The Tells is a short e-book about what your writing reveals, often without your permission. It catalogues thirty-odd tells across five clusters: borrowed authority, hedging, performance, unoriginality, and the new synthetic tells produced by AI. Each one has a name, a diagnosis, and worked examples.
These tells are not technical errors but small failures of nerve, and learning to see them in others is the only reliable way to stop producing them yourself.
It is written for people who already write, and who suspect that their writing might be giving them away. It is short enough to read in a single sitting. It will probably ruin some post for you forever.
Around 10,000 words. Designed to be reread.