Just stop when it gives you Joyce
I’m sure everyone with an hour to kill and an interest in writing has done this already.
Sort of alike
But I discovered who I Write Like this week.
Stephen King, with the occasional dash of Joyce, David Foster Wallace and Robert Louis Stevenson.
I always knew I was Stevensonish. The King thing I hadn’t realized. But who am I to say? I hadn’t yet figured out the following: 1) I write like David Foster Wallace; 2) Virtually everyone who ever wrote writes like David Foster Wallace; 3) therefore, I do not write like David Foster Wallace.
The web site I Write Like will analyze a passage of writing and say which famous author it resembles. I’m not sure how it’s done – I believe a “algo-something” may be involved – but it seems less than exhaustive. Using a semi-colon is a good way to score a David Foster Wallace, and using some short dialogue might get you a Raymond Chandler.
(Before I go any farther, a disclaimer: I know this is stupid. It is stupid and vain and fun.)
If you put in successive paragraphs from a single story (the level of my effort here is starting to embarrass me …) you will get a crazy array, mostly. Or I did, at least. I put several paragraphs of one of my stories into I Write Like, and this is who popped up: Stephen King, David Foster Wallace, Raymond Chandler, David Foster Wallace, James Joyce, Stephen King, Robert Louis Stevenson, King, David Foster Wallace.
I did a little more “research” and found that a whole lot of prose will call up Stephen King or James Joyce or David Foster Wallace. They appear to be the trio of style templates at work.
But who does Stephen King write like? I pasted in several paragraphs from online excerpts of his fiction writing – every one came back Stephen King. He is an utter original.
But in his book of writing advice, On Writing, he was more derivative: Dan Brown. Ian Fleming. H.P. Lovecraft.
And David Foster Wallace.
Joyce’s prose also readily identified itself to the algo-bobber, though he did draw a Dickens twice, Oscar Wilde, a J.K. Rowling, a Bram Stoker.
DFW himself? In fiction and non-fiction, all my excerpts came back as him. Nabokov, too, came up as himself consistently – except for a bit of the poem from Pale Fire, which scored a Kurt Vonnegut.
I put in several paragraphs from Denis Johnson’s “Car Crash While Hitchhiking.” The opening? Joyce. A passage of dialogue? Stephen King. A couple pages in? David Foster Wallace.
Hemingway’s “Indian Camp” drew Ursula K. Le Guin and J.K. Rowling. The opening of Old Man and the Sea? Joyce. The Sun Also Rises? Vonnegut.
I put in some Henry James. I wondered how the program would interpret his long, old-fashioned sentences, assuming it would not have a James template in there.
The Bostonians? Lewis Carroll. Turn of the Screw? Nabokov.
Daisy Miller? Of course. David Foster Wallace.
P.S. – I put this entire blog post in to see who would pop up. Can you guess? Think insulting…
I love stupid and vain and fun. I scored Cory Doctorow the first 2 times, once for each of the novels I’m currently working on, too much Canadian beer and scifi maybe? When I saw you had multiple writers, I had to try more and on samples of my short stories came up with Chuck Palahniuk, JD Salinger, and James Joyce. No DFW. Maybe I didn’t try enough samples yet.
Shawn, no need to feel guilty. I fell for this trap, too. Though I didn’t dig as deeply (must be the journalist inside of you). I did two passages and scored a DFW and a Vonnegut.
Though I was relieved that I don’t write like no woman (I’m kidding, ladies), I do find it strange that the database doesn’t seem to include many of them.
P.S. I’m guessing this post scored a DB.
I noticed that too, Steve. harumph. I only did it once myself and got King. Whatever, but others who got women got Stephanie Meyer (yikes). One mentioned getting Margaret Atwood. If those aren’t two extremes….
I got two ladies–Margaret Atwood and Ursula K. LeGuin. Plus Chuck Pahlaniuk and Cory Doctorow.
DB’s a heck of a guess
The html I wrote this morning is like Cory Doctrow.
The technical manual I’ve been working on is like DFW.
My stories scored a James Joyce and a Chuck P.
I put a lot of ridiculous text in, and most of it came up Dan Brown.
Hmm, when I copied the word “poodle” and pasted it over and over, it came up Raymond Chandler. “Sugar” came up George Orwell.
Okay, this was a good time-waster.
I put in the critical thinking test my class is going to take today and it scored an H.P. Lovecraft. I have no idea what this means.
I wrote a brief rant that began with “Fuck you,” and it came out as Cory Doctorow. They refused to tell me who I write like when I wrote nothing more than “Fuck you,” so I had to elaborate a little. But I don’t work in the summer, so I didn’t have time to fill in the box with more than three sentences.
I put in two stories and was told I write like Palahniuk, which is the most insulting thing I’ve ever been told by a robot, so fuck you, I Write Like.
Like Steve, I also guess that the post reads like Dan Brown.
The idea of “Indian Camp” by Ursula Le Guin broke my brain.
I’m shocked that Cory Doctorow is even in there. I didn’t get a single response with his name. I mean, no offense, Cory Doctorow, but maybe this thing is more comprehensive than I realize.
As for the Dan Brown guesses: screw you guys. Which is not to say you’re wrong.