Whom do you write like?

The writing process, writing advice, and updates on your work in progress
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cheekychook
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Re: Whom do you write like?

Post by cheekychook » July 15th, 2010, 11:51 pm

Okay, I've been entering things just to amuse myself (and to procrastinate) and I've gotten an array of answers, most of which seemed pretty random. I just entered a Twilight fan-fiction piece I wrote last year (don't scoff, I did it as a birthday gift for a Twilight obsessed friend for the purpose of filling in the, uhhh, somewhat sparse details that were left out of the "sex scene" in book four)---anyway, I plugged it into the site and low and behold---it said I write like Stephanie Meyer! And it didn't say that with any of the other pieces entered. Color me surprised!
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dios4vida
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Re: Whom do you write like?

Post by dios4vida » July 16th, 2010, 11:26 am

This can be WAAAAAAYYY too dangerous!

The first chapter of my completed novel: Ray Bradbury

The first chapter of my WIP: Neil Gaiman

I don't know what to say, since I'm not a terribly huge fan of either...but I do write fantasy, and since Neil Gaiman is a huge name (I do love the movie Stardust, just not the book) I guess that's good, right?

Now I'm wondering what other things I can put in there. I do have one trunked novel, and I'd love to see what it says but I'm terrified it'll say "You Write Like Unpublishable Crap!"
Brenda :)

Inspiration isn't about the muse. Inspiration is working until something clicks. ~Brandon Sanderson

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khanes
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Re: Whom do you write like?

Post by khanes » July 16th, 2010, 12:53 pm

This is hilarious!! One of my WIP's came out like Stephen King, the other like David Foster Wallace. I think my first one came out like King because it had several expletives. hahahaha.

M. L. Cortner
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Re: Whom do you write like?

Post by M. L. Cortner » July 17th, 2010, 4:02 am

I'm amused (and a bit confused) to see that I am the first to have this thing tell me I write like Edgar Allan Poe.
Not only this, but nearly everything I pasted into it came out as such.

Hilariously, the three other outcomes I got were Dan Brown for an action scene, Oscar Wilde in a more recent piece, and Stephanie Meyer in a scene rife with adjective and adverb abuse.


I'm interested in all the Poe results, since none of the scenes I pasted in were particularly macabre or Poe-like.

xouba
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Re: Whom do you write like?

Post by xouba » July 17th, 2010, 6:43 am

Apparently, I write like Jack London. At least in english, of course. I don't think the gadget supports spanish :-)

Ironically, I've never read any Jack London. Maybe it's time I start.

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J. T. SHEA
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Re: Whom do you write like?

Post by J. T. SHEA » July 17th, 2010, 8:41 pm

Nathan, can we now look forward to JACOB WONDERBAR WANDERS AROUND DUBLIN FOR A DAY?

I put in 'All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.' repeated dozens of times, and 'I Write Like' said I write like P. G. Wodehouse! Not Jack Torrance or Stephen King? Maybe Wodehouse's ghost haunts the Overlook Hotel.

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knight_tour
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Re: Whom do you write like?

Post by knight_tour » July 20th, 2010, 1:34 am

I put in the first few chapters of my fantasy novel and it said I write like Charles Dickens.

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Ishta
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Re: Whom do you write like?

Post by Ishta » July 20th, 2010, 11:25 pm

I blog like David Foster Wallace, pretty consistently (with one foray into Kurt Vonnegut territory).

I put in a picture book, which came out as J K Rowling. And the chase scene I wrote for Nathan's contest a while back came out as Stephen King.

My husband pointed out that obviously, everything that I write for publication in book form will be a blockbuster that gets made into a wildly popular movie. :-)

If only!

jfw
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Grammar question re: Whom do you write like?

Post by jfw » July 21st, 2010, 2:40 am

I've been looking at that subject line and I keep thinking it should be "Who do you write like?" My reasoning is that to determine the case of an interrogative pronoun, you turn the question into a statement and change "who|whom" to "he|him":
"You write like him" doesn't sound right because there's actually an implied predicate, which would have been in parentheses in a sentence diagram. You're actually saying "You write like he writes." So the correct form would be "Who do you write like?"
If I'm right, there's probably little hope that we'll still be using "who" at all a century from now as "whom" will have replaced it as the nominative, similar to when "you" replaced "ye" some time ago.
Am I correct, completely wrong or are both forms acceptable?

daydreamin
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Re: Whom do you write like?

Post by daydreamin » July 27th, 2010, 9:07 pm

Mostly I got David Foster Wallace and Dan Brown, but a few glowing times I got J.K Rowling and Shakespeare

Wish I knew how they calculate that.

Down the well
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Re: Whom do you write like?

Post by Down the well » July 28th, 2010, 3:24 pm

daydreamin wrote:Wish I knew how they calculate that.
I was curious about this too. My result said Ursula K. Le Guin, but I'd never read anything of hers so I had no idea what that meant.

I ended up checking out her novel, The Left Hand of Darkness, and found a concrete similarity in our writing. She and I both love the hyphenated word. Within two pages of her novel I found: storm-beaten, rain-beaten, fountain-jets, and soft-running. I do this A LOT, and so I think that is the basis for the site's comparison in my case.

Cacy
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Re: Whom do you write like?

Post by Cacy » July 30th, 2010, 5:43 am

I plugged in sections from six different parts of my manuscript. Here's what I got (In order): Stephanie Meyer, Ray Bradbury, J.R.R. Tolkien, Cory Doctorow (twice) , Chuck Palahniuk,

Now, when an agent asks for a writer to compare themselves to established writer's in their query letters, I can copy and paste this list, right? Although, since I got Doctorow twice (both time for sections from the perspective of the same character), I think I should pick up a book by him.

Cacy
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Re: Whom do you write like?

Post by Cacy » July 30th, 2010, 5:55 am

Okay, I just put in a completely separate story and got Doctorow for a third time. Now I really must investigate immediately! Good thing I work at a bookstore.

This site is dangerously addictive. I really should be working on my best selling novel right now. And yet, I'm going to find something else to plug into the machine.

Bron
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Re: Whom do you write like?

Post by Bron » July 30th, 2010, 6:29 am

This is addictive! I just plugged in two separate, random parts from my WIP and got Chuck Palahnuick and Isaac Asimov. Guess my next novel should be about scientists fighting each other.

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Leonidas
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Re: Whom do you write like?

Post by Leonidas » July 30th, 2010, 7:59 pm

I put in the tentative prelude to my WiP and got Stephen King.
Last edited by Leonidas on July 31st, 2010, 11:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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