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With Whom Are You Compared?

I always hated being asked who my influences were as I always saw myself as unique.

A little maturity teaches me that any writer is li6ttle more than the aggregate of their favourite writers, tropes and styles, so I have gradually accepted that people cannot help but compare me with those who went before, and a little honest analysis can even show me precisely the previous paths I've followed.

Putting my crime novels to one side, readers of my other (speculative fiction) work tend mostly to compare me with Michael Moorcock, Kurt Vonnegut and Douglas Adams. I do enjoy all of those writers so its hard to say I wasn't influenced, but I've only recently accepted that perhaps I wasn't as unflinchingly original as I thought.

And being compared with such giants is hardly an insult.

With whom have you been compared, and / or whose influence do you detect within your own work?
 

Insolent Lad

Maester
I've got Neil Gaiman, though I have, in truth, read little of him. I really consider Kipling to be my earliest, strongest influence (with ER Burroughs, Cabell, Dunsany, and Evelyn Waugh along the way).
 

Demesnedenoir

Myth Weaver
Abercrombie & Martin, and I only read any Abercrombie after being compared to him, LOL. Wheel of Time also comes up a lot, no idea why. And one beta reader from these boards swears I write like Frank Herbert.
 

pmmg

Myth Weaver
I was compared to Jordan once, but not in a flattering way....

I think of all the writing styles I have encountered, I am most like Howard, but not as thick in it as he is. When I look at my own stuff, I can see all of the influences that were in me when I wrote them. I don't know if others can. I am not sure how I feel about all of it anyway. If someone says, Hey you are just like so-and-so, I might flip that say...or they are just like me. Cause really, I probably have not read them, I have put a lot of effort into my own style, and feel comparisons are not really accurate anyway.

There was a post once where you could submit a sample, and a computer would see who you compared to.

Feeding it now into a tool at coding robots, it came back with JK Rowling. I think that unlikely. I think in the past, I matched with James Joyce.

I Write Like
 

Demesnedenoir

Myth Weaver
I did ScoreIt once for fun and it came back with Abercrombie for two of the three categories for similarity, but the grammar and whatnot were not that close. No one it compared me to had similar grammar. I think I'm a little bit distinct in the way I word things. The other two authors it compared me to were Sci-fi and nobody whose name I remember.

The main trouble with readers is that they can be comparing specific things that I wouldn't think of comparing. I tend to think of writing style, not the stories themselves when it comes to comparisons, but the stories are probably the most useful to readers.


I was compared to Jordan once, but not in a flattering way....

I think of all the writing styles I have encountered, I am most like Howard, but not as thick in it as he is. When I look at my own stuff, I can see all of the influences that were in me when I wrote them. I don't know if others can. I am not sure how I feel about all of it anyway. If someone says, Hey you are just like so-and-so, I might flip that say...or they are just like me. Cause really, I probably have not read them, I have put a lot of effort into my own style, and feel comparisons are not really accurate anyway.

There was a post once where you could submit a sample, and a computer would see who you compared to.

Feeding it now into a tool at coding robots, it came back with JK Rowling. I think that unlikely. I think in the past, I matched with James Joyce.

I Write Like
 

Demesnedenoir

Myth Weaver
I think I got a deal on it, but I don't really remember. It's been years. I really did it for entertainment purposes only, satisfying curiosity. The annoying part was that no one it listed was near my grammar.
 

Mad Swede

Auror
Publishers always like to flatter you by saying how wonderful and unique you are as an author but the truth is, as The Dark One says, thay we're all influenced by what we've read. I've been compared to Madeleine Bäck, Mons Kallentoft and Jens Lapidus, which I guess means they think I write Nordic fantasy noir. I've no idea how true that is, I write because I enjoy doing so and I write the sort of stories I like to read. I'm not sure what that all says about me.
 
Publishers always like to flatter you by saying how wonderful and unique you are as an author but the truth is, as The Dark One says, thay we're all influenced by what we've read. I've been compared to Madeleine Bäck, Mons Kallentoft and Jens Lapidus, which I guess means they think I write Nordic fantasy noir. I've no idea how true that is, I write because I enjoy doing so and I write the sort of stories I like to read. I'm not sure what that all says about me.
Yep that's me also.
 
I did this and it came up with Ursula K. Le Guin…

Now I need to go check out whom she is…
Okay, maybe I’m flattered, she wrote the Earthsea series. I’ve never read any of her work though maybe that needs to change, and I realise I have The Left Hand of Darkness on my never ending list of books to read already!
 

Mad Swede

Auror
Wasn't it Roger Ebert who tried I Write Like and found that it thought he wrote like Margaret Atwood, that Atwood wrote like H. P. Lovecraft, and that Lovercraft wrote like James Joyce?
 

Ban

Troglodytic Trouvère
Article Team
Using IWriteLike, I received Mary Shelley, Arthur C Clarke, Edgar Allen Poe and Ursula K Le Guin. A fine and lofty company, but I figure the site simply doesn't know what to do with me. Mind you, I did test both poetry and prose.
 

pmmg

Myth Weaver
I did this and it came up with Ursula K. Le Guin…

Now I need to go check out whom she is…
I can feel authors all across the writerverse gnashing their teeth and pulling at their hair.

But its okay, I did not read Earthsea either.
 
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