Funny feedback on “I Write Like”
July 13, 2010 by Dmitry
I did a couple of searches on Twitter, Facebook, and Google to find out what results people are getting from I Write Like and collected a few gems:
Everybody loves Dan Brown
“I just spent about 15 minutes messing around with this. Very neat. I then made the unfortunate decision to show it to my girlfriend, who is now angry at me that it said she writes like Dan Brown.” (source)
“Oh my goodness. I write like Dan Brown. http://iwl.me/b/cfe99843 Lol, and I pasted a part of my thesis. This is not good, is it?” (source)
“According to the meme that’s going around the interwebs, I write (prose) like Margaret Atwood. I was terrified it would say Dan Brown and I’d have to give up writing!” (source)
Stephen King’s money
“I analyzed the WIP and the New Shiny, and learned that I write like Stephen King. Now if only I could earn like him… laughs” (source)
“I write like Stephen King. Proof: http://iwl.me/s/b3a26720 Now if I can sell as many books, then I’ll be happy.” (source)
How robots will steal your job
“LOL! I just did this too. Posted the resignation I gave to my last job and got Isaac Asamov in return after running through a whole bunch of others with different pieces of different fics!” (source)
Science fiction
Apparently my writing is like Isaac Asimov. Interesting http://iwl.me/ I feed in the intro paragraphs of my Med104 A2. Must mean I write fiction. (source)
Important issues
According to http://iwl.me/ , my fiction and non-fiction writing most resembles Kurt Vonnegut. Except when I’m writing about important social issues. Then, consistently, I come across as Douglas Adams. I think I understand why I’m not taken seriously any longer. (source)
The first rule of writing is…
“The first rule is: no-one talks about my writing” [badge: I write like Chuck Palahniuk] “The second rule is… no-one talks about my writing.” (source)
“Kevin Lovelace “Depending on what I feed it, I keep getting Chuck or Margaret Atwood as an answer. chuck more often. Though that would be a HELL of a cover blurb: “Schmidt writes like a combination of Chuck Palahuniuk and Margaret Atwood!” — Neil Gaiman” (source)
“http://iwl.me/ Got a couple Dan Browns, but other than that I’m in good company. When I use profanity, I get at least a Chuck Palahniuk.” (source)
Literary career
— I Write Like Mark Twain
— So, are you running away to the mighty Mississippi any time soon, Huck?
— Nah! Rumors of my impending literary career are greatly exaggerated!
(source)
I blame you
“so…my most recent writing came up as Dan Brown. However, anything that I wrote with Parker Saulli came up with JK Rowling. I blame you, Parker. I BLAME YOU.” (source)
Thanks for all the feedback so far. Keep having fun!
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Poor Dan Brown! If you’d included Barbara Cartland or Nicholas Sparks in the algorithm, there’d probably be a lot more woe and gnashing of teeth.
Umm… Well, I just pasted an extract from Twilight… and it said it was like Stephen King’s writing. I just about shot something.
Jess: Haha, I guess I have to add Stephenie Meyer into the database on the next update :-)
who is dan brown, and why does everyone hate him?
Thanks for the giggle, mate!
Dan Brown is the author of the Da Vinci Code and several other novels. He’s known for not knowing what he’s talking about and having the exact same plot in every novel he’s written.
I got Stephen King for a creative writing paper and a screenplay and I’ve never even read King to judge. Also, I feel like Dan Brown is getting a bad rap here, Angels and Demons was a really good book that gets marginalized by The Da Vinci Code’s success
I loved putting different pieces of my writing in there and seeing what it comes up with.
What I would love to know, though, is: what criteria did you use? Was it words, or the sentence structure, or what? Or is it random?
Simone: both words and sentence structure (not random). I will explain more in the upcoming post in about a week or so.
Ah, thank you! I was really curious, because I kept getting various answers, depending on what I submitted. Though the most consistent answer was Dan Brown. gg
Looking forward to hearing more about this!
MLK Jr’s “I Have a Dream” is written in the style of Edgar Allan Poe.
“The Raven” is written in the style of William Shakespeare.
Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 is written in the style of Charles Dickens.
The first paragraph of Great Expectations is written in the style of P.G. Wodehouse, whoever the heck that is.
It seems authors never write in their own styles.
I made up a game out of this: name any two authors and find the shortest chain of works between them.
(The above comment is also written in the style of P.G. Wodehouse, funnily enough. Should I be checking this guy out?)
My nerdery is confirmed! I apparently write like H.P. Lovecraft, even in work-related emails.
I posted a novel that I’m working on and got Stephanie Meyer. I shall never write again!
Like Jen above, I too write like H.P. Lovecraft, and I could be more eldritch or sepulchral.
My grad school statement of purpose read first like Lovecraft, then like David Foster Wallace. I’m really interested in what metrics you guys use and how the data analysis comes up with this answers.
I think I’m going to call bullshit.
I pasted my own writing in, and found out that I “write like” David Foster Wallace. Mmmm — kay, hadn’t heard of him, did a quick google search and found that he is considered by some to be obscure and inaccessible.
Problem is, I went around copying and pasting from random blog posts, and it looks as though everyone I read writes like the late David Foster Wallace. I think I’ll go look up an online Bible and see whether Matthew, Mark, Luke and John write like David Foster Wallace…
LOL! I bet Matthew writes like Mark; Mark writes like Luke; Luke writes like John; and John writes like crazy.
Here’s an idea to please your politically correct critics:
You could display your programming skills by quickly adding millions* of new authors to the main database and making a user interface something like this:
ORDER YOUR CUSTOM DATA-BASE
Enter your preferred percentage of authors who are: ….Race A, Race B, etc ….Gender A, Gender B, etc ….Sexual preference etc ….Aged ….Liberal, Conservative, Tory, etc etc Important: Can a single author serve in more than one category? yes/no
OR CHOOSE AMONG THESE READY-MADE SETS (may choose more than one) ….Chosen by [various people] ….Reviewed by [various critics] ….Contents of Project Gutenberg ….Contents of Harvard 5-Foot Shelf ….Top sellers at Amazon ( alltime/recent )
*ie, add any author that anybody submits
My serious writing was similar to Arthur C Clarke. My humorous pieces were similar to David Foster Wallace - the guy who wrote a 400 plus pages suicide note? ROFLMAO! And here I thought I wrote like PG Wodehouse or Arthur Conan Doyle!
I entered the first few lines of Green Eggs and Ham and got Gertrude Stein! Well done!
@william thank you for the succinct explanation
this site was linked to me by my brother while we were chatting on skype. i didn’t have any recent writing on hand, so i copied my conversation with my brother into a word document and deleted all of his remarks, so that only my own writing remained. i pasted that into the box, and my result was isaac asimov ^_^