Which “famous” writer do you write like?
I can say with some honesty I’ve never asked myself that particular question (Oh, all right – Thomas McGuane). Fortunately (I guess), there’s a website willing to ask it for you.
With the possible exception of supermodels, nobody’s happier staring into a mirror than a writer, so there’s little point in pretending: just go there, cut and paste some recent work into the window, and let it fly.
Oddly, no matter what I posted (entries from my fly fishing blog, this blog, a recent commercial blog post, a book project chapter…) my analysis came back “Cory Doctorow.”
(Since he’s ten years younger than I am, I’d suggest he writes like me, but I might be quibbling here.)
Anyone happy with their written doppleganger?
Keep writing (like yourself), Tom Chandler
Fun. I hadn’t heard of Cory D before today – but apparently I write like him as well.
I tried several of the blogs I read a lot and they too are Cory-read-alikeys.
I started to think it gave a fixed answer – so I tried a UK political columnist who writes like … George Orwell.
John Hyde(Quote) (Reply)
Starting to smell a rat. Wonder if the authors popping up are those most likely to generate a clickthrough (or a book sale) – not the result of any real analysis (not that you’d expect all that much).
Tom Chandler(Quote) (Reply)
Ha. Just found him, and I’m reading him now. It’s Steve Almond and “Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life”.
It’s not dead on — perhaps his sense of humour is a little more honed and universal than mine. But it’s the closest I’ve ever come to reading my own words.
(Actually eerie in a way, like when you read something you forgot you wrote and it dawns on you it’s yours, except that in this case it really isn’t…)
~Graham
Graham Strong(Quote) (Reply)
Interestingly, I just read – for the first time – an ebook on my smartphone (the underperforming Blackberry Storm) and it was Doctorow’s (Eastern Standard Tribe). I wasn’t in love with it, but I’ll give Doctorow credit for getting a *lot* of words down on paper (he co-edits BoingBoing).
Tom Chandler(Quote) (Reply)
lol — I just took the actual analyzer you pointed to, and got “Cory Doctorow” as well (I’ve said it before, Tom, I’ve always thought our style and sensibilities are similar… Guess that’s unequibbible, scientific proof.)
I’ll have to check him out.
~Graham
Graham Strong(Quote) (Reply)
Something fishy indeed.
But not as sinister as you might think. I checked it against other passages — not my passages, BTW. Actually, I took paragraphs from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “May Day”.
The first paragraph (apparently) is written like Ernest Hemingway. In the second, he writes more like Margaret Mitchell. And in the third, Stephen King.
I finally tried what is perhaps his most famous line, which is from The Great Gatsby: “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past…” That, unmistakably, is Ursula K. LeGuin. (But of course.)
I never could get it to say “Fitzgerald” in my short and most definitely unscientific survey. But the interesting thing is that it wasn’t random; it came back with the same author for the same passage no matter how many times I clicked “Analyze”.
So there are real mechanics/algorithms/somethings going on in the background. How accurate they are might be up for debate. It’s real though.
~Graham
Graham Strong(Quote) (Reply)
Tom, I tried six various bits of text (six or eight paragraphs each) with these results:
Stephen King
Dan Brown
David Foster Wallace
Cory Doctorow
H.P. Lovecraft
Stephen King
The strong female representation is encouraging, to be sure.
What a fun (and pleasantly narcissistic) site! Thanks for sharing!
Jess Snyder(Quote) (Reply)
Geez, Dan Brown. [slap]
Somebody in a prior comment mentioned Ursula K Le guin (sci-fi writer), which is the only female writer I’ve seen on the list. Hmm.
Tom Chandler(Quote) (Reply)
I got Shakespeare! I highly doubt that, but what a complement!!
Naylina(Quote) (Reply)
hi – is it just me !! can any one explain why when i type in the yahoo browser “writerunderground.com” i get a different site yet whe i type it in google its ok? could this be a bug in my system or is any one else having same probs ?
alf saden
alfiesaden(Quote) (Reply)
Works OK for me. Sorry.
TC(Quote) (Reply)