Friday, July 16, 2010

Writing like...

According to this site I write a bit like Margaret Attwood, Dan Brown, Arthur C. Clarke, Ian Fleming, James Joyce, Stephen King, H. P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allen Poe, J. D. Salinger, Jonathan Swift and P. G. Wodehouse.

Well at least those are the writer names that popped out when I pasted in some examples of my writing. I was reassured to find out that my pastiche of a Wooster story blogged earlier this year was indeed like P. G. Wodehouse. However my fake Dan Brown was apparently more like H. P. Lovecraft, but that might be because I haven't actually read anything by him.

Though I'm told that a key attribute of a writer is that they believe in themselves. So maybe I should say that Margaret Attwood, Dan Brown, Arthur C. Clarke, Ian Fleming, James Joyce, Stephen King, H. P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allen Poe, J. D. Salinger, Jonathan Swift and P. G. Wodehouse write a bit like me!

Anyway, who do you write like?


Updated: changed the picture above (long story)

10 comments:

will said...

i like this: i write like david foster wallace!

Tillerman said...

Hmmm. I put in my last two really long posts and came up with Dan Brown and David Foster Wallace too.

There seems to be a pattern here already...

O Docker said...

I must say I'm not too impressed with that web site, JP.

After I pasted my first blog post in, they said my writing is like the famous author Anonymous.

After the second post, they sent me an e-mail offering me a job to write verification words in Mumbai.

I am curious how the writing of Buff Staysail would fare, though.

Chris Partridge said...

Lo an' b'hole, I write like David Foster Wallace too!
Who the hell is David Foster Wallace?

Chris Partridge said...

BUT then I put in a post from my poncy architecture blog (go on, take a look at ornamentalpassions.blogspot.com, push my reader numbers up from 3 to 4) and over there I write like CHARLES DICKENS. I'm so proud.

Tillerman said...

According to Wikipedia...

1. DFW used many forms of irony.
2. His writing often combined various writing modes or voice.
3. He often used jargon.
4. He said he wrote "about what it is to be a fucking human being."

Hmmm. I guess I do write like David Foster Wallace.

Baydog said...

Henry David Thorough

Carol Anne said...

OK, I tested some of my writing samples. In a recent blog post, I wrote like H.P. Lovecraft. In my description of 2008's peak experience with Zorro, I wrote like David Foster Wallace. And in an early chapter of Wizards of Winds and Waves (in fact, the one that led Tillerman to find my blog), I wrote like Ursula K. LeGuin.

I liked that last one. Maybe I need to get back to putting more fiction on my blog.

O Docker said...

You're in good company, Carol Anne.

I pasted in a paragraph from As I Lay Dying, and it said Faulkner writes like Ursula K. LeGuin, too.

I just like saying Yoknapatawpha.

JP said...

Chris: v. envious of the Dickens, must be a classy bit of writing.

O'Docker: I was thinking of doing just that - very interesting result!

I wonder how it works - is it just counting number of times we use certain words?