A prompt and Claude Code skill that "de-LLMifies" prose by applying Francis Christensen's generative rhetoric — a method of building sentences through coordinate and subordinate layers that forces more complex structures of thought. Offers tunable presets from TIGHT to BAROQUE.
"A world where prose on the whole is a bit more complex... is a better world with better thinking in it."
Copy the Prompt
Add to your Claude Code skills directory to use /jamesian as a slash command.
Presets
A lot of the power is in the presets. So if you take this LLM-produced prose on Invasion of the Body Snatchers, which is perfectly fine but also sounds like all other ChatGPT prose, you can now ask it for different levels of structural complexity. So if you take this:
Original
The 1956 film is often interpreted as an allegory for Cold War paranoia, particularly the fear of communism infiltrating American society. Its central theme revolves around the loss of individuality through conformity, but it presents this threat in a relatively straightforward moral framework: the "enemy" is external and identifiable. In contrast, the 1978 version deepens this theme by making the loss of identity more ambiguous and internalized. Rather than simply fearing an outside force, the remake suggests that people may already be emotionally disconnected, making them susceptible to replacement without resistance.
And tell it "Run /jamesian on this, baroque setting" you get:
Baroque (highest setting)
The 1956 film is often read as Cold War allegory, a parable of communist infiltration in which the enemy, external and nameable, burrows into ordinary American life under cover of the familiar: the neighbor, the small-town doctor. Its theme is the loss of individuality through conformity. Where the 1956 film externalizes its threat, the 1978 remake relocates it inward, into a zone where identity leaks away without any clear enemy to resist. The remake suggests something darker than mere invasion: that people may already be emotionally disconnected, already hollowed out by the ambient conditions of late-1970s urban life, susceptible to replacement because so little remains in them worth the effort of resistance.
Now, going up in complexity (sorry, had to show the most dramatic comparison first).
Tight (very short sentences)
The 1956 film is often read as Cold War allegory, its pod people cast as communist infiltrators. Its theme is the loss of individuality through conformity. The moral frame is clear: the enemy is external. The 1978 remake internalizes the threat. Identity loss becomes ambiguous and intimate. People may already be emotionally disconnected, susceptible to replacement without resistance.
Balanced
The 1956 film is often read as Cold War allegory, its pod people cast as communist infiltrators. Its theme is the loss of individuality through conformity. The moral frame is clear. The enemy is external and identifiable. Where the 1956 film externalizes its threat, the 1978 remake internalizes it. Identity loss becomes ambiguous and interior. People may already be emotionally disconnected, susceptible to replacement without resistance.
Layered
The 1956 film is often read as Cold War allegory, a parable of communist infiltration in which the enemy is external and identifiable, locatable once you know what to look for. Its theme is the loss of individuality through conformity. Where the 1956 film externalizes its threat, locating the enemy in pods and infiltrators, the 1978 remake relocates the threat inward, into zones of feeling the characters no longer fully inhabit. The remake suggests something darker. People may already be emotionally disconnected, susceptible to replacement because so little remains in them worth defending.
Expansive
Read since its release as Cold War allegory, especially a parable of communist infiltration, the 1956 film locates the threat outside the self. Its central theme is the loss of individuality through conformity. The moral frame is relatively clear, the enemy external and identifiable. The 1978 remake deepens the theme by relocating it, moving the loss of identity inward, where it becomes ambiguous and close to the bone. The remake suggests something darker: that people may already be emotionally disconnected, already susceptible to replacement without resistance.
Baroque (highest setting)
The 1956 film is often read as Cold War allegory, a parable of communist infiltration in which the enemy, external and nameable, burrows into ordinary American life under cover of the familiar: the neighbor, the small-town doctor. Its theme is the loss of individuality through conformity. Where the 1956 film externalizes its threat, the 1978 remake relocates it inward, into a zone where identity leaks away without any clear enemy to resist. The remake suggests something darker than mere invasion: that people may already be emotionally disconnected, already hollowed out by the ambient conditions of late-1970s urban life, susceptible to replacement because so little remains in them worth the effort of resistance.