So, I have a habit of compulsively doing something that sparks my interest. The last two days (aside from playing Text Twist on MSN until I forget how to spell the simplest words) I have been playing around in this thing. You guys should all try it. It's both heartening and soul crushing. It's called 'I Write Like' and it analyzes your writing style: http://iwl.me/
The results are in, and it turns out my little badge on the right is greatly misleading. I'm going to have to take it down and replace it with something else, but at the moment I'm undecided.
I entered every chapter of Lesser Evils individually into the analyzer (putting the whole MS into it crashed my internet. Don't do this. Learn from an idiot) and each chapter pulled a different result. I then did the same thing with Postmortal. Out of a combined 44 chapters it reviewed, only one pulled a female writer. So, I'm thinking of changing my badge to this:
Between both books, there are clear differences in my writing style. Lesser Evils favors a couple of authors the most while Postmortal leans greatly towards one different author.
Lesser Evils: 46% Dan Brown, 30% James Joyce, 6% H P Lovecraft, and 3% each Stephen King, Raymond Chandler, Ray Bradbury, Mario Puzo, J K Rowling, and (wtf?) Edgar Allan Poe.
Postmortal: 65% Stephen King, and 7% (a chapter a piece) Douglas Adams, H P Lovecraft, Isaac Asimov, Kurt Vonnegut, and Vladimir Nabokov.
So, in other words:
I won't do a chapter by chapter breakdown of Lesser Evils since it's boring, but I will share the breakdown of Postmortal because I find it very interesting.
Chapter 1: Kurt Vonnegut
Chapter 2: Douglas Adams
Chapter 3: Vladimir Nabokov
Chapter 4: Stephen King
Chapter 5: Stephen King
Chapter 6: Stephen King
Chapter 7: Isaac Asimov
Chapter 8: Stephen King
Chapter 9: H P Lovecraft
Chapter 10: Stephen King
Chapter 11: Stephen King
Chapter 12: Stephen King
Chapter 13: Stephen King
Chapter 14: Stephen King
It suggests that I tried a variety of influences before settling on a Stephen King style. I find this interesting as I've only ever FINISHED one Stephen King book. He's not really my cup of tea. I don't do scary. The one I read all the way through was Eyes of the Dragon. I put down Cujo and The Talisman. Cujo scared the crap out of me, and The Talisman just confused me. Then again, I was 12. Maybe I should try him again...
As for my little shorts I have posted in the side bar ------>
The results are this:
BOOM - Chuck Palahnuik
The End of the World - Margaret Atwood
A Typical Morning - Stephen King
You Are - Stephen King
Bitter Hands - Stephen King
We Are - Arthur Conan Doyle
I Am - Oscar Wilde
Peeping Tom - Chuck Palahniuk
Solo Pillow Talk - Dan Brown
Language is a Playground - Margaret Atwood
Eight True Things - Chuck Palahniuk
I've... uh... never heard of Chuck Palahnuik, but three of my pieces are similar to his style. Two are like Margaret Atwood, so maybe my 'inner penis' is smaller than I thought.
So, now you guys try. I'd love to hear the results.
22 comments:
I did this too and the results were crazy. I'm doing a blog post about this for Monday.
And hey, I think Poe is a genius!
hi miss Christi! wow thats soooo cool. sounds like you got a bunch of voices inside. yikes! thats scary. ha ha. i think lots of voices is good cause it makes you lots more exciting. i put in paragraphs from two of the books i wrote and every time it said i write like stephen king. i didn’t ever read anything he wrote but i saw some of his scary movies. thanks! that was fun.
...smiles from lenny
Okay, this was interesting. I posted one half of a chapter of my current work and pulled Chuck Palahniuk, and the other half Stephen King. This made me insanely happy, because I love these two authors. I wish I knew how the software analyzed your writing though.
And you have heard of Chuck Palahniuk, you just don’t know it. He wrote “Fight Club”, and a bunch of other really crazy stuff. It’s kinda dark and explores the nasty side of human beings. You’d probably really like him.
Great post!
Stephen King doesn't write only "scary" books, Green Mile was not scary but fabulous. Talisman is a monster of a book but it's worth it in the end.
Chuck Palahniuk is all sorts of awesome.
I may have to try this...
i plan on trying this later, when it's not blocked...
Also Christine H also did a post on this and noted the lack of female writers as well - even when she put in female writers (like Toni Morrison)
My best friend, Sandra, told me I wrote like a combination of Ray Bradbury and Raymond Chandler.
I just want to write like me.
This was a fun and engrossing post. Hope your mid-week is productive and happy. Roland
While I've been MIA, you've been up to your same hilariousness. I am seriously going to use my day to play around with that now, because you know, I am a professional procrastinator. I love all things that are time sucks.
I just put in four of my short stories and got:
Kurt Vonnegut,
Stephen King,
Chuck Palahniuk, and
Margaret Atwood.
I think perhaps they need to expand their authors-for-comparison library.
So I had to come back. Because I'm enjoying the time suck so much that I had to share.
My original ms says that I write like Dan Brown and my current WIP is like Vladimir Nabokov. This creeps me out a bit considering that he's the dude that wrote that uber creepy book, Lolita.
LOL! Well, I don't think your results are a bad thing.
I'll have to try it. But I have a feeling it will say 10 year old. LOL
"I write like I have a penis."
Hilarious! The various internet analyzing thingamajigs can be so frustrating. Heck, I get mad if one of them pairs me with the wrong TV vampire! I can only imagine how this one would make me feel :-)
I repeatedly got David Foster Wallace, which I think is pretty cool. Heh.
Very interesting breakdown, indeed. I think it goes to show that you found a consistent voice :)
This site is my fav new toy!!!! I LOVE your new badge :P I, too, am planning a post about the results I got. Whether it's accurate or not, it's great fun.
i played around with it a bit and mostly got chuch palahnuik and vladimir nabokov... (but i had to wiki both of them up because i hadn't heard of them!) but... both were male.
so then i got an impulse and filtered some of my hubby's writing into the gizmo, and he got Margaret Atwood...
i always thought i was the one that wore the pants in this family! he needs a badge that says he writes like he has a vagina! oooh! i should make him a t-shirt!
Thanks for the link - how fun! I had it analyze one chapter of Killing Kessler, and it says I write like David Foster Wallace. I have no idea who that is. I think I'd prefer Stephen King. Anyway, I'll be playing with it a bit more and probably post my results too - I love that thing!
This was a hoot. I thought all mine would come back Stephen King, but analyzing around twenty sections of my WIP brought up Ian Fleming and Douglas Adams for my dectective/hero, Margaret Atwood/James Joyce for my feisty female FBI agent, J.D. Salinger/Dan Brown for my twenty-something psy-chic, and Leo Tolstoy for the FBI Director of Intelligence.
I thought my car crash scene would be Stephen King for sure, but it came up Stephanie Meyers! It's all good.
Wow; you're keeping some good literary company!
Bottom line is that you write like yourself and that's perfectly great :)
Adams, Lovecraft and Asimov? Here I am busting my hump trying to write like these guys and here some computer program comes along and tells you you've been doing it for years?
I hate you.
Hilarious post.
I've been told to read Chuck Pa-whatever-the-hell-his-last-name-is, but I've no idea who he is either. Some people think he's on the cutting edge of something or other, though.
Hey, Christi, on Monday's post I'm trying a 24 HOURS type blog experiment. I'll either entertain or go down in flames. But you can't learn to fly until you leap off the cliff!
"To all of life there is a shadow. The shadow of sadness, doubt, despair. Still it is but an echo of a heart moving forward."
-Roland
i entered a whole short by hemingway, seems HE writes like hg wells... tell you anything? lol
I entered a chapter by Stephen King and it said he writes like Dan Brown!! (I wonder how insulted Mr. King is about that?) Anywho, me thinks it's a lot of B.S. :)
Happy HUmpday, Christie!
Love,
Lola
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