I Write Like... well, maybe on occasion... with effort

[primsong]

Thanks to padawanpooh for sharing the love - this was fun, even if it obviously can't be taken too seriously. (her experiment with pasting in a bit of Dickens, which was declared to be much like Asimov was rather telling, *snicker*)

Nonetheless, I enjoyed pasting in bits from various types of tales that I've written getting Dan Brown, Oscar Wilde, James Fenimore Cooper, Mark Twain, Vladmir Nabokov (who?) and Stephen King (how did Rivendell Int'l Airport, a parody, land a Stephen King badge?) - then out of curiosity I went to "Stone of Erebor" where I had been aiming for a Tolkien feel for and bounced happily when it yielded this:

I write like
J. R. R. Tolkien

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

Even knowing it's a questionable meme tool, it was worth it just because this made my day.

Comments

[shirebound]

Oh, what a great result! *beams*

[primsong.livejournal.com]

*is happy* Hoorah for the Pr'fessor!

[curuchamion.livejournal.com]

ICON LOVE ♥

[shirebound]

Thanks! :)

[estellye.livejournal.com]

Yes, as a matter of fact, you do! I got Stephen King. Hmmm

[primsong.livejournal.com]

Interesting - I wonder what it is keying into? It isn't random - I tried going in and popping in bits from all over one long story and got a mix of two authors consistently (Twain if it was dialogue, Nabokov if it was descriptive)... I've only read one King novel, so my exposure to his style is vague at best. What piece did you put in?

[estellye.livejournal.com]

My most recent one, a little ficlet message in a bottle musing whatsit.

Wow, Tolkien and Twain! It is definitely not random, they nailed it. I haven't read Nabakov in 20 years, so I can't really speak to that, lol.

I have only red King's "Eye of the Dragon" which was good, but I don't remember the style particularly.

[primsong.livejournal.com]

Likewise! That's the only novel he had that didn't look too creepy for my rather vivid imagination to handle. It was excellent, but it's been too many years since I picked it up to recall the elements that made it what it was.

[curuchamion.livejournal.com]

I'm guessing it analyses word choice and sentence structure. Most of my MFU dialogue pieces came out Stephen King, the more "atmospheric" ones were Dan Brown, but when I put in some of my nonfiction rambles - which of course are closer to my natural inside-my-head style, not tweaked for artisticness - I got Lovecraft and Bradbury. And an original fic from a few years back came out with a result of Edgar Allan Poe!

(Hmm. I think maybe I need to step back from fandom if that's what it's doing to my writing voice, turning it into a Stephen King/Dan Brown cross. I don't want to sound like a generic modern thriller.)

The meme does know what it's talking about re: you and Tolkien, btw... I just had to type in a random passage from FotR to test, and sure enough it nailed it! ;-)

[halavana.livejournal.com]

I'll see that Tolkien, and raise you two Dan Browns and an Asimov. That was fun, Ada. :^D

[primsong.livejournal.com]

Isn't it? It makes me want to go back and try a few more to see who else surfaces.

[halavana.livejournal.com]

Weird. "To Snare an Elf" brought up Jack London. Weird.

[livii.livejournal.com]

Nabokov is the author of Lolita! I'd be thrilled to have my writing compared to his...

I played with this a bit, but it seemed very arbitrary. I did like the one where I got a comparison to P.G. Wodehouse! :)

[primsong.livejournal.com]

I just read the wiki page for Mr. Nabokov and their mention of his use of both word play and colors makes it make sense to me as I take those elements into account with any passages that run poetic and/or descriptive (though I'm sure not to his apparent level - he was one of those people who saw emotions, etc. as colors, wow...) It must have been picking up on all the emotional/color/texture references.

And Wodehouse! Woot for Wooster and co., one of my very faves, you are well complimented indeed by that one.

[lin4gondor.livejournal.com]

I couldn't get Tolkien, no matter what I tried! Even when I used a passage that used Boromir's name, I got Stephen King. *sigh* Guess I don't mind being compared to him, though...

[primsong.livejournal.com]

I wondered if it was keying into his character names - apparently it wasn't the telling ingredient... Mr. King has quite a following, though, in great part, I've been told, because he is "so readable" - certainly your work is that, and nicely done as well. :-)
*pats Lin's writing in admiration*

[john_amend_all]

I experimented. Character names make a big difference.

[curuchamion.livejournal.com]

'how did Rivendell Int'l Airport, a parody, land a Stephen King badge?'

I have no idea, but my Hitchhiker's Guide to MacGyver - one of the silliest pieces I've written - got Stephen King too! Obviously the content is not what's being analyzed.

[primsong.livejournal.com]

I remember that one X-D - and I have no idea why that would be "King" either. Was he the catch-all for the meme-writer, that if it didn't fit something else it was King? Or is it the conversational running-thought feel of it?

[john_amend_all]

One of mine came up as H. P. Lovecraft, of all the things.

It decided another one was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle — in that one, I was trying to write like Colin Dexter!

[primsong.livejournal.com]

Which makes me wonder, if Colin Dexter were to try this meme, would he be told he writes like Doyle as well?

[john_amend_all]

I've just fed it a page of Dexter, and it decided he was Lovecraft.

[thisbluespirit]

Oh, well done. I kept getting Dan Brown for anything descriptive and Stephen King for anything dialogue-heavy, or light.

But I did manage two PG Wodehouses (one for my PG Wodehouse crossover with DW/Blandings, so that made my day), but the other I was attempting to write like Georgette Heyer instead...

And an old original fic gave me Dan Brown with one snippet and Arthur Conan Doyle further down the page.

I think the wonderful collection you got does actually say something about your style - you're so descriptive, and poetic and really do write well. My fanfic (and most things really) is all haste and dialogue, and I think it tells.