"Unpromptability" in the Age of AI: What Makes Writing Stick, and What Makes it Forgettable

Why your “style” won’t save you from AI

Today we have a special guest post from

James Presbitero

of

Write10x

. He brings expert insights about how you can bring authenticity to your stories that AI cannot replicate. I hope you all find this timely advice valuable to your writing in the midst of the concerns creatives have about the age of AI.

Scroll all the way down for you Substack friends’ early release of our newest podcast episode where we help a writer edit their story to be more authentic in real time!

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Caption: Dall E -- GDrive link here.

Hot take: Style is dead.

At least, the version of “style” most online creators are clinging to.

We’re living in an era where AI can mimic your tone, your sentence flow, and your emoji usage with unsettling accuracy. It can write in Hemingway, in Austen, in “Twitter thread bro.” Hell, it can even write like me — if you feed it enough samples.

And that’s the problem. If your voice can be prompted, it’s not a voice. It’s a filter.

To stand out today, you need more than a vibe. You need presence.

Case Study: Percy Jackson and the Death of Style

Back in high school, I worshipped Rick Riordan. The Percy Jackson books were everything I wanted: magic in modern times, mythological chaos, sassy narrators, world-ending quests wrapped in middle-school humor.

I lost sleep because of Percy Jackson, fought with my parents because I wouldn’t do the dishes. I geeked out with my fellow YA bookworms, joined Facebook groups that sorted us into our Houses.

I thought it was peak writing.

But recently, I picked up The Lightning Thief again out of nostalgia, and I noticed something weird.

The writing was simple. Direct and distinctly formulaic. The style was distinctive, sure, but nothing that made my adult (ish) brain gasp in wonder.

I still adore Percy Jackson. I still love the nostalgia it brings, the clever ways it weaves mythology with modernity, and the thrill of those first adventures with Percy, Annabeth, and Grover. Key moments still make me smile and gasp and stare in wonder.

But it’s nostalgia that carries most of that weight now.

The emotions aren’t as soul-stirring. The imagery, while fun, doesn’t hit quite like it used to. My tastes have evolved. I now see that many YA books, including Riordan’s, are written with a straightforward style—clean, clear, and effective for their audience, but not necessarily complex or rich in literary texture.

If I fed a few chapters into ChatGPT and asked it to generate a “Rick Riordan-style middle-grade adventure”… it could. Easily.

So here’s an uncomfortable question for you:

If AI can mimic the writing style of Rick Riordan… why can’t I write the next Percy Jackson?

I have a comforting answer: Because style isn’t all that matters.

The world of Percy Jackson is a mix of Rick Riordan's creative way of modernizing mythology. His clever world-building. His public persona. His interviews. His creative opinions of society, belief, magic, and identity. His human gravity.

All of these contributed to creating a presence.

He's become unpromptable.

And that, my friend, is the real moat.

The lie of “Just find your voice”

In my newsletter, I frequently explore ways writers can preserve their humanity in the age of AI.

But this is the truth I keep circling back to:

Your unpromptable writing voice is not just about how you say something. It’s about what you stand for when you say it.

AI can replicate a tone. But it can’t replicate a lifetime of beliefs, experiences, contradictions, and cultural context that shape your presence.

Style is a hat. Presence is a soul.

But wait, what is this “presence” you speak of?

Presence is what makes a reader go, “Only you could have written this.”

It’s the unique lens through which you see the world — and the courage to let that lens color your work.

It’s why some Substack writers feel like close friends, even though you’ve never met them. Their presence bleeds through their paragraphs. And it gets reinforced not just on their articles, but also in how much they post Notes, respond to comments, and even talk in DMs.

And in an age where AI is mass-producing “content,” this is what separates memorable from forgettable.

Let me show you how to build it.

5 Ways to become Unpromptable

The goal of this article isn’t just to romanticize Rick Riordan or critique writing styles. It’s to help you, the writer, create work that sticks — the kind that can’t be written by anyone else, much less an AI.

Writing that sticks is writing that’s unpromptable. Not because of some grand stylistic flourish, but because it could only have come from you — your lived experiences, your values, your weirdly strong stances on key things.

Unpromptability is a skill. One you can hone. One you can strengthen.

Here are some tips.

1. Reveal, don’t perform

Forget trying to sound smart. Forget optimizing for clicks.

Say what you actually think — the nuance, the doubt, all of it. And say it in a way that really resonates with you. Don’t settle for just “eh, this gets the job done.” Rather, make it so that every word sings to your soul.

Something that you can say, “Yep, this word, this letter, sure is mine.”

Readers crave realness over polish.

2. Build off-page presence

Rick Riordan didn’t just claim his presence because he wrote fun books. He became a solid presence in his fans’ minds (like me) through interviews, fan events, and public stances.

You can do the same, even if you’re not a New York Times best seller.

After all, that’s the purpose of social media -- and especially places like Substack. Here, you can build a presence worthy of all the various Rick Riordans, sometimes without even having published a book yet. 

You do this by sharing your ideas and finding people to connect with. Show up consistently online, build an audience. Let people know you beyond the page.

3. Deconstruct your obsessions

Who were you obsessed with as a teen? What writers made your heart race?

Revisit their work — not to copy their style, but to study what made them matter to you. How did they do the things they did? And why? Once you understand that, you’re closer to replicating it yourself.

You become unpromptable when you’re certain about who you are and how you make people obsessed with your ideas.

That’s presence.

4. Layer your perspective

Don’t just “inform.”

Make it unmistakably you. Use personal stories, hot takes, reference things you’ve said in other articles or YouTube videos or comments Substack Notes. Say the thing only you would say.

And yes, sometimes even if it feels too weird or too raw. People crave authenticity, and you can’t get it from the shallows of content creation. Create content from the deeps, from the core of your being. 

5. Use AI to amplify, not replace

AI is great for speed, not soul. I believe there’s such a thing as the perfect middle ground between the two. But you shouldn’t just rely on just one.

Sure, you can use AI all you want, but if you end up relying too much on it, you’ll be publishing a lot of empty content.

Conversely, if you’re anti-AI, there’s a big chance that you’ll find it difficult to scale your ideas. 

There are only so many hours in the day, so many hours you can spend writing and engaging. Manually crafting an entire brand presence from the ground up can be exhausting, and a great recipe for burn out.

So, let AI help you -- never replace you. Let it brainstorm, outline, polish. But the essence must be yours.

Unpromptability is your moat

Let’s face it: AI isn’t going away. If anything, it’s only going to get better at mimicking us.

So don’t compete on style. Compete on soul.

Make your presence felt on and off the page. Show up with your ideas, your values, your contradictions. Become the kind of writer who is impossible to replicate — not because of how you sound.

But because of who you are.

That’s how you become unpromptable.

And that’s how your writing will stick.

So: What makes your style unpromptable? What do you bring to the page that no other person or machine can? Tell us in the comments.

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James is a writer from the Philippines who frequently tackles AI, writing, and the occasional existential crisis. He helps creators write faster without sounding like robots—and believes your voice should be better than ChatGPT on a bad day. He also likes cats but can’t have any in his apartment.

🧠 Want frameworks and ideas like this sent straight to your inbox? Subscribe to Write10x, my newsletter on building systems, publishing prolifically, and staying human in an AI world.

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Prefer to listen to the conversations? Want to see the editors and story coaches at One Brilliant Arc Media help a writer put their inimitable, authentic voice into their story in real time? Feel free to check out the early release of our newest podcast episode from “Let’s Fix Stories!”