Thursday, July 15

I Write Like...Dan Brown


I Write Like is a website that uses a "statistical analysis tool" to match up to your writing style to a similar writing style of a "famous writer." I copied and pasted some things I have written (and some things I did not write) into it to see what it came up with.

Here's what I found.

The first round of drafts for a project I've been working on, about people on a rocky beach, was analyzed by I Write Like, as "like" David Foster Wallace.

The second round of drafts for that project was analyzed by I Write Like as "like" Charles Dickens.

The third round of drafts for that project was analyzed by I Write Like as "like" David Foster Wallace again.

My most recently published story, titled "Girl with Cool, Damp Mouth," was analyzed by I Write Like as "like" Raymond Chandler.

My novel, the entirety of it, was analyzed by I Write Like as "like" Chuck Palahniuk.

My novel, the beginning paragraph where I list things that have been published and the places where those things were published, was analyzed by I Write Like as "like" to Dan Brown.

A one-page excerpt from my novel was analyzed as "like" Stephanie Meyer.

A different one-page excerpt from my novel was analyzed as "like" Stephen King.

The novel Great Expectations, written by Charles Dickens, was analyzed by I Write Like as "like" Charles Dickens.

The poem "a poem written by a bear," written by Tao Lin, was analyzed by I Write Like as "like" Jack London.

The poem "i went fishing with my family one time when i was five," or as it's commonly known, "the whale poem," written by Tao Lin, was analyzed by I Write Like as "like" Kurt Vonnegut.

The poem "Goodtime Jesus," written by James Tate, was analyzed by I Write Like as "like" Stephen King.

Three paragraphs taken at random from the novel The Human Stain, written by Philip Roth, were analyzed by I Write Like as "like" David Foster Wallace.

First three paragraphs from the novel A Gate at the Stairs, written by Lorrie Moore, also analyzed as "like"  David Foster Wallace.

Crazy 2000+ word email I sent to bandmates, causing us all to feel bad and weird toward one another, sent in January 2008 -- David Foster Wallace.

Crazy 1000+ word email I sent to girl I was seeing for a little while in 2006, about "complications" and "intimacy issues" -- guess who?

Intensely bitter ~500 word blog post referencing me on girl's blog a few weeks after breaking up -- William Gibson.

The first chapter from the novel The Plot Against America, written by Philip Roth, was analyzed by I Write Like as "like" Kurt Vonnegut.

An excerpt from the novel Snow White, written by Donald Barthelme, was analyzed by I Write Like as "like" J.D. Salinger.

An excerpt from the story "The Crime of the Mathematics Professor," written by Clarice Lispector, was analyzed by I Write Like as "like" Arthur Conan Doyle.

This blog post, written almost entirely in the passive voice, was analyzed by I Write Like as "like" Isaac Aminov.

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bike experiment stats (i reached 1000 miles):

99 days (in SF 6 days, main bike broke for 10 days)
~1033.0 miles
 
86 bridges (willamsburg 61x, manhattan 4x, queensborough 6x, pulaski 6x, brooklyn 1x)
52 subway rides

2 comments:

tsering said...

hey james, nice post. have u seen this?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/17/i-write-like-website-goes_n_650037.html

me, i got a different writer for each paragraph: margaret mitchell, dan brown, david foster wallace, stephen king.

James said...

Funny -- who would have thought Mel Gibson ranted like Margaret Atwood writes and Obama was DFW-ian?