I Write Like…

I had lunch with my local writer pal yesterday, and she told me about a website where you could chuck in some of what you’ve written and it’ll do some kind of textual analysis and tell you what famous writer you write like.  So for fun, I threw a BUNCH of stuff into it this morning.  Here’s what came up:

  • Cory Doctorow from Riven, and a contemporary romance short I started
  • Dan Brown from Red and Whisper of Shadow
  • Ian Flemming from Devil’s Eye
  • Rudyard Kipling from Daughter of the Hunt
  • Kurt Vonnegut from a contemporary romance novella I started
  • P.G. Wodehouse from that romantic suspense I mentioned yesterday
  • Ursula K. Le Guin from the new opening to that romantic suspense I mentioned yesterday
  • J. R. R. Tolkien from Blindsight
  • Stephen King from Forsaken By Shadow

Now, I’ve also, in the past, done that OTHER website where it’ll tell you whether you write more like a man or a woman, and I DO frequently come up as writing with a more masculine style (at least in my Mirus stuff) [actually I just checked ALL those same pieces again in that generator, and every one of them came out as male], but I have to wonder if this generator is too overloaded with male samples.

How does your work stack up?  Who do YOU write like?

12 thoughts on “I Write Like…

  1. I plugged in chunks from two different books, and it gave me two writers I don’t even know.

    But I really learned something that from gender one. I’m writing in more than one POV for a YA novel and was happy to find that the chapter in HER point of view came out solid female, while HIS point of view came out “weak male.” Guess I need to guy that one up a little, but at least the gender difference came out! 🙂

  2. I love that kinda stuff sometimes… I got different writers from different writing samples of mine.. I got Stephen King and Kurt Vonnegut from what I can remember.. definitely interesting! I think it is something to cheer up a writer who thinks their stuff may be lacking.. at least it is a boost of confidence.

  3. Okay, here’s why I wonder if this is just some random thing. Haunted Lake and Soul of a Vampire were both Stephen King. Which is awesome. Dark Relic:Vampires’ Curse is H.P. Lovecraft. Cool. But the only horror I wrote, The Gnome, came up as…Margaret Mitchell. What’s wrong with this picture?

  4. I write like David Foster Wallace. I haven’t read any of his stuff. My friend said I was the next Janet Evanovich, but I don’t think I write like her either (except for the humor).

  5. I put a sci-fi and got Rudyard Kipling, for a erotic short story I got Anne Rice. Interesting.
    The same piece got a informal male and formal female likeness.

  6. I did a blog post like this before summer started… The trippiest thing it gave me was Stephen King for a MG novel that was not horror. How did I manage that?

  7. I haven’t tried one of my stories in ages! I’ve gotten Rowling and Tolkien before. So very odd as I’m sure I’ve never used the words witch, wizard, elf or orc in any of my stories.

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