I had a little time (something I am not blessed with lately) and found http://iwl.me. Not anything that is scientifically sound; mind you, but interesting none the less. Supposedly, if you cut and paste a writing sample to the site, it will analyze it and tell you who you most write like. If you click on the results, it will send you to a page that will give you more information about the author, as well as the opportunity to buy his/her books at discounted prices. Mine was Charles Dickens and Stephen King. Anyhow, try it out and post your results, maybe we can figure out if the site is truly analyzing your writing or if it is just trying to sell books.
there have been quite a few threads on this... since the determination is done by a program, one can take the results with a large box of morton's, imo...
Heh, that's quite fun. It could be analysing your writing and trying to sell books, though I imagine it's just a bit of stats on word length, so hardly an in-depth assessment of style. Whoever's running it is definitely getting commission on the book sales, and they've got an e-mail capture so they'll probably try and sell you something that way eventually. I threw in a few stories and it came up with James Joyce and Stephanie Meyer - that'd be an interesting collaboration...
I saw this a while back on another forum. The results for many were quite silly. I remember I got that my writing was like Salinger, which although would please me immensely, I don't put much stock in it. I can't remember who else it said I was like, but it wasn't someone who was similar to Salinger.
First it said I wrote like James Joyce. The second sample I put in said Dan Brown. It kept saying that for any other samples I put in. Guess I should start writing poorly thought out conspiracy thrillers with silly religous non-sense in em. (This actually really depressed me.... )\ Edit: I got Stephen King! (Fulfilled again.)
I think it analyzes the types of words you use, not how they're used. I took snippets of a SF story I working on and pasted them in, and the parts that contained SF lingo, like gravity, spacecraft, and stars, returned the author Arthur Clarke; robots, spacecraft, and stars, returned Isaac Asimov; or in the absence of such lingo, Steven King, J.D. Salinger, Lewis Carrol, Kurt Vonnegut... It's looking for key words. Besides, I can't believe that I sound like that many authors from sections of the same piece of writing.
I put in two short sections I've discarded from my novel and got two sci-fi writers: Harry Harrison of Soylent Green fame and Cory Doctorow whose bio says he writes postcyberpunk. I wouldn't mind writing like either one of them but it's odd there was nothing in my submissions that included any sci-fi terms. Word length is an interesting hypothesis, especially given all the Jame Joyce hits in this small sample size. It wouldn't surprise me that my writing vocabulary is unimpressive.
Mine said Gertrude Stein, which is okay. I've read a bunch of her stuff. Just not sure how well that fits with science fiction though.
I tried one sample (from an excerpt I posted here of a story called "The Compass") and it said I write like Arthur Clarke. That's nice, because I think he wrote well, but "The Compass" is historical, not sci-fi. Weird. I tried another sample, this one of a story that's kind of an alternate-history Western, and it said I write like Agatha Christie. There is no way I write like Agatha Christie. I think this analyzer is very weak.
. If the programme analyses the types of words used, and not the style of writing, then it's useless. I write like Dan Brown and a dozen others because of the words I use? Meaningless cobblers. Now, if the programme analysed the effect on the reader...
I tried a few different pieces and got Dan Brown, Rudyard Kipling, J. K. Rowling... So, by the sounds of it I'm gonna have cash to spare pretty soon. Thank you robot, because of you I will never give up the dream!
I put in a paragraph from something I wrote a few months ago, and the program said I write like Dan Brown. I'm very, very disappointed.
Haha! I just copied a page from a Stephen King's 11.22.63 into the robot; it said King writes like Margaret Mitchell.
Depending on what I used I got James Joyce or Stephen King. The more intense parts I got Stephen King and the more somber parts I got James Joyce. I doubt this thing can really analyze with total accuracy but it's fun.
I got Stephen king and Anne Rice. Seems like Stephen King is a common answer so I guess we're all destined for greatness
