*Yes, I realize that schizophrenia isn’t MPD. The joke flows better this way.
Spent a bit of time dinking about with a New Internet Toy today:
Allegedly, if you input several paragraphs of your work, this proggie will analyze it and tell you which Famous Writer your work most resembles.
For a lark I’ve been submitting some of my little scribbles — from this blog and elsewhere — for analysis.
*snerk*
Apparently I write like Cory Doctorow, Dan Brown, HP Lovecraft, Stephen King, Chuck Palahniuk, David Foster Wallace, so on and so forth.
Sweet Freyja on a twister mat but it must be busy in my head.
Meh. Personally, I think those blokes happen write like me once in a while.
LawDog
I tried the same thing and got the same results. My guess is that the script just computes a checksum on the text you paste in, uses that essentially random value to index into a table of well-known authors, and gives you a result with a few sponsored links and ad hits.
Who the hell is Cory Doctrow?
Arthur C Clarke for my navy stories and Mark Twain for a Christmas letter…
They must be using some kind of vocabulary checker…
Apparently, my fiction reminds that site of Oscar Wilde.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who pegged the Lovecraft-o-meter.
😉
Heh. I entered passages from 4 different stories, and got 4 different results: Stephen King, David Foster Wallace, Cory Doctorow and Edgar Allen Poe.
I tried two passages from the same blog post and I got Kurt Vonnegut and Cory Doctorow. Over around a dozen different passages from my blog the only consistent thing was that Kurt Vonnegut (whoever he is) matched about a third.
I took my last 6 blog posts.
2 H. P Lovecraft
1 Dan Brown
1 Kurt Vonnegut
2 David Foster Wallace
In that order.
I am ashamed to admit that I have no clue who D. F. Wallace is.
Not horribly enlightening I am afraid.
Well, I copy-pasted a chunk of lorem ipsum which apparently is in the style of James Joyce.
Lovely. According to this, in my correspondence I write like Dan Brown, which really bothers me because I consider Brown a horrible writer.
On the other hand, when I plugged in outtakes from a couple of my undergrad English essays, I wrote like H. P. Lovecraft and Stephen King. That I can live with.
I'd love to know what kind of algorithm they're using.
Also Cory Doctorow
Cory Doctorow is a blogger and science fiction writer. He blogs on digital rights and related matters.
Three submissions and three results.
Bollocks.
Some paragraphs snipped from pieces by H.P. Lovecraft variously came up as George F. Wallace, and as James Joyce.
Uh, Joyce and Lovecraft wrote NOTHING alike. For one thing, I find Lovecraft to be pretty interesting and less than soporific.
This thing is a random number generator, plain and simple. Give it no more respect than the silly on-line quizzes written by 14 year old fans, to determine which character in X series of TV show, books, or movies you might be.
Sorry.
LOL- pick an author, any author… 🙂
It says I write like Dan Brown. This was news to my publisher.
I was really hoping to score a "Writes like Larry Correia" because that would have been totally awesome.
But Dan Brown does sleep on top of a giant pile of money… Hmmm… I do believe my next novel will be filled with cliches, made up religious trivia passed off as fact, and fabricated nonsense from art history. I'll make the villian a "hulking albino" and I'll make BILLIONS!! Mu Wah HA HA HA!
This is a scam/spam by a lowball publisher for pay. Sorry to tell y'all this.
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It's based on a keyword analysis. Like a spam filter.
I tried several chunks of some of mine.
A couple of Arthur C. Clarke. A Neil Gaiman. Two of the ubiquitous David Foster Wallace, whoever the heck he is. Then Anne Rice and J. K. Rowling — I speculated at the time that was because that was two parts of an alien-viewpoint story where the aliens are mostly female, and all the viewpoint characters are. Lots of "she/her", little or no "he/him".
But their algorithm does seem to be … suspect, at best.
Heh, I submitted four of my more recent "wordy" posts and got:
H.P. Lovecraft, (a commentary on the dangers of Lame Duck Congresscritters)
Arthur C. Clarke (twice, technical discussions on BP's Macondo blowout, both)
and Kurt Vonnegut (a commentary on the problems and dangers of the "Company Man" being in total and ultimate charge on a drill ship.)
Hmm… I just tried a post I wrote about the oversexualization of young girls
(http://redinktexas.blogspot.com/2010/02/it-truly-is-brave-new-world.html)
and it came back with Vladimir Nabokov….
Scary….
Raymond Chandler
….with Charles Dickens, Steven King and Stephenie Meyer.
I think I might of missed my true calling.
Oddly, some of Charles Dickens' short stories are apparently written at least partly in the style of Jack London.
Mine came up Ursula Le Guin.
Not too surprising I guess for a snippet of a novel based in Scotland 500 AD.
(Tallpine)
Same thing. Different paragraphs in the same short story came up as different writers.
So apparently I write like Sybil.
A section of a pirate story I am working on came up as Robert Louis Stevenson while a different part of the story, talking about some irrefutable truths of harbor towns, came up as Dan Brown.
I pretty much had the same experience as everybody else here, with lots of David Foster Wallace and H.P. Lovecroft.
My favorite response was "Vladimir Nabokov" – to this:
"Well, a bunch of the boys from the WR Bar outfit was settin' around the old virtual campfire the other night after a long day chasin' the boss's cows, and in amongst the usual pissin' and moanin' about saddle sores and tight boots the talk got around to firearms.
Everbody started to draggin' out his favorite shootin' irons, and I swan it weren't long before they was just a goin' on to where you'da thought somebody was gonna git up and start spoutin' Shakespeare about his pet hogleg. I just sorta lurked around at the edge of the firelight and laid low, on accounta I ain't armed. I been hangin' my sombrero in a bunkhouse where there's just ever kind of rule against keepin' Evil Machines in your footlocker, and if I was to keep my old 1911 around here I'd be breakin' all kinds of local ordinances. And I'd never do that, acourse.
Afterwhile the general discussion got back around to politics like it will, and the Ramrod made a coupla observations about Chicago. Since they'd bout put away their arsenals, I figgered it was safe to offer a little offhand opinion about the subject. They mostly all just treat me like I'm harmless, and keep me around to make sure the coffee don't boil over and put out the campfire, I reckon. And ever now and then they'll send me out with the hoot owls to yodel a little bit and settle down the dogies when they'd rather be sleepin'. They're a helluva buncha fellas."
Voopie ti-yi-yo…