I must have been having a really good day. Leave it to dryly funny Alex Beam of the Boston Globe to come up with this – it is a site (“The internet sensation of the moment”) called I Write Like and you type in a writing sample (cut and paste in my case) and it compares your prose to a famous writer. At first I was told that I write like David Foster Wallace – yeah, I wish – and I submitted another sample (what, because Foster Wallace wasn’t good enough?) and I also write like Cory Doctorow (evidently a famous sci-fi writer and blogger) and Alex Beam also writes like Doctorow. I am having way to much fun with this – try it out. Read Alex Beam’s column here. Maybe I should analyze everything I’ve written and see if I am just charmingly varied or all over the map. Okay – it says I also write like Dan Brown, Ian Fleming and Stephen King. Man, I need to focus on one style, maybe. Here is an interview with the creator of the site, (only 27 years old) Dmitry Chestnykh, at The Awl.
5 comments on “Alex Beam of the Boston Globe writes like Cory Doctorow and weirdly, when I am not writing like David Foster Wallace, so do I”
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Wow! That is so much fun! But I am a bit suspicious, since it told me I write like… you guessed it, David Foster Wallace. 4 out of 5 times. Either the whole thing is a sham, there’s a glitch in it that makes something always point to DFW, or DFW is so influential that we all unwittingly mimic him. Curious to hear what others get!
I am scared to try it.
I did it for you (your post on design track mind) you write like Chuck Palahniuk -Charles Michael “Chuck” Palahniuk (pronounced /ˈpɑːlənɪk/;[1] born February 21, 1962) is an American transgressional fiction novelist and freelance journalist. He is best known for the award-winning novel Fight Club, which was later made into a film directed by David Fincher. (from wikipedia) but then I put in the post about books you were forced to read as a child and you write like Vladimir Nabokpv…not bad!
I loved the site myself. I submitted a writing sample and it came back J.D. Salinger. An author who I’d heard of but never took the time to read. So I decided to purchase Catcher In The Rye and so far, so good.
Agreed @ the internet sensation at the moment.
Many bloggers have added the site to their respective blogs.