I'm sure many of you have already seen this thing that has been going around the Interwebs: "I Write Like"* It's one of those thingies where you put in a couple of paragraphs of your writing and a program analyzes it. I tried it, and the first result was Dan Brown.
While I appreciate the idea that I write like an international bestseller, (I mean, who wouldn't?) I see my prose as a bit more breezy, chatty, etc., so I thought I'd try a few different paragraphs in the same book. The results were Vladimir Nabokov and David Foster Wallace. The more I tried, the more it kept coming back to Wallace. I even tried my alter ego's science ficition and got Wallace. So, I think that must be a more accurate reflection of who a computer thinks I write like.
Secretly, I was hoping it would say: "You write like Lyda Morehouse!".
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*Update:
On my LJ Jim Hines pointed me to this Signal Boost, re: "I Write Like" Meme which points to "We All Write Like White Men (Part 2)" basically points out that there are only 40 writers to choose from and all but three are white men (the three are women, but also all white). According to Part 2, the author of the meme isn't willing to add people of color to his database. The best part is that apparently Margaret Atwood plugged in her writing and got "P.G. Woodhouse." Whereas, the meme correctly identified Dan Brown as Dan Brown.
So, there's no way the meme would have suggested I write like myself. For although I am quite lily white, I am not a man.
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6 comments:
Apparently I'm versatile, because with bits from different stories, I got H.P.Lovecraft, Charles Dickens, Oscar Wilde, and J.D.Salinger.
I get Stephen King and Margaret Mitchell.
I got Margaret Atwood, William Gibson and H.P. Lovecraft on my first try. I wanted LeGuin, so I went back and got Jonathan Swift, James Joyce and Edgar Allen Poe.
I write like a person on a deadline, but maybe I'll check it out later and broaden that answer out a bit. :)
I'm with Doug.
I got Stephenie Meyer twice, Dan Brown once, and Raymond Chandler once. I guess I'll go with Stephenie Meyer, because even though I've never read her books and have no desire to, the fact that she's selling a ton of them inspires me.
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