Who do you write like?
July 17, 2010 at 7:17 pm 3 comments
A friend sent me this link: http://iwl.me/. (you can link from here.) The site analyzes your writing and supposedly tells you who you write like. I tried it by pasting in the 1st chapter of Athena, the second novel in the Red Mirror Series that I’ve just started.
It came back in microseconds with Chuck Palahnuik. I don’t know his work at all, except that Amazon lists Fight Club. It doesn’t seem like me from the titles listed, but I’d have to read one to see. I suppose content has nothing to do with it – so I could write like Palahnuik, but our content would be completely different.
I would like to know more about how the program works – or if it is a scam. It says it analyzes word choice and writing style. It seems unlikely something so complex as writing style could be analyzed that quickly. Word choice could, of course, be linked to keywords.
Maybe I’ll plug in some different excerpts and see what the results are…
Okay, I did it. I pasted Chapter 2 of Isis and it came back Dan Brown. Now we’re talkin’! Would I ever love to be the female Dan Brown.
I do write with two styles and that’s on purpose. One is modern, in Las Vegas – the other is in the distant past, more archaic. Interesting that I write like a man in both instances. I’m betting I’d get a different answer every time…
OKAY -PROMISE I’m done now, but I couldn’t resist seeing the answer to my favorite sex scene in Isis – Chapter 11. Apparently I wrote it in the style of Vladimir Nabokov. Maybe the program IS looking at content!
I think I may be looking at the wrong agents – none of these comparisons speak romance novel.
Entry filed under: Sandra's Comments. Tags: Athena, Chuck Palahnuik, Dan Brown, Red Mirror Series, Vladimir Nabokov, writing style.
S. L. Gore 
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Anne R. Allen | July 19, 2010 at 2:39 am
We’ve been having lots of fun with this over on my blog. Nathan Bransford did it too. His MG novel and my mystery WIP both came out as James Joyce. My two YA stories came out as David Foster Wallace. Nathan thinks it may be a random author-name generator. But it is fun, isn’t it?
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Sandra Gore Nielsen | July 19, 2010 at 4:47 am
It’s fun and feels good for a few moments. We writers need that!
Here is more info about the creator of the algorithm: http://www.theawl.com/2010/07/a-qa-with-the-creator-of-i-write-like-the-algorithm-is-not-a-rocket-science
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Anne R. Allen | July 20, 2010 at 1:59 am
Thanks for the link! This guy is fascinating. The fact that English isn’t even his first language explains some of it.