# Who Do You Write Like?



## Ruby (Nov 24, 2014)

Who do you write like?

Hi everyone, how's it going? I've just discovered a site called "I Write Like". You paste excerpts from your text and it analyses your writing and tells you which famous writer's style you use. I pasted several bits of chapters from the wip written this week and a year ago. I got Bram Stoker for all of them. At least I'm consistent! As far as I know, I don't have any vampires in my Nanowrimo WIP, set in the Victorian era.  I am writing a graphic novel about vampires, however, so that's interesting!

Here's the link:  I Write Like

Please post your results below!

Do you agree with the verdict? Are you using the same style throughout your book or does it vary?


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## T.Allen.Smith (Nov 24, 2014)

Cory Doctorow.

I know the name, but haven't read anything by him so it's hard to say. Maybe I'll give him a whirl.


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## CupofJoe (Nov 24, 2014)

James Joyce!
I am ever so proud!!!
I don't believe it for a moment but still... if you can fool some of the algorithms some of the time...


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## cupiscent (Nov 24, 2014)

The question of whether it's consistent is a good one. So I tried four chapters of my current WIP (Rudyard Kipling, Neil Gaiman, Douglas Adams, HG Wells respectively) and a couple chapters of the more-polished work awaiting edits (HP Lovecraft and Neil Gaiman).

That's a no on consistency, but I guess I'm going with Gaiman as most common?


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## Legendary Sidekick (Nov 24, 2014)

I write like Cup of Joe!

(1st, 2nd, 3rd person... all James Joyce. I wonder if the site has a rule: when in doubt, say "James Joyce.")


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## Ruby (Nov 24, 2014)

Hey, I just pasted an excerpt from another WIP on "I Write Like". It's the medieval quest story I wrote for Philip Overby's recent 14 day writing challenge and guess what, I'm JRR Tolkien! 

I'm really happy with that!


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## Tom (Nov 24, 2014)

I tried it several times, just because it was so much fun.

For _The North Wind_: I write like Tolkien? Wow, didn't see that one coming! 

For my NaNo: Anne Rice (why?)

For my main WIP, _Southerner_: Neil Gaiman (I was very excited about this one)

For my October Paint a Thousand Words piece: Chuck Palahniuk (...who?)

I was sort of hoping for Ursula K. LeGuin, but alas, it was not to be.


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## Legendary Sidekick (Nov 24, 2014)

Tom Nimenai said:


> For my October Paint a Thousand Words piece: Chuck Palahniuk (...who?)


My brother's favorite author. The one work of his you might know (as a movie) is _​Fight Club._


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## Tom (Nov 24, 2014)

Legendary Sidekick said:


> My brother's favorite author. The one work of his you might know (as a movie) is _​Fight Club._



Ah. I remember hearing of him now. 

...How is my writing like Fight Club in any way? Unless we're talking about writing style, which I suppose could be similar. But still. _Fight Club._

On a similar note, I just tried it with a passage from my personal journal in which I was ranting about my opinion that writers of informative articles using the term "layperson" smacks of condescension. ("Don't tell me I'm stupid because I'm working class!") I used a lot of sarcasm and swore quite a bit in that passage.

...and it told me I write like H. P. Lovecraft. Really? 

I got J. K. Rowling for my piece for the weekly challenge about spear-carriers. 

(I think I'm having too much fun with this thing.)


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## teacup (Nov 24, 2014)

Strange. I pasted a random part of my chapter 1, about a page, and it said Neil Gaiman. I pasted another part which followed on directly from the first part and it said Neil Gaiman again. But when I pasted both of them together and in order, it said Anne Rice.


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## Caged Maiden (Nov 24, 2014)

I pasted several paragraphs of my novel I'm finishing, and I got Kurt Vonnegut (brother and sister lamenting how life isn't fair), William Shakespeare (MC being beat up by some thugs who want him to open his safe), H.P. Lovecraft (scene investigating a ruined church surrounded by graves), Dan Brown (chasing down a bad guy), and Vladimir Nabokov (opening scene where my MC is willing to sacrifice herself to kill her nemesis).  

The thing is, I wonder how the system works, in that during a fight scene, say, where I'm using a different pacing, am I more similar to an author who writes like that all the time, or like someone who writes fight scenes similarly?

Okay, so those were my results anyways.


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## DaFlaminUnicorn (Nov 24, 2014)

So I took it with some of my q & a's as well as a story I'm working on and for the 1st q & a I got Rudyard Kipling, the 2nd q & a I got Cory Doctorow, the 3rd q & a I got Stephen King (How?) and for the story I got Ursula K. Le Guin. Wow. I guess I have a lot of variety.


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## Legendary Sidekick (Nov 24, 2014)

teacup said:


> Strange. I pasted a random part of my chapter 1, about a page, and it said Neil Gaiman. I pasted another part which followed on directly from the first part and it said Neil Gaiman again. But when I pasted both of them together and in order, it said Anne Rice.


I always thought Rice and Gaiman were like the same guy, except that Gaiman is more concise.

Wait. No, I didn't. I'm gonna go to that site right now and call it a fraud.


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## Legendary Sidekick (Nov 24, 2014)

I told the site:


> You are a fraud.
> 
> Just imagine. Getting all these aspiring writers to think they write like famous authors.
> 
> ...


The site told me that's how Douglas Adams would have put it if he were to call someone a fraud.

Huh... Douglas Adams. The Hitchhiker's Guide guy! Well, I don't know what your take on this is, but I'd say I'm hitching a ride on the 18-wheeler to Fameville! If you don't hear from me for the next six weeks, I'm probably signing autographs and smoking hundred dollar bills!


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## Ryan_Crown (Nov 24, 2014)

The intro to my current WIP got me HP Lovecraft. The intro to an older (unfinished) work of mine came up JD Salinger. Apparently I write like authors who use just their first two initials. Does this mean I need to change my pen name to RE Crown?


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## Legendary Sidekick (Nov 24, 2014)

I think that's the standard. R.A. Salvatore, J.K. Rowling... and if your middle initial is R. you change it to double R like Martin and Tolkien had to.


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## Ryan_Crown (Nov 24, 2014)

The more I use this silly site, the more curious I am as to its algorithm. I dropped in a random section of my current WIP, and it came up with Margaret Atwood (a name that only seemed vaguely familiar). Looked her up on Amazon, and she has a novel called "Oryx and Crake". Well as it turns out, the story section I submitted has the word "oryx" used repeatedly (because that is the common mount in my world instead of horses). So I'm guessing that my writing style was linked to hers specifically because of this one word that I happened to use in that section of story.


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## Tom (Nov 24, 2014)

Ryan_Crown said:


> The more I use this silly site, the more curious I am as to its algorithm. I dropped in a random section of my current WIP, and it came up with Margaret Atwood (a name that only seemed vaguely familiar). Looked her up on Amazon, and she has a novel called "Oryx and Crake". Well as it turns out, the story section I submitted has the word "oryx" used repeatedly (because that is the common mount in my world instead of horses). So I'm guessing that my writing style was linked to hers specifically because of this one word that I happened to use in that section of story.



I think you're on to something.

As I mentioned earlier, I got H. P. Lovecraft when I pasted in a swear-word-laden rant from my journal. ...Weird.


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## Legendary Sidekick (Nov 24, 2014)

I'll give the site some credit. I copy-pasted quotes from _The Hobbit_ and _A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_, and the site knew whose work I was plagiarizing.


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## Sir Tristram (Nov 24, 2014)

Wow.  I entered an old short romance story I wrote for some contest or other and got Jane Austen.  Then I tried another couple of short stories and got Stephanie Meyer, Rudyard Kipling, PG Wodehouse, and, finally, Dan Brown.  Having read all of these except Meyer, I'd have to say I write absolutely nothing like any of them.  Not exactly what I was expecting...I wanna see the code.


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## Tom (Nov 24, 2014)

Ouch...I hope for your sake that the algorithm is inaccurate in regards to Meyer...She has some of the worst purple prose I've ever seen. It might just be you use the word _topaz_ a lot, especially to describe eyes.


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## Writeking (Nov 25, 2014)

'It said  'I write like Kurt Vonnegut'.


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## Incanus (Nov 25, 2014)

I put in a bit of my novella WIP, and it said "Edgar Allen Poe".  I'm happy with that, but I'm wondering how deep the author roster is.


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## ThinkerX (Nov 25, 2014)

I put in three samples, one from about fifteen years ago, the others more recent.

With the old piece, it told me I wrote like JRR Tolkien. The other two were Daniel Defoe (of 'Robinson Crusoe' fame) and Ursula K LeGuin.  Makes me wonder if I broke the dang thing.


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## Noma Galway (Nov 25, 2014)

I put in a piece of my WIP that doesn't work with the plot anymore and got Ernest Hemingway. Then I put in some other pieces from that time frame. I again got Ernest Hemingway.

My current and updated WIP (the couple paragraphs I have in that so far) it thinks are written like Anne Rice. I now feel better about my writing.


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## Ruby (Nov 26, 2014)

Hi, I hope you're all finding this useful or, at least, fun! I don't know how accurate it is, but it could be used to check if your writing is consistent within a long work such as an epic novel. I suppose you could also use it if you have different narrators in certain sections of your book. Also, you can check whether you're using an appropriate style for your chosen genre(s).

I'm going to paste some of my flash fiction on there now and see what I get. This has offered a nice little opportunity for procrastination during Nanowrimo!


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## Ruby (Nov 26, 2014)

Omg, I just posted a flash fiction excerpt and got Stephen King! :eek2:


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## Gryphos (Nov 29, 2014)

Wow, this thing just could not decide who I write like. I posted the first five chapters of my WIP and got, in order, Dan Brown, Margaret Atwood, Stephen King, David Foster Wallace and Ursula K. Le Guin. Then I started putting in random sections and got a whole array of writers including Ian Fleming, James Joyce, Harry Harrison, Raymond Chandler and Neil Gaiman.

Not sure what to make of this.


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## KCross (Dec 1, 2014)

This was interesting. Most sections of my writing I got James Fenimore Cooper.


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## kennyc (Dec 10, 2014)

Ruby said:


> Who do you write like?
> 
> Hi everyone, how's it going? I've just discovered a site called "I Write Like". You paste excerpts from your text and it analyses your writing and tells you which famous writer's style you use. I pasted several bits of chapters from the wip written this week and a year ago. I got Bram Stoker for all of them. At least I'm consistent! As far as I know, I don't have any vampires in my Nanowrimo WIP, set in the Victorian era.  I am writing a graphic novel about vampires, however, so that's interesting!
> 
> ...



I love this thing.   I just tried four different flash fiction pieces and got four different answers, H.G. Wells, Arthur C. Clarke, Chuck Palahniuk and David Foster Wallace :rofl:


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## skip.knox (Dec 10, 2014)

I write like every day.

(sorry, I keep seeing the subject line and I finally gave in to my lesser impulses)


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## kennyc (Dec 11, 2014)

skip.knox said:


> I write like every day.
> 
> (sorry, I keep seeing the subject line and I finally gave in to my lesser impulses)



That would be a great pseudonym!


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