The Same Message, Five Ways
Rewrite one difficult message for five audiences without changing what it says. Tests whether you can control register precisely — the skill behind almost all professional AI writing use.
Why this one
Bad news to a client, a manager, a teammate, a public statement and a friend are five genuinely different pieces of writing carrying one identical fact. Getting the fact to survive all five is harder than it sounds.
Steps
Pick a message with real friction
A delay, a mistake, a rejection, a price increase. Comfortable messages do not test anything, because tone barely matters when nobody is unhappy.
Generate all five at once
Asking for them together forces differentiation; asked separately, the model produces five versions of the same voice.
PromptHere is a message I need to send: [the facts] Write it five ways, for: 1. A client who is paying and will be annoyed 2. My manager, who needs to know the risk 3. A teammate who has to change their plans 4. A public statement 5. A friend who asked casually Rules: the underlying facts must be identical in all five — same commitment, same dates, same admission. Change register, structure and what you lead with. Do not soften version 1 into vagueness.
Check the facts survived
Read all five and confirm the same commitment appears in each. The client version is where facts usually go missing — softening slides into evasion, and evasion is what a client will remember.
Identify what actually changed
Write down which levers moved: what each version leads with, how much context it gives, whether it apologises, how direct the ask is. Naming the levers is what makes this repeatable.
You should end up with
Five versions of one message and a written list of the levers you moved.
Done when
- All five contain the same commitments and dates
- The client version is direct rather than vague
- You can name at least four distinct tone levers
If you want to go further
- Write the version you would send if you were at fault, and the version if you were not