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You are here: Home / For Good Clean Fun

For Good Clean Fun

by John Cole|  July 14, 20105:54 pm| 131 Comments

This post is in: Blogospheric Navel-Gazing

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Analyze your writing:

I write like
Kurt Vonnegut

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

This has been quite the rage on my twitter feed today.

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Previous Post: « How Do They Say This Stuff With a Straight Face?
Next Post: They Have Every Reason to Be Mad »

Reader Interactions

131Comments

  1. 1.

    protected static

    July 14, 2010 at 5:59 pm

    Much weirdness… this post appears to have screwed up the display in Firefox (3.6.6 on WinXP). And it doesn’t show up at all in IE7…

  2. 2.

    D-Chance.

    July 14, 2010 at 6:00 pm

    Someone broke the internets, Cole…

    edit: all better. ‘Refresh’ing, in a way.

  3. 3.

    R-Jud

    July 14, 2010 at 6:03 pm

    I submitted the recipe for the quiche I made tonight and it said I write like HP Lovecraft.

  4. 4.

    Tank Hueco

    July 14, 2010 at 6:03 pm

    H. P. Lovecraft.

  5. 5.

    NobodySpecial

    July 14, 2010 at 6:04 pm

    I write like I have no business writing.

  6. 6.

    dms

    July 14, 2010 at 6:05 pm

    Well, using three paragraphs each from two different chapters of my unfinished book, I got two answers:

    1. Steven King
    2. Vladimir Nabokov

    I much prefer the second.

  7. 7.

    Irony Abounds

    July 14, 2010 at 6:05 pm

    Stephen King – if only I had even a tenth of his money.

  8. 8.

    Dr. Psycho

    July 14, 2010 at 6:06 pm

    I tried bits of a fanfic I wrote (Steven King), a fantasy vignette (Dickens) and an erotic detective novel (Nabokov).

    I guess that means I’m complex. Or undisciplined.

  9. 9.

    SarahLoving

    July 14, 2010 at 6:06 pm

    I submitted a bunch yesterday and received Margaret Atwood and George Orwell. I was so pleased that I chose to submit a third time and got….. DAN BROWN.

    I now wear the Cone of Shame.

  10. 10.

    Xero

    July 14, 2010 at 6:08 pm

    I was told I write like Stephen King, who, it says writes like Lewis Carroll.

  11. 11.

    cleek

    July 14, 2010 at 6:08 pm

    HP Lovecraft!

    i wish i knew what that meant!

  12. 12.

    jwb

    July 14, 2010 at 6:12 pm

    @dms: I tried five different passages from a single article and came up with five different authors. Go figure!

  13. 13.

    Jay in Oregon

    July 14, 2010 at 6:13 pm

    I submitted an erotic short story I wrote and got Nabokov as well.

  14. 14.

    wobbly

    July 14, 2010 at 6:13 pm

    No one writes like Kurt Vonnegut did back in the day.

    Except Mark Twain.

    Wow.

  15. 15.

    Josh

    July 14, 2010 at 6:13 pm

    Apparently, I write like William Shakespeare.

    English major win?

  16. 16.

    jwb

    July 14, 2010 at 6:14 pm

    @SarahLoving: And if you submit your comment here, you end up back with . . . Margaret Atwood!

  17. 17.

    Jay in Oregon

    July 14, 2010 at 6:15 pm

    @cleek:

    They are the undecipherable scribblings of a madman which, if we could decipher them, would reveal the stark horror and meaninglessness of existence, culminating in a time when godlike beings come to earth and devour our souls?

  18. 18.

    Comrade Mary

    July 14, 2010 at 6:15 pm

    I’ve submitted various rants and more modulated, helpful bits of writing and my results have been: Nabokov (The WHA? Flatter me much?), Stephen King (He’s a decent prose stylist with some flaws, but not a complete hack), Dan Brown (KILL ME NOW!), Nabokov (Oh, your flattery is salve for my burning soul. I’ll take it), King (Am I gonna be rich?), King (Oh man, maybe I’ll get rich), Lovecraft (Advising people gently and throughly on the best bike for them evokes eldritch horror? Um, OK), King (This link seems appropriate) and Dan Brown (NOOOOO!!! I don’t want money that much. Can’t the Old Ones kill me first?).

    EDIT: Ands this comment came back as King. The lyrics for Opportunities? Dan Brown. I rest my case.

  19. 19.

    Xecky Gilchrist

    July 14, 2010 at 6:17 pm

    I got Chuck Palahniuk (submitted a day’s worth of my NaNoWriMo free-association.)

  20. 20.

    freelancer

    July 14, 2010 at 6:18 pm

    Lol,

    My friend submitted her entire MFA thesis, and got Vonnegut. I submitted 3 different selections of prose, and got Stephen King, Jack London, and Vonnegut.

    Apparently my co-blogger and friend Alex writes like fukkin Tolkien. Hoocoodanode?

  21. 21.

    David in NY

    July 14, 2010 at 6:18 pm

    Well I submitted two portions of a legal brief, one portion of the statement of fact that turned out to be Margaret Atwood (whom I have never read, partly because I didn’t think it would be fun) and portion of the argument turned out to be by Dan Brown (ouch!). Now don’t make fun.

  22. 22.

    anthrosciguy

    July 14, 2010 at 6:18 pm

    I took a web page of mine and pasted it. The result was “Lovecraft”. But pasting it section by section got “Lovecraft”, “Atwood”, or “Poe” for various sections of the same page.

  23. 23.

    Rick Massimo

    July 14, 2010 at 6:18 pm

    Unfortunately, driftglass put Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” in there and it came out James Joyce; Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 came out Rudyard Kipling; Mark Twain’s “The Private history of a Campaign That Failed” came out Lovecraft, and O. Henry’s “The Gift of the Magi” came out Mario Puzo! (It should be noted that Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron” came out Vonnegut.)

    Just sayin’ …

  24. 24.

    tjlabs

    July 14, 2010 at 6:19 pm

    I put in two very different posts. The first one said I wrote like Stephen King, the other like H. P. Lovecraft. I’m starting to scare myself.

  25. 25.

    MAJeff

    July 14, 2010 at 6:20 pm

    I got Vonnegut for my food writing and Joyce for an academic sample. Clarity is, apparently, not my strength.

  26. 26.

    Cat

    July 14, 2010 at 6:21 pm

    This is so 1996. Markov chains have been guessing authorship of writings since around then.

  27. 27.

    Josh

    July 14, 2010 at 6:21 pm

    I submitted a small piece of flash fiction I wrote and got Raymond Chandler (it was a 99 word complete story).

    I then submitted the opening paragraphs of a short sci-fi story I wrote and got Isaac Asimov.

    I think I’m good with that. Shakespeare and Chandler are OK, but my favorite Science Fiction author has always been Asimov.

  28. 28.

    thomas Levenson

    July 14, 2010 at 6:21 pm

    did that twice — with the first and last page of my most recent book, Newton and the Counterfeiter. I managed to replicate the experience of many above. The first seems to have been penned by Stephen King, the last by Dan Brown.

    I’ll go shoot myself now. (Dan Brown is, imho, the worst writer living.)

    Actually, if I could get King’s wealth and deeply envied productivity, I’d consent to live.

  29. 29.

    Miss Mouse

    July 14, 2010 at 6:21 pm

    I got Nabokov. I posted it on Facebook just to brag. :)

  30. 30.

    Tyler

    July 14, 2010 at 6:22 pm

    Three different sections of my masters thesis on labor law and baseball go Dan Brown, HP Lovecraft and Ian Flemming. Scarry.

  31. 31.

    SarahLoving

    July 14, 2010 at 6:23 pm

    @jwb: Good to know Maggie’s got my back.

  32. 32.

    General Stuck

    July 14, 2010 at 6:23 pm

    Did a couple and they come up James Joyce. That’s cool since I like the Irish.

  33. 33.

    Allan

    July 14, 2010 at 6:23 pm

    Vonnegut or Orwell, depending on the text.

  34. 34.

    b-psycho

    July 14, 2010 at 6:23 pm

    Submitted a few blogposts:

    –this one on BP & the escrow account wingers were calling a “slush fund” drew Shakespeare.

  35. 35.

    Linkmeister

    July 14, 2010 at 6:24 pm

    Since this was on my blog yesterday I put it into the box:

    After getting home at five in the morning, and leaving a note for Fritz saying I would be down for breakfast at 10:45, I had set the alarm for ten o’clock. That had seemed sensible, but the trouble with an alarm clock is that what seems sensible when you set it seems absurd when it goes off.

    Archie Goodwin, “The Rodeo Murder,” Three at Wolfe’s Door

    And the thing told me that was like Arthur Conan Doyle. I’m not sure Rex Stout would be flattered by that, but hey, at least the literary genre was the same.

  36. 36.

    Bryan

    July 14, 2010 at 6:24 pm

    Apparently, Kurt Vonnegut wrote like J.D. Salinger. Personally, my money was that he would write like Kurt Vonnegut, but what do I know?

  37. 37.

    Comrade Mary

    July 14, 2010 at 6:24 pm

    This site has actually made me laugh out loud several times. This is a rare thing.

    Example: the lyrics to Don’t Stand So Close To Me (which name drop Nabokov) come out as: JK Rowling.

  38. 38.

    Omnes Omnibus

    July 14, 2010 at 6:24 pm

    With two different blocks of text I got Steven King and George Orwell.

  39. 39.

    b-psycho

    July 14, 2010 at 6:25 pm

    (Edit: WTF is wrong with this page? The box replaces anything past the first part with a strikethrough & screws up the formatting.)

    Other two it said Dan Brown (short comment on over-reliance on credit) & H.P. Lovecraft (two cents on Rand Paul & the civil rights act stuff). I had to look up who H.P. Lovecraft was.

  40. 40.

    Skipjack

    July 14, 2010 at 6:25 pm

    My unscientific survey detects bias. My selection of Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte apparently has the bot thinking she writes like Edgar Allen Poe, and Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte is a dead ringer for Oscar Wilde.

  41. 41.

    General Stuck

    July 14, 2010 at 6:25 pm

    Plugged in one of my older snark pieces from my blog and came up with Vonnegut.

  42. 42.

    Chad S

    July 14, 2010 at 6:26 pm

    Lovecraft here.

  43. 43.

    David in NY

    July 14, 2010 at 6:27 pm

    OK, tried again with a section of an actual amicus brief in the Supreme Court — pretty technical. Came out with Daniel Defoe, which is not bad given my prior results.

  44. 44.

    JD Rhoades

    July 14, 2010 at 6:35 pm

    I gave it the first three chapters of my WIP and it gave me Nabokov.

    I call bullshit.

  45. 45.

    b-psycho

    July 14, 2010 at 6:36 pm

    Tried some song lyrics myself. Who knew Project Pat wrote like Steven King?

  46. 46.

    YAFB

    July 14, 2010 at 6:39 pm

    I bunged in some random old blog posts of mine, and got mainly Dan Brown (seems to be the default), with a sprinkling of Kurt Vonnegut, a couple of mystifying H.P. Lovecrafts, one instance of Douglas Adams, and for an intemperate rant about your wingnuts savaging the NHS, P.G. Wodehouse.

    All in all, I’m not complaining.

  47. 47.

    David in NY

    July 14, 2010 at 6:39 pm

    This poem by Richard Wilbur:

    A Shallot

    The full cloves
    Of your buttocks, the convex
    Curve of your belly, the curved
    Cleft of your sex–

    Out of this corm
    That’s planted in strong thighs
    The slender stem and radiant
    Flower rise.

    came out as James Joyce.

  48. 48.

    tt crews

    July 14, 2010 at 6:40 pm

    I came up Isaac Asimov for a blog piece on a local redevelopment project. My daughter’s MFA thesis is H G Wells.

    I put up my 10 year old son’s letter to his pen pal and he came out Stephen King. So…does my 10 yo write like King or does King write like a 10 yo?

  49. 49.

    JD Rhoades

    July 14, 2010 at 6:41 pm

    I gave it a blog post and it gave me Vonnegut. Then I gave it three chapters of SAFE AND SOUND and it gave me…Douglas Adams?!

  50. 50.

    daryljfontaine

    July 14, 2010 at 6:41 pm

    Fanfic from 1996: Chuck Palahniuk.

    Long-ish comment from a gaming message board: Dan Brown.

    This comment right up until the last colon: Also Chuck Palahniuk.

    D

  51. 51.

    jacy

    July 14, 2010 at 6:43 pm

    I put in a passage from a published short story, a page from the mystery novel that’s at a publisher waiting for word, and a passage from the new novel I’m working on. I am apparently the bastard love child of James Joyce and Stephen King.

    I’m still trying to figure out if that’s good or bad, at least from a commercial standpoint if not a literary one.

    Yes, I needed one more useless thing to do that is a complete time suck and keeps me from doing any productive work. Sigh.

  52. 52.

    debbie

    July 14, 2010 at 6:47 pm

    Hmm. The first time, I got Nabokov. I then reposted the exact same text and got David Foster Wallace.

  53. 53.

    Bill Murray

    July 14, 2010 at 6:48 pm

    I compared the Beatles “I wanna hold your hand”, which came out as JD Salinger with “Let it Be” which came out as James Joyce, so I guess there was some growth during that career

  54. 54.

    mr. whipple

    July 14, 2010 at 6:48 pm

    HA! I got:

    I write like
    Kurt Vonnegut.

  55. 55.

    JGabriel

    July 14, 2010 at 6:49 pm

    Hmm. After being told I write like Stephen King, Dan Brown, and Arthur Conan Doyle, I posted the following in the I Write Like analysis field:

    Looking into the rearview mirror, he realized that a car had been tailing him all along. He had never had any doubt he was being followed, but so far they had acted with masterly discretion. Today a radical change had taken place: they wanted him to know about them.
    __
    In the middle of some fields, about fifteen miles outside of Prague there was a tall fence with a car-repair shop behind it. He had a good friend there and needed him to replace a faulty starter. He pulled up to the entrance. It was blocked by a red and white striped gate. A heavy woman was standing beside it. Mirek waited for her to raise the gate, but she just stared at him, motionless. He honked his horn, but got no response. He looked out the window.
    __
    “Not behind bars yet?” asked the woman.
    __
    “No, not yet,” answered Mirek. “How about raising the gate?”
    __
    She looked at him impassively for a few more long sentences, then yawned, went over to the gatekeeper’s cabin, dropped into a desk chair, and turned her back on him.
    __
    So he got up out of the car, walked around the gate, and went into the service area to look for his friend the mechanic. The mechanic came back with him. He raised the gate himself (the woman was still sitting impasively in the cabin), and Mirek drove his car in.
    __
    “That’s what you get for showing off on television,” said the mechanic. “Every broad in the country knows what you look like.”
    __
    “Who is she?” Mirek asked.
    __
    He learned that the invasion of Czechoslovakia by Russian troops, which had made themselves felt everywhere, had changed her life as well. Seeing that people in higher places (and everyone was higher than she was) were being deprived of power, status, employment, and daily bread on the basis of the slightest allegation, she got all excited and started denouncing people herself.
    __
    “Then how come she’s still working the gate? Haven’t they even promoted her?”
    __
    The mechanic smiled. “They can’t. She doesn’t know how to count to five. All they can do is let her go on with her denunciations. That’s her only reward.”
    __
    Mirek was suddenly aware of someone a few steps away. He turned and saw a man in a gray jacket, white shirt and tie, and brown slacks. His strong neck and bloated face were toppped by a shock of artificially waved gray hair. He stood there watching the mechanic under the raised hood.
    __
    After a while, the mechanic noticed him too. “Looking for somebody?” he asked, straightening up.
    __
    “No,” answered the man with the strong neck and wavy hair. “I’m not looking for anybody.”
    __
    The mechanic leaned down over the engine again and said, “Right in the middle of Prague, Wenceslaus Square, there’s this guy throwing up. And this other guy comes along, takes a look at him, shakes his head, and says, ‘I know just what you mean'”

    Milan Kundera will be pleased to know he writes just like Stephen King.

    (Yeah, it’s a long quote, but I included it so other people could test it for themselves.)

    .

  56. 56.

    Joseph Nobles

    July 14, 2010 at 6:51 pm

    I got H.P. Lovecraft (from an essay on Gertrude’s guilt in Hamlet), then David Foster Wallace, Chuck Palahniuk, and Ursula Guin.

    Obviously I need to publish.

  57. 57.

    jah

    July 14, 2010 at 6:54 pm

    so it goes.

  58. 58.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    July 14, 2010 at 6:55 pm

    I write like Vonnegut.

    No one could have predicted that.

  59. 59.

    Catsy

    July 14, 2010 at 6:56 pm

    I fed it the story blurbs from these two photos and it said Stephen King.

    I fed it this rant and it said Edgar Allen Poe.

    I have no idea what this says about me.

  60. 60.

    Bill Murray

    July 14, 2010 at 6:56 pm

    @JGabriel: I copied that in and got Kurt Vonnegut

  61. 61.

    John Harrold

    July 14, 2010 at 6:59 pm

    I submitted four different things and I got three different answers:

    Vladimir Nabokov
    David Foster Wallace (twice)
    Mark Twain

    Being only semi-literate I’ve only read Twain, so I have no idea if he is similar to the other two.

  62. 62.

    John Cain

    July 14, 2010 at 6:59 pm

    The people on your twitter feed are idiots. This isn’t analyzing your writing, it’s spitting out a random author. Hence the commenters above submitting the same posts and getting different authors, and why everyone in the blogosphere seems to write like a famous author and not, say, a five year old.

    The key to understanding these “analyzers” that crop up every few months is the “mac journal software” up there. Notice how that’s a link? This is some advertiser’s cheap way of boosting its product’s Google ranking by exploiting the vanity of bloggers. You have been snookered, good sir.

  63. 63.

    YAFB

    July 14, 2010 at 7:00 pm

    As a control experiment, I fed it Palin’s latest Facebook post.

    I don’t know what she’s paying her ghostwriter, but yes, it came back Dan Brown.

    So did her GOP Convention VP acceptance speech.

    Her latest Tweet? Stephen King.

  64. 64.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    July 14, 2010 at 7:00 pm

    Yeah okay. I just pasted in a chapter of Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five, and it came back:

    “You write like Raymond Chandler.”

    I think we have an updated magic 8 ball here, basically.

  65. 65.

    YAFB

    July 14, 2010 at 7:03 pm

    @John Cain:

    Spoilsport.

  66. 66.

    Steele

    July 14, 2010 at 7:05 pm

    I put a fragment of a story of mine and received Arthur C. Clarke. I just thought it was interesting because I haven’t seen anyone else receive that yet.

  67. 67.

    General Stuck

    July 14, 2010 at 7:05 pm

    @John Cain:

    and why everyone in the blogosphere seems to write like a famous author and not, say, a five year old.

    Oh yea, Mr. Know-it-All. now you gonna tell us the Easter Bunny isn’t real? Fuddy dud!

  68. 68.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    July 14, 2010 at 7:07 pm

    @John Cain: Dan Brown writes like a five-year-old, and he’s a famous author.

    More common than you might think.

  69. 69.

    Hart Williams

    July 14, 2010 at 7:21 pm

    I don’t know how much credibility I can cede this parlor game.

    I just went back over a week’s worth of blogs, and posted nice big chunks of prose. Thus far I write like

    William Gibson
    Edgar Allan Poe
    H.P Lovecraft
    James Joyce

    I’m not THAT big a chameleon.

    Probably more useful to go to the Post Modernist Generator and whip up some REAL garbledy-gook. :-)

    Hmmm. Wonder who THEY write like?

  70. 70.

    IrishGirl

    July 14, 2010 at 7:22 pm

    I put in a blog post and was told: David Foster Wallace. Accurate or not, I’ll take that compliment and run with it.

  71. 71.

    suzanne

    July 14, 2010 at 7:22 pm

    Awww. Apparently I write like David Foster Wallace.
    ***sniffle***

  72. 72.

    Steve

    July 14, 2010 at 7:23 pm

    I tried excerpts from two different legal briefs I wrote today and got David Foster Wallace both times.

  73. 73.

    Comrade Mary

    July 14, 2010 at 7:25 pm

    So trying out this analyzer is a supposedly fun thing you’ll never do again?

  74. 74.

    LT

    July 14, 2010 at 7:26 pm

    David Foster Wallace. Never read him.

  75. 75.

    suzanne

    July 14, 2010 at 7:31 pm

    After repeated plays with this, with my graduate thesis, Facebook posts, and my manifestos, I have come back as writing like David Foster Wallace every time except for one (Dickens).

    Fewer footnotes, though, I SWEAR.

  76. 76.

    Tom Hilton

    July 14, 2010 at 7:31 pm

    @LT: Me too, except I have read him (Infinite Jest, a couple times).

  77. 77.

    LT

    July 14, 2010 at 7:32 pm

    Looks like they’re on a DFWallace kick right now.

  78. 78.

    another county heard from

    July 14, 2010 at 7:32 pm

    I tried submitting several things, and got:
    * Stephen King
    * David Foster Wallace
    * Dan Brown

    Either I’m more inconsistent than I think, or this thing is BS.

    Though for the record, I hope it’s wrong about Dan Brown.

  79. 79.

    LT

    July 14, 2010 at 7:33 pm

    Just put in E. E. Cummings’ “anyone lived in a pretty how town”—David Foster Wallace.

  80. 80.

    J Price Vincenz

    July 14, 2010 at 7:34 pm

    Vonnegut for me, too.

  81. 81.

    Karen in GA

    July 14, 2010 at 7:37 pm

    David Foster Wallace, of course. And Harry Harrison, also too.

    Soylent Green is people!

  82. 82.

    Comrade Mary

    July 14, 2010 at 7:46 pm

    OFFS. They’re giving away DFW like he’s Halloween candy and I get Isaac “smart guy but no prose stylist” Asimov? Not fair.

    Could be worse. Could be Geddy Lee.

    EDIT: And I just served up more DFW bait — THIS freaking comment — with a FOOTNOTE — and what do I get? Dan Mother Mary Magdalene-fucking Brown.

    I quit the Internets.

  83. 83.

    Libby

    July 14, 2010 at 7:52 pm

    Sure it’s just a bogus meme to pass the time on a slow news day, so of course I pasted in a few posts. Got Steven King, Dan Brown and Vonnegut. Decided to quit with Vonnegut.

  84. 84.

    RedKitten

    July 14, 2010 at 7:53 pm

    I also got David Foster Wallace for most of my submissions, except for once when I got James Joyce and once when I got Margaret Atwood.

    So it’s a fun parlour game — who cares if it means anything? If nothing else, it’s intrigued me enough to want to read some of Wallace’s work.

  85. 85.

    QuaintIrene

    July 14, 2010 at 7:55 pm

    I typed in a short bit about my local garden center. Stopped by to get some sweet corn, peaches and nice jersey tomatoes.
    Was told I write like Margaret Atwood.

    As Elmer Fudd would say, ‘vewwy intewesting’

  86. 86.

    Comrade Mary

    July 14, 2010 at 7:59 pm

    RedKitten, you may or may not have the time for Infinite Jest, but try A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again, a collection of his (relatively) short pieces. That Wiki page includes links to several PDFs of various essays.

  87. 87.

    k55f

    July 14, 2010 at 8:03 pm

    @b-psycho: “I had to look up who H.P. Lovecraft was”….
    He, obviously, was the greatest horror writer of all time.
    (And I’m not saying that just because I put in a cover letter for a job and got back that I write like H.P.L.)

    I had to look up who psycho was….

  88. 88.

    Tara the antisocial social worker

    July 14, 2010 at 8:05 pm

    I got Dan Brown.

    I will now add a large block of exposition to this post in order to provide obvious foreshadowing of what’s going to happen next, while completely ignoring the ticking bomb in the next room.

  89. 89.

    JGabriel

    July 14, 2010 at 8:21 pm

    I think John Cain is right: I Write Like isn’t doing any analysis at all, it’s just spitting out random writer’s names.

    .

  90. 90.

    noncarborundum

    July 14, 2010 at 8:23 pm

    Lovecraft, Poe, Wallace (thrice) and Joyce.

    Lovecraft?

  91. 91.

    expat

    July 14, 2010 at 8:30 pm

    I plugged in 5 paragraphs from the 2000 US Supreme Court decision in Gore v. Bush, selected more or less at random (a chunk starting at Section II-A, just to avoid too many case citations) – result: Dan Brown

    I think it’s for real.

  92. 92.

    Thomas

    July 14, 2010 at 8:33 pm

    Um…is there something wrong with the link? It takes me to an Amazon.com page for Kurt Vonnegut’s books!

  93. 93.

    ellaesther

    July 14, 2010 at 8:40 pm

    @Thomas: The URL is iwl.me – find your own way, young Thomas!

  94. 94.

    ellaesther

    July 14, 2010 at 8:43 pm

    I had never heard of this before five minutes ago, and wheeee! Very fun.

    I put in three very different (I thought) passages, and came up David Foster Wallace each time — which was both a compliment, I thought, and odd, because I’ve never read so much as a page of David Foster Wallace. (I know, I know. I’ll go out to the woodshed later).

    But then I put in something that I wrote in a good mood about an evening in the backyard with a fire going in my new firebowl — and boom! I’m JK Rowling!

    Take away: I should work more on maintaining a good mood. But it will apparently be very hard.

  95. 95.

    ellaesther

    July 14, 2010 at 8:44 pm

    @RedKitten: Me too! I now feel morally obligated to actually read him.

  96. 96.

    Kristine

    July 14, 2010 at 8:46 pm

    I write like Neil Gaiman, apparently.

    I will sooo take it.

  97. 97.

    Phoenician in a time of Romans

    July 14, 2010 at 8:49 pm

    I did five posts of my own words from my defunct blog.

    1 Mark Twain, 1 Margaret Atwood, 3 David Foster Wallaces.

    Now I’m scared.

  98. 98.

    machine

    July 14, 2010 at 8:57 pm

    David Foster Wallace.

  99. 99.

    Jager

    July 14, 2010 at 9:00 pm

    @ellaesther:

    I put in three different paragraphs from an e mail to my sister, The first two I got David Foster Wallace, the 3rd paragraph about our 4th of July party where I cooked for 18 was James Joyce…come to think of it the party was Joycean!

  100. 100.

    Mark S.

    July 14, 2010 at 9:00 pm

    I got two Lovecrafts, one Vonnegut, and one [gulp] Dan Fucking Brown! Jesus Christ, I don’t write that badly!

  101. 101.

    ellaesther

    July 14, 2010 at 9:00 pm

    @John Cain: No – really? And here I thought I really wrote like David Foster Wallace and/or JK Rowling.

    My heart – broken!

  102. 102.

    ellaesther

    July 14, 2010 at 9:01 pm

    @Jager: I find it interesting that so many of the BJers appear to be getting Wallace…! Interesting, odd, completely meaningless. One of those, I suppose.

  103. 103.

    Mark S.

    July 14, 2010 at 9:07 pm

    @Mark S.:

    Reading through the comments, it looks like this thing is bullshit.

    [This comment was written like David Foster Wallace]

  104. 104.

    Joel

    July 14, 2010 at 9:10 pm

    I ran my paper submission and got David Foster Wallace. I don’t know how well that goes over in the journals…

  105. 105.

    David in NY

    July 14, 2010 at 9:24 pm

    OK, so somebody else’s legal brief got David Foster Wallace, while mine got Margaret Atwood and Dan Brown (and a SCOTUS amicus got Daniel Defoe). Should I be pleased by comparison or no? The aim here is clear, persuasive prose.

  106. 106.

    Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people)

    July 14, 2010 at 9:26 pm

    David Foster Wallace here…

  107. 107.

    C.S.Strowbridge

    July 14, 2010 at 9:31 pm

    Stephenie Meyer?

    Fuck you.

    Also got Chuck Palahniuk, David Foster Wallace, and Arthur Conan Doyle.

  108. 108.

    suzanne

    July 14, 2010 at 9:34 pm

    All this David Foster Wallace talk is making me very melancholy.

    RIP, DFW.

  109. 109.

    Chad N Freude

    July 14, 2010 at 9:44 pm

    I, too, got David Foster Wallace. Does that mean that that a lot of us here are capable of sometimes brilliant, frequently entertaining, and often tedious writing? Or does it suggest a limited writer base or analysis algorithm for the computer (don’t forget that it’s a computer doing this) analysis? And how can anyone be compared to Wallace without writing a lot of footnotes?

  110. 110.

    Zoogz

    July 14, 2010 at 9:46 pm

    The very first thing I put in was a bit of a fanfic that I’d written, being a ten-year veteran.

    Out spits “Stephenie Meyer”. And not only that, but I see that I got beat to it as well.

    Talk about abject shame.

    I stuck three blog posts through it as well. Two ended up as H.P. Lovecraft, the final as David Foster Wallace.

    I still cannot bear the shame of the first analysis, though.

  111. 111.

    Morbo

    July 14, 2010 at 9:58 pm

    Neil Gaiman on the first try, then (ugh) Dan Brown on random sampling, but then I picked a piece that didn’t involve Templars and got David Foster Wallace.

  112. 112.

    hitchhiker

    July 14, 2010 at 9:59 pm

    Wait, is Dan Brown really considered a writer?

  113. 113.

    Twisted_Colour

    July 14, 2010 at 10:11 pm

    I put in a poem that I wrote about Garibaldi and got Mario Puzo. Is this racial profiling?

  114. 114.

    noncarborundum

    July 14, 2010 at 10:26 pm

    I copied & pasted everything on this page. In the aggregate, we all write like Arthur C. Clarke.

  115. 115.

    Ming

    July 14, 2010 at 10:46 pm

    David Foster Wallace, twice, and Isaac Asimov.

  116. 116.

    Chris Johnson

    July 14, 2010 at 11:36 pm

    It’s gonna be counting sentence lengths and things- looking at structural elements. I don’t know how deep it goes, but I have a funny story about this thing…

    Back at the beginning of this year, I switched from trying to draw a daily comic to WRITING that story, which I’ve got about 100K words down now. I kicked it off with some colorful exposition, which I pasted into the web toy.

    Says I write like J.D. Salinger.

    Salinger lived about half an hour from me, to the north, and I never knew it. And right when I decided to switch over to novel form- he DIED.

    Fucker obviously haunted me because I was the only writer handy who was as reclusive as he was…

  117. 117.

    handsmile

    July 14, 2010 at 11:59 pm

    Feeling puckish, I just submitted David Brooks’ latest NY Times column into the algorithmic maw.

    It spit out: David Foster Wallace.

    Were that magnificent writer still to be walking amongst us (1), I can’t imagine which David would be more horrified by this literary insta-analysis.

    I dare say it might also puncture that quick tickle of pride some of us might have felt when our own writing was deemed to be Wallace-esque.

    (1) Wyatt Mason, “Smarter than You Think,” The New York Review of Books, Vol. LVII, No. 12

  118. 118.

    mclaren

    July 15, 2010 at 12:50 am

    According to this thing, I write like David Foster Wallace. Ridiculous. Wallace uses sentence fragments and obscure obnubilations replete with footnotes.[1]

    [1] In some of his work. Footnotes appear mainly in his books, not his magazine articles.

  119. 119.

    fucen tarmal

    July 15, 2010 at 4:14 am

    it said i wrote like david foster wallace? i submitted nothing more than a rebuke of small government style “why should that be government’s job” garbage on a message board…

    wow the less you try…the key to life.

  120. 120.

    tworivers

    July 15, 2010 at 6:42 am

    H.P. Lovecraft once, David Foster Wallace three times.

  121. 121.

    Mustang Bobby

    July 15, 2010 at 7:21 am

    Based on the opening lines of my novel-in-progress, I got Margaret Mitchell.

    Based on a post I wrote last weekend, I got David Foster Wallace.

    Both came to bad ends.

  122. 122.

    wilfred

    July 15, 2010 at 7:34 am

    Good fun. After reading a lot of the comments I first put a few paragraphs from my dissertation where I define and explain some Arabic terms, and got Dan Brown. Then I put a long paragraph where I used the words -vault, curdling, bastion, dark and clammy – and got Lovecraft.

    I think I get it.

  123. 123.

    Albatrossity

    July 15, 2010 at 10:06 am

    Hilarious! I submitted three sections of a non-fiction piece that is out there waiting to be published. These three sections were three paragraphs each, and they appear consecutively in the work. Here are the results of that experiment.

    #1 – Chuck Pahluniak (beats me, I never heard of him either)

    #2 – Anne Rice

    #3 – James Joyce

    This may be the first time ever that Anne Rice and James Joyce have been mentioned together.

    I don’t think that this analysis tool is ready for prime time…

  124. 124.

    Paul in KY

    July 15, 2010 at 11:23 am

    H.P. Lovecraft for me too!

    interesting note: I did not use the word ‘eldritch’ in my submitted writing.

  125. 125.

    ed drone

    July 15, 2010 at 1:11 pm

    James Joyce & David Foster Wallace (whoever he is — and yes, I checked, and still don’t know).

    I tried some lyrics, and got James Joyce again. I tried a Kipling poem and got James Joyce. I tried the King James’ Bible and got James Joyce.

    That last is a lie.

    Ed

  126. 126.

    ed drone

    July 15, 2010 at 1:18 pm

    @Chris Johnson:
    I entered your BJ comment and got that Wallace clown again.

    Ed

  127. 127.

    Death Panel Truck

    July 15, 2010 at 1:55 pm

    I put in several chapters of my fabulous unfinished novel:

    Chapter 1 – David Foster Wallace
    Chapter 2 – Steven King
    Chapter 3 – Steven King
    Chapter 4 – David Foster Wallace
    Chapter 5 – Chuck Palahniuk (who was born in the city I live in: Pasco, Washington)
    Chapter 6 – David Foster Wallace
    Chapter 7 – Steven King
    Chapter 8 – David Foster Wallace
    Chapter 9 – Charles Dickens.

    Gotta say, that last one blows my mind.

  128. 128.

    licensed to kill time

    July 15, 2010 at 1:59 pm

    I put in three things I wrote.

    The first was an email to family, it said I write like Dan Brown.

    The second was a little tribute to Balloon Juice, it said I write like William Gibson.

    The third was an email to my best friend, it said I write like David Foster Wallace.

    The funniest is number one, because I self-censor heavily when writing to family, though I must admit it made my heart sink a little bit, being compared to Dan Brown.

  129. 129.

    twiffer

    July 15, 2010 at 4:18 pm

    4 different samples yielded 4 different results. poetry wound up interesting too. i got nabakov, joyce, atwood, brown, margert mitchell (probably the palm trees) and david foster wallace.

    the site is a front for someone trying to sell you a book on how to submit proposals to publishers. i suppose it’s a step up from a vanity press, but i’d personally avoid giving them any more traffic.

    …wait, they are trying to enlist you, amway style:

    If you are interested in selling these eBooks on your own Web site, blog, or email list, you can Join our Affiliate Program! You will earn 50% of the retail price for each sale (excluding purchases you make yourself).

    fuck’em. leeches. probably have a vanity arm as well.

  130. 130.

    ral

    July 17, 2010 at 1:24 am

    No mention of Doc Smith??

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