure (light, moderate, or full rebuild), with a note on the tradeoff
• Leave well enough alone — if a draft already reads well, say so rather than manufacture edits

It is distinct from proofreading: this skill gets a rough draft's structure into shape; proofreading is the later pass for typos and final copy-editing.

Installation

1. Download this repository as a zip file (click Code → Download ZIP above)
2. In claude.ai, go to Customize → Skills
3. Upload the zip file
4. Confirm the skill appears in your skills list and is toggled on

Requirement: Code execution and file creation must be enabled in Settings → Capabilities.

Usage

Just ask naturally:

• "Revise this paragraph for flow"
• "Help me tighten this section — the argument feels tangled"
• "This draft reads awkwardly; can you restructure it?"

Claude will detect the prose-revision context, load this skill automatically, and diagnose structure before touching the wording. You do not need to give any special instructions.

File Structure

prose-revision-skill-ht-anthony-lee-zhang/
├── SKILL.md    # The skill: philosophy, workflow, output style, worked example
└── README.md   # This file

Background

Builds on a prose-revision skill by Anthony Lee Zhang ("ht" = hat tip). The core idea — that clear writing is first a matter of getting ideas into the right order, and only then a matter of elegant sentences — draws on a long tradition of writing advice that treats revision as structural work rather than surface polish.

License

MIT — free to use, adapt, and share.