DanJW Posted July 15, 2010 Here's a fun gimmick: 'Check which famous writer you write like'. I entered a few different modes of writing and got some results I'm pretty flattered by (although I doubt it ever returns results like "you write like that old drunk guy from down the chip shop"). When writing fiction: I write like Ursula LeGuin (yay). When writing casually (as I do on these forums): I write like James Joyce (ooh really?). When writing play script: I write like Arthur C. Clarke (uh OK). When writing comedy routines: I write like Vladimir Nabokov (sweet). When writing this post: I write like Vladimir Nabokov again (I guess I was trying to be funny) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
pabosher Posted July 15, 2010 Haha, that has utterly made my day. As some of you have already guessed, I'm a huge fan of the Hitchhiker's Guide, as well as all Douglas Adams's work. I've just been told I write like him. That has utterly made my day. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Lu Posted July 15, 2010 I was being a dick and was posting works of famous authors in there to see what happened and apparently Isaac Asimov writes like Edgar Allan Poe who in turn writes like Douglas Adams. Ursula LeGuin and some other Edgar Allan Poe works were named as such though! I wonder what it actually looks for in the texts. It knows me too well. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
elmuerte Posted July 15, 2010 I probably don't write enough... but the results was: David Foster Wallace I have no idea wtf that is, but at least he looks similar to me... hair-wise Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Sombre Posted July 15, 2010 Lovecraft. Sounds right. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Thompson Posted July 15, 2010 I got David Foster Wallace twice in a row on 2 articles i've written. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Orv Posted July 15, 2010 James Joyce on three of my short stories. Vladimir Nabokov on another two. And Ursula LeGuin on the parts of my book I fed it. Which thrills me, because I love The Earthsea series. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Patters Posted July 15, 2010 For writing about music I got Steven King, Games David Foster Wallace and for my best stuff Chuck Palahniuk. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Hermie Posted July 15, 2010 Kurt Vonnegut. I can live with that. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
syntheticgerbil Posted July 15, 2010 Wow, I copied and pasted a wall of text in one of my forum tirades and suddenly I'm William Gibson. Strange. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Squid Division Posted July 15, 2010 At least it's not Mel Gibson. I got Lovecraft which is kind of awesome. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
brkl Posted July 15, 2010 I got the same as elmuerte from my thesis. I don't know who David Foster Wallace is, but I guess it would be fitting that I write like some nobody. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
pabosher Posted July 15, 2010 I got the same as elmuerte from my thesis. I don't know who David Foster Wallace is, but I guess it would be fitting that I write like some nobody. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Foster_Wallace Could be worse buddy. According to TIME he wrote one of the best 100 books of all time. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
thl Posted July 15, 2010 David Foster Wallace wrote the gigantic tome Infinite Jest along with a bunch of short stories, articles, and other random stuff that won him a super devoted following. then he killed himself, thus cementing his place as tormented genius author forever. I had a roommate who read Infinite Jest though and he said he sometimes thought that the author was making fun of him for reading a book that long, yet he couldn't put it down and was losing sleep over it. Apparently, the writing is very smart, very ironic and somewhat post-modern. As far as I know his writing is very highly regarded. I put in a lovecraft fan fiction and got Lovecraft, then a short horror piece and got Wallace. I can live with that. Has anybody gotten Danielle Steele or Nora Roberts and has been afraid to mention it? ...not that I'm doing that. right now. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Noyb Posted July 16, 2010 Pasted in the messy script to Macarena of the Missing and got Raymond Chandler, an early 20th century pulp detective fiction writer. And an old game-dev rant yielded a result of Stephen King. I'm curious how they're analyzing the data. Word frequency? Sentence length. Random hash of the text intended to drive traffic to their business through viral marketing? Edit: The word fuck repeated 100+ times gives a result of William Gibson . Penis 100x could have been written by Anne Rice . Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Murdoc Posted July 16, 2010 William Gibson; which is odd because I've only read half of one of his novels. So at least it isn't a conscious decision... also, he might be a terrible writer. edit: Reading what Gerbil got, I also used a forum post as an example, so that pretty much confirms(sure?) that William Gibson writes like an average(again, sure?) Idle Thumbs forum post. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
circadianwolf Posted July 16, 2010 William Gibson is great. He has a very precise style, but it is very modern (not in the literary sense), so it might well fit a forum. (Pattern Recognition actually has numerous forum messages in its text, too.) David Foster Wallace is a generally controversial postmodernist. I had an English professor who agreed that "Infinite Jest" referred to a reader actually reading the giant tome and realizing at the end that they weren't really going to get anything out of it. There are those who love him, and those who think he was an arrogant asshole. *shrug* I got Arthur C. Clarke on everyday stuff and Lovecraft on essays. Not sure what that says. I too am curious as to how it makes its determination. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Roderick Posted July 16, 2010 My rants on Captain August are apparently Lovecraftian. I wonder how it measures this, as the theme of the rant was absolutely not about madness, ancient gods, incestuous demon offspring. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
eljay Posted July 16, 2010 My Shadow of the Colossus review was apparently similar to Arthur C. Clarke and my Okami review was like George Orwell.... weird! A random forum post of mine was apparently also like Wallace. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Thompson Posted July 16, 2010 David Foster Wallace repeated like a million times in a row gets me James Joyce, James Joyce must be an alabaster retard. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Raff Posted July 16, 2010 And Ursula LeGuin on the parts of my book I fed it. Which thrills me, because I love The Earthsea series. My post in the cryostasis thread is apparently in the style of Ursula LeGuin. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Nachimir Posted July 16, 2010 PiratePoo, that's fantastic What got the "A Douchebag" result? My boss is slightly tormented at being told he writes like Dan Brown. Must be the gratuitous descriptions of women's bodies he keeps putting in consultancy reports. I tried various forums and blog posts, and got David Foster Wallace for all of them. Most bearable Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Asembo Posted July 16, 2010 That analyzer is clearly broken: "I write like William Shakespeare". Share this post Link to post Share on other sites