http://iwl.me I got Mark Twain and David Foster Wallace for the openings of my two horror stories, and some of my longer internet posts/essays gave me Edgar Allen Poe, Wallace again, HP Lovecraft, James Joyce, and Kurt Vonnegut. Just for kicks, I also copy/pasted this person's introduction Check which famous writer you write like with this statistical analysis tool, which analyzes your word choice and writing style and compares them with those of the famous writers. Any text in English will do: your latest blog post, journal entry, comment, chapter of your unfinished book, etc. For reliable results paste at least a few paragraphs (not tweets). Paste your text here: into his/her own program (despite the warning not to ), and it gave HP Lovecraft. What about the rest of you? Anybody interested in giving this a go?
I've been told that my content is like Bukowski's but I write in a more sophisticated manner (not that I'm knocking him, he's one of my favourite authors of all time and I love his style).
Huh. I typed in Spoiler “Sir,” the captain stared at the private's glistening grey eyes. He felt his heart fluttered, but he kept his composure. Know your station, he reminded himself. He allowed a smile, “You've fought well today.” He clapped a hand on the young man's shoulder. “I'll see about recommending to the Board about a promotion.” The private's mouth dropped open. “A pro-promotion...sir?” “Indeed. We need more men like you in the fields, not doing scrab work.” He laughed. “Ah well, at ease. At ease.” He walked to a small liquor cabinet, drew out two small cups and a Jack Daniels whiskey. After he poured the content, he gave the private a cup. “To your future career!” he bellowed as he raised the glass. The private nervously raised his and they both sipped. and got Robert Louis Stevenson. Yet random texts like 'I ran after the cat after it somehow stole my slippers' lands me as Bram Stoker or Kurt Vonnegut.
An excerpt from my WIP called "313" gave me: Yay! And then an excerpt from a newer piece I'm working on gave me: Screw you, jerk. I'm going to chalk that second one up to the fact that it's in 1st person.
If it's of any consolation, I've had someone remark that my writing was like Dan Brown, and in another instance, that my writing was somehow worst than George Lucas.
I have the feeling that it was because I had written in exceptionally long sentences that day, about the moment where my socially-inept, bibliophile protagonist meets her love interest and reminisces about her brief life.
I wanted a second opinion, so posted a section from my second chapter. I got Dan Brown... again Just excuse me while I go and jump in front of the next passing lorry.
Yeah just looked him up, and I'll tell you what, that is very very spooky! The extract I posted was from a shelved novel I started called 65. One of the reasons I shelved it was because it was very similar to the film Soylent Green - a film based on a book called Make Room, Make Room, written by Harry Harrison
Well, it gets points for consistency. I analyzed the first 400 words of my novel and was told I write like Kurt Vonnegut. Jumped to a random chapter about 3/4 of the way through and posted the first 300 words of it and got Vonnegut again. Picked some random dialogue elsewhere and got... you guessed it, Kurt Vonnegut. Ironically, I've never (fully) read anything by Vonnegut. Closest I've come was reading the cliffnotes of Slaughterhouse Five in high school. His style just didn't appeal to me. Go figure.
Wow. What are the odds of that? I remember you talking about the novel you shelved for that reason (though I think the idea could be made fresh and still work, personally).
I put in my WIP and got: Ursula K. Le Guin But I then put in one of my threads from here and got: J. K. Rowling
Sorry, I'm getting confused. It was the plot of Logan's Run that I feared 65 was too similar to, but I did mention something about an idea I'd had for assisted suicide being like the one in Soylent Green. Still, it somehow managed to pick up a sci-fi tone, despite there being absolutely nothing in the short passage to suggest the genre.
My Stone Games short story got: I write like Arthur Clarke Where the Wild Things Were got Dan Brown. And my discarded first chapter of my WIP was again, Arthur Clark. Cool.
