Most AI carousels die on slide one. The layout's fine, the words are just sitting on a stock image, and nobody swipes. Here's the process I use so they actually get read.

Inside this guide
✓ The 8-slide structure and what each slide's for
✓ Why you write the words before you design
✓ The look you set once and reuse on every post
✓ The two-layout step that stops you restyling forever
✓ The read-through to do before you post
1
Start with the argument, not the design.
A carousel is one argument across eight slides. Slide one's job is to earn the swipe, the last one asks for something, and everything in between makes one point. Before you touch a design tool, write the whole thing as a sentence: what you're claiming, and what you want them to do at the end.
2
Write the words first, then read them out loud.
Type all eight slides as plain text before you design anything. Then read them aloud. If a line's hard to say, it's hard to read on a phone, so shorten it or cut it. You're checking the words carry the point before the design has to.
3
Set your look once and reuse it.
Pick what stays the same on every post and lock it: two colours, your fonts, one rule for images, how you number the slides, how you credit a source. Do that and people clock it's yours straight from the thumbnail.
The 8-slide structure
01 The hook. Miss here and nobody sees the rest.
02–07 One point each: the problem, the turn, the example, the step.
08 The ask. Just one thing.
4
Lay it out two ways, then pick one.
Take the finished words and mock two different layouts. Pick one, build the rest of the set on it, and stop. Keep restyling and you'll never post.
5
Put the text inside the image, not on top of it.
Make the words and the visual as one image instead of typing over a background. It's more work, and it's why the carousel looks made on purpose instead of dropped into a template.
6
Read it through before you post.
Read the eight slides one more time like you've never seen them. Does slide one make you swipe? Does each one hold a single point? Does the last one ask for one thing? If a slide's weak, fix that slide, not the whole set.
Most of the work is those eight lines. Get them right and the design's the easy part.

I post one of these every week.

Get the next one