Thursday, July 15, 2010

"I write like..."

I pasted an old blog post into the "I Write Like" site and they gave me this badge:

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



While I know this is a ridiculous comparison--based, I'm guessing, on my use of lots of parentheses and dashes?--and possibly even insulting (read, "convoluted and digressive")--not to mention generated by a machine that serves a commercial, not artistic, interest, nonetheless I now have a little genius halo glowing around my head.

MacArthur grant people?
Over here!

PART TWO
And then I submitted a boring chunk of pedantic hogwash, written for work at a 7th-grade reading level, and the analyzer told me I write like Dan Brown.
Bingo!

Try it and let me know who the machine says you write like.

18 comments:

Dania said...

I posted the beginning of a short story I wrote and got the David Foster Wallace badge. Then I posted one of my blog entries and received a William Gibson badge. I haven't read much of either. Maybe I should, but glad there was no Dan Brown (even with all his money).

rr said...

Dear god. I put in a blog post and was told James Joyce.

Marz said...

After it brought me Stephen King, I became furious and, midst much weeping and gnashing of teeth, hammered out the first nonsense that came to mind:

Your mother is a computer; your father a hairless mole.

What does that make you?

A fly. No, THE fly.


And I'm not even kidding you:

William Shakespeare

Marz said...

OMG.

I just entered a lengthy excerpt from Shatners autobiography;

Margaret Atwood!

poodletail said...

I entered a letter written to my nephew when he was in jail:

David Foster Wallace

What do you make of that?

rr said...

Hahahahahaha! I pasted in some Shakespeare, it said Shakespeare. I pasted in some James Joyce, it said... Leo Tolstoy!

bink said...

When I submitted a very clearly written piece of work, I was told I write like James Joyce. When I submitted some nonsense writing (remember the 'write your own pope book' using all "a" words?) I was told I write like Kurt Vonnegut!

The really sad thing though is the writing I was looking to submit--my big B mystery--has mysteriously disappeared. I hadn't been able to find it on my desktop recently, so I did a very exacting search today... and poof!!!... no where to be found. I'm baffled.

Anonymous said...

I put in the first page of my book for children and it gave me Vladimir Nabokov - disturbing!
Bookworm

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooo said...

I'm yet another James Joyce....but I'm not! ...I am tomorrow, or some future day, what I establish today. I am today what I established yesterday or some previous day....

Heh!

Fresca said...

Oh! All these responses were fun. Thanks!

DANIA: Yes, if only my work writing brought in the bucks, like Dan Brown's...

RR: So, if you write like Joyce and Joyce writes like Tolstoy (!), then you write like Tolstoy!

M'RET: Ah, yes, one of Shakespeare's great Fly sonnets.
Margaret Atwood & Shatner = 2 great Canadian writers.

POODLE: I realize I don't really know you as a writer. (Do you use a lot of parentheses?)

BINK: Oh, too bad about your lost work. You must rally like Carlyle and write the thing again. (Hopefully it's not as long as his burned-up history of the French Revolution.)

BOOKWORM: Nabokov for children. I can't imagine!

MANFRED: As long as it wasn't Ezra Pound, eh?

Lee said...

The problem with this, of course, is there is no "you don't write like anybody important" response. I wrote:

"Hi. How are you? I am fine. Later!"

It said I write like Hemingway!!!

Fresca said...

Well, LEE, Hemingway seems spot on to me.

Bianca Castafiore? said...

H. P. Lovecraft.

"American literature's greatest bad writer."

sigh.

Fresca said...

BIANCA: I've never read Lovecraft, but you are a GOOD writer!

Jennifer said...

I got Stephen King and I can live with that, to be honest. :) I'm sure the general lack of hyphens, parentheses and extra clauses doomed me to my fate. Though I will never match King's standards as he insists on a strict ban on adverbs. I cannot do this, she asserts mournfully.

kluks said...

I entered one random blog writing, although since I am a new blogger, my randomness is limited, and I got Kurt Vonnegut. It's a fun delusion of writing ability.

The Crow said...

I tried this a few days ago, submitting 5 of my blog posts: Stephen King twice, James Joyce, Margaret Atwood and Mario Puzo.

Hah!

Fresca said...

THANKS, all! These are fun!