Saturday, August 7, 2010

Who do I write like?

I was reading one of my favorite bloggers this morning - Jerry at Gently Said and he intrigued me with an exercise to determine who one writes like. He got the tip from another blogger who mentioned a site called "I Write Like". You can find it here. You submit a piece of your writing and hit the "Analyze" button and in seconds the program tells you who your writing resembles. Jerry's experiments produced Isaac Asimov and James Joyce. Not a bad couple of scribblers.

Well! What egotist in his garret could resist this?

So I submitted my latest Magpie Tale. I expected it would tell me my writing resembled some English writer - Chesterton or Conan Doyle or someone of that ilk. But the program said it was Raymond Chandler! Still not so bad. Hmmmm (sez I), let me try another piece. This time it came up with Harry Harrison. Now I'm not a sci-fi or fantasy enthusiast so I've never read any of his work but I knew the name. Well, let's try a third piece. This time I got Stephen King.

Now I didn't . . . like many other submitters . . . draw a James Joyce but still, those aren't bad writers to be compared with. (I wonder how many of them perpetually end sentences with prepositions!)

Hey! I've got an idea. I'm going to try submitting this blog post and see what the program says. Hang on.

Well . . . I'll be darned. Cory Doctorow. The Canadian blogger, journalist and science fiction writer. (I had to go to Google to learn this.)

It seems everyone writes like someone famous. I like this program.

9 comments:

  1. I think your fate is sealed. You are a closet science fiction writer!

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  2. Oh no! Maybe I'll have to re-read some early Vonnegut!

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  3. I write like Cory Doctorow as well and like you I had never heard of this person....oh well I always knew I wasn't a writer, just like to share my days anyway....:-0Hugs

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  4. thanks, cat...this was a lot of fun! i tried a few of my stories and the only name i knew was stephen king but i wrote the others down so i could take a look later ;)
    thanks for setting the sweet caesar's confusion straight for me :)

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  5. The site liked my stuff so much they offered to help me get a book deal. Oh and I also sound like Stephen King. What a wonderful deal.

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  6. When I saw your heading, Stephen King is who came to mind right off. Very cool.

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  7. Sounds like fun. I think I shall try it!

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  8. I think this one is doing the rounds and like you I submitted 3 pieces and got 3 different authors..

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