Friday 16 July 2010

I write like

This morning I analyzed my writing style using the "I Write Like" site that's so popular at the moment. Everyone's doing it.  I threw in my blog post about making The Last Refuge for analysis.  





I write like
Arthur C. Clarke
I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!




"Any sufficiently advanced flying trilobite is indistinguishable from awesome." 

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6 comments:

Leah said...

Apparently, my nonfiction is like James Joyce and my fiction is like Stephen King. :-)

Thanks for sharing.

WhySharksMatter said...

I've given this thing three different writing samples and gotten three different "you write likes". I'm skeptical.

Glendon Mellow said...

Thanks Leah! I admit I've never read James Joyce. And only minimal Clarke. I like newer sf stories.

WSM, I agree. My friend the Renaissance Oaf plugged in numerous examples and got numerous outcomes. I think it's either pseudo-random, or looks for some small phrasing to make a decision.

Leah said...

Yeah, I wish they'd give some sort of explanation about why your writing resembles a specific writer. Otherwise, it seems kind of fortune cookie-ish.

Oedipus said...

Another way to debunk this is to analyze a short story, say, Superiority by Arthur C. Clarke. The result: H. P. Lovecraft. We shouldn't expect 100% accuracy, but still, that is a good-sized sample of text.

The other example I tried was the Tell-Tale Heart by Poe, which came out with Vladimir Nabokov.

It's an interesting idea but I agree that it looks like just a gimmick---a simple algorithm.

Glendon Mellow said...

Lovecraft? That's hilarious. Did you see Margaret Atwood said over Twitter her writing came out as "Stephen King"?

Yeah, I agree Oedipus. Fun for a lark only. I admit, I really only posted it so I could use the "...indistinguishable from magic" line my own way.

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