More fun in the 'I Write Like' universe, this time with Famous Authors
>> July 15, 2010
As promised, I've done some research on how the famous published writers fare when put through the I Write Like web-thingy. (for the previous post where I test my own writing please go here).
Here is what I found (in no particular order):
Neil Gaiman: excerpt from American Gods reads like Margaret Attwood while excerpt from Stardust reads like J R R Tolkien and excerpt from Neverwhere reads like Harry Harrison.
Terry Pratchett: excerpt from Small Gods reads like Daniel Defoe, excerpt from Thief of Time reads like Mark Twain, excerpt from Witches Abroad reads like Arthur Conan Doyle and
excerpt from Good Omens (by Gaiman&Pratchett) reads like Mark Twain.
JK Rowling, Dan Brown and Stephanie Meyer read like themselves.
PG Woodhouse's The Code of The Woosters reads like PG Woodhouse!
HP Lovecraft (from complete works of):
The Moon Bog reads like James Joyce but The Outsider reads like HP Lovecraft!
Stephen King: excerpts from Salem's Lot and Shining read like Stephen King!
James Joyce: Ulysses & Dubliners read like James Joyce! Rejoice! I wasn't going to go anywhere near Finnigan's Wake.
Iain Banks: Prologue to Matter reads like George Orwell while extract from Inversions reads like Charles Dickens.
Margaret Atwood: in The Blind Assassin reads like Margaret Atwood.
Since BookBrowse is such a darling little resource, I decided to go through their award winners list and see what came up:
Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel is the 2009 Man Booker prize winner and reads like James Joyce (the book also won National Book Critics Circle Award)
When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stroud (Newbury Medal winner 2010) reads like Stephen King.
Brooklyn by Colm Toibin, winner of Costa Award (formerly Whitbread) reads like Stephen King.
there were no available excerpts for National Book Awards winners
In the BookBrowse's own Award category:
The Help by Katherine Stockett winner of Diamond Award for Most Popular Book 2009 reads like H.P. Lovecraft.
I then decided to check out The New York Times Best Seller List:
Number 1 - Private by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro - Prologue excerpt reads like James Joyce
Number 2 - Sizzling Sixteen by Janet Evanovich - excerpt reads like Chuck Palahniuk
Number 3 - The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson excerpt reads like Dan Brown
Number 4 - Overton Window by Glen Beck (it was impossible to find a decent excerpt so I had to type in the first few paragraphs of the Chapter 1 instead- this meant a much shorter sample than the others and it also means I've actually read the sample that was offered for analysis and can tell you that I wish I hadn't. That being said,) reads like Mario Puzo
Number 5 - The Help by Kathryn Stockett reads like H.P. Lovecraft
And there you are. It was fun and I've discovered new books and new authors but I've failed to divine the order behind the madness and short of being given access to the IWriteLike database I don't think I ever will. Apparently there are tons of other writers in the I Write Like database that one could conceivably write like but the ones I've tested seem to be fairly consistent. If you, too, have been playing with this toy and have come across 'write like' authors I haven't mentioned here, please drop me a note in the comments. Madeleine did in the previous post and I was very interested to learn that she had very varied results including "Stephen King, James Joyce, William Shakespeare, Lewis Carroll, H.P. Lovecraft, Charles Dickens, Jack London, Margaret Atwood, Oscar Wilde, Mario Puzo, Ian Fleming, and J.R.R. Tolkien." Jack London and Oscar Wilde in particular are of interest (as is Ian Fleming) as I haven't come across these results in any of my searches. I couldn't resist a quick analysis of Jack London's own writing but it came back as himself, ditto Oscar Wilde.
It would have been nice to have a little commentary to go with the analysis, something like: 'You write like HP Lovecraft - here's why'. I tried to look for information on writings structure of famous writers but before I could get far I came across this and it made me laugh so much that I forgot what I was looking for in the first place.
If anyone wants to add or comment or expand on this little rambling research, I would be very interested to hear their thoughts.
Thank you for reading.
We will now return to our scheduled interwebz silence.
PS This post reads like H. P. Lovecraft
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3 comments:
That's so funny that certain authors didn't come up as being like themselves! I'm definitely curious as to how they achieve the results. And, like you, I would love a further explanation in the results, telling why you write like said famous author.
I'll have to check out some of those authors since they write like others I like.:)
It's interesting also that the same writer comes up as being like different people - especauilly someone like Terry Pratchett who I would have expected to get consistent results.
Did you do "The Graveyard Book"? Who did that come out as?
Exactly. I was also surprised that some authors, who I'd consider to have a very definite voice and way of writing didn't come up like themselves (like Pratchett).
Phiala thinks it's all to do with frequency of word use and sentence length and obviously that is what they say they use, but I still can't quite understand it.
I did test the few first paragraphs of the GB and was annoyed at the results so I didn't report them. Was too scared to test Coraline after that *grin*.
What gets me is - why does Dan Brown sound like himself? *shakes head*
Madness..the whole thing is madness
however I was very happy to read on Neil's twitter timeline that someone got him as a result (even if it was a completely random sentence they used) I wonder if Terry is in there too.
I think smaller paragraphs have more chance of coming up as something other than Joyce or King or Brown.
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