In honor of my 40th blog follower (R L Kelstrom), I decided to take a minute away from library work to have a little fun. Took some of my story posts and pasted them into the I Write Like tool.
If you haven't already seen this thing, hooray! If you saw this in like 1997 and it's old news and you don't care, well, care about this. Though I received such spurious results as Chuck Palahniuk, James Joyce and Annie [sic] Rice, several times my efforts were rewarded with the badge you see below:
Who do you write like? Either in your mind or according to the algorithmic gods of antient IWL.
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7 comments:
I've gotten Margaret Atwood, Chuck Palahniuk, and William What the Heck Shakespeare.
There probably is a touch of Palahniuk in my style. Some Faulkner, some Ludlum, some L'Amour.
I was surprised when I read Ryan David Jahn's first novel to see a lot of similarities in our styles, actually.
I'll agree with the diagnosed influence of Palahniuk, Joyce and Salinger. Lovecraft is a voice I tried on for size and didn't have much fun in the costume, regardless of how it looked from the outside.
When I first started to seriously consider writing as a vocation, I desperately wanted to write quiet regional tales of strength and beauty ala Wendell Berry and Marilynne Robinson. But desperation gives way to strengths, and I find that my regionalisms ring false and corny.
You have to write True. Even if the only truth you have is a lie.
I can't pull off regionalism either, but I've mostly lived in places with a poorly developed sense of identity and I don't think that helps.
If you don't write True, you end up sounding like badly acted TV.
I'm sort of afraid to take this test for fear my results will say something like, "You write like Twitter!"
I'd guess that since I have an edge of transcendentalism and trouble-making to my writing I'd go with Emerson or Thoreau, although both are too amazing for me to even ponder comparing myself to them without blushing. I also would like to say I write like Joss Whedon but I don't think his writing brilliance is universally recognized yet.
Alright, I'm off to analyze my writing, dammit. Wish me luck.
...and it told me I write like HP Lovecraft as well, an author whom I have not read a lot of. Hrmmm.... I call shenanigans.
Tracy-
I have no clue how it works. I know that word, sentence and paragraph lengths play into it. But yay, I'm not the only Lovecraft.
Also, Whedon is totes mcgoats above and beyond. Firefly and Dr. Horrible are actively attracting new fans, and those from years ago.
Joss Whedon is Teh Awesome. Yay, another Whedon fan! You get cooler and cooler, B. ;) (RIP Firefly.)
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