... Isaac Asimov. How do I know this? Because I've just been dabbling on the new 'I Write Like' website that has been taking the internet by storm.If you visit I Write Like you can find out which famous writer your writing most closely resembles. All you need to do is copy and paste a few paragraphs of your writing, hit the 'analyse' button, and hey presto! The site does some complicated statistical comparison against a database of famous writers (the site developers know about this sort of stuff) and comes up with a name.
Not entirely happy with Asimov, I tried again with some different prose and ended up with William Gibson.
So successful has 'I Write Like' been that the site has even got its own spoof. It's called I Actually Write Like and offers to tell you "who or what writer, animal or household object you most write like".
Ok, so here the answer is somewhat less flattering. It came up with "I actually write like... a drunk working through issues"!
Well, it is Monday.
Go on, have a go. I'd really like to know who you (actually) write like. Let me know in the comments below.
Best wishes,
Claire Fogg (Publisher)
I Write Like is now on Twitter
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Luke Burnhope on July 19, 2010
Using the first link so far I've had, Vladimir Nabokov, James Joyce, J K Rowling and Cory Doctorow all in the same novel. With the other link it said, 'a moonstruck lunatic possibly actually wearing a straightjacket,' which is probably much more accurate.
Xean Puccio on July 19, 2010
Interesting Claire. I Write Like apparently compares the structure of a written entry to that of published authors. For the record, I don't believe it means anything, but here is mine…
NONFICTION PROSE ANALYSIS
I write prose like: Ernest Hemingway.
FICTION PROSE ANALYSES
I write fiction prose like: James Joyce.
POETRY ANALYSES
I write poetry like: Dan Brown
I was hoping my writing would compare to Stephen Hawking, Joseph Campbell and Shakespeare or Carl Sagan, Alexandre Dumas, and Dante Alighieri, but alas. I guess I try too hard (don’t laugh, it’s not easy to become an apex writer like all the writers mentioned in this comment and fact is, if you were to ask, I’d answer my odds of actually, eventually being as good as any of them would be six billion to one. Point is, I don’t want to be as great as they were, I just want to write my ideas in my way as skillfully as they wrote their ideas in theirs.). …And Claire, Asimov sounds like a complement. You write like one of the greatest sci-fi writers ever. My guess is, since you are involved in popularizing technical aspects of the field, you’re writing naturally has a technical, yet popular style. There, now you’ve got me acting like an analyzer.
Xean
19/1/7/2010
Michael Burns on July 19, 2010
'I actually write like' "something that's rolling about on the keyboard" apparently. A sad departure from the original similarity to Robert Louis Stevenson prompted by the same review of The Illusionist.
Meanwhile some technical writing I'm doing is just like Cory Doctorow...does anyone else think this is rather a limited selection?
ps Just bought your book!
Claire Fogg on July 19, 2010
Ha ha, and yes, I agree, Michael - it is a bit limited.
Margaret Atwood tried it out and found that she wrote like Stephen King! (The algorithm thingummy has since been expanded so her writing style is in there now.)
I also "actually write like... an adolescent goth after a heavy night on the absinthe". Definitely more accurate.
Gavin Hetherington on July 19, 2010
I write like... Neil Gaiman
I actually write like... something rolling about at random on the keyboard, possibly in pain