Nathan Bransford - The Forums

I tested the prologue plus the first chapter of my WIP. The prologue (which is a letter written in the eighteenth century) came out as Jane Austen. Not very surprised there. Part One of my first chapter also came out as Jane Austen, Part Two as William Gibson and Part Three as Jonathon Swift spelt on the site as Johanthon

I got a handful of randoms (Vladimir Nabokov, Neil Gaiman, Margaret Atwood), but overwhelmingly the samples I fed in came out David Foster Wallace.

Whether or not that's true, it seems to imply I have a reasonably consistent style... so, at least that's good, heh.

My friend fed in one of her legal documents and got Kurt Vonnegut.

I tested five different sections from my WIP and they all came back David Foster Wallace. Another one of my projects came back as Dan Brown.

So I fed in pages from my first MS and I got Ian Fleming and Stephen King :S

I then fed in pages from my WIP and I got James Joyce and Margaret Mitchell.

I'd just like to say, they are both YA with distinct teenage voices. Fun, but inaccurate.

My blog posts are like William Shakespeare. My poetry is like James Joyce. My novel is like David Foster Wallace.

Are you guys noticing a pattern here?

Apparently, Shakespeare would have been a whiz in Internet communications.

I plugged in my first five pages and came up with Ursula K. Le Guin. I'm ashamed to say I've never read anything of hers, but at least the genre she wrote in is close.

I plugged in a single page from the middle of my WIP and it spit out James Joyce. Apparently I'm writing The Wizard Ulysses.

Sheesh. I just punched in some of my earlier work and got Doctor Seuss and Pee Wee Herman.

Fascinating results all around. If there's a commonality, it seems it might be language epoch. Language today has many Postmodern influences. Early Twentieth century, Modernism influences. Mid-late Nineteenth century, Realism influences. Eighteenth century, Romanticism influences. And in age developmental reading and writing skill epoch as well: primary grades, middle grades, young adult, early adult, adult.

Well this is a fun toy (site)!!!

For fun, I punched in excerpts from various works:

~~

A YA magical realism excerpt got Stephen King.

My first novel got Vladimir Nabokov.

A recent short novel got David Foster Wallace.

A children's play got James Joyce. A short children's story got James Joyce too.

And a more literary WIP novel got HP Lovecraft (and a shorter version JK Rowling).

And an experimental literary novella got Ursala K. Le Guin.

~~

It's like you can do no wrong.

I plugged in what I have of my latest WIP and it says Chuck Palahniuk. Then out of curiosity I grabbed the first complete story I wrote and typed in the whole first chapter and it said Stephen King. And now I'm really curious thanks to that Shakespeare comment, so, grabbing my latest blog post with length says Chuck Palahniuk, which considering my blog is written more or less how I speak...although now I wonder if I've been inadvertently writing my WIPs to mirror my speech.

Hilarious.

My first chapter: like Dan Brown

My second chapter: like Vladimir Nabokov

My third chapter: like David Foster Wallace

My name and address and a half-page of scribbled notes: like David Foster Wallace

Quill,
That is toooo funny!
Is Pee Wee Herman an an author?

Thanks, that was fun and timely. I was just wondering this yesterday!

rose,
aka King/Wallace/Vonnegut

I put in my first chapter and it said I write like David Foster Wallace. That's pretty ironic I think because I had just finished Infinite Jest before writing that chapter, and that was kind of what I was going for. :)

I did one chapter of my WIP at a time:

1 Margaret Atwood
2 David Foster Wallace
3 H.G. Wells
4 Neil Gaiman
5 H.P. Lovecraft
6 David Foster Wallace
7 Dan Brown
8 Daniel Defoe
9 Mario Puzo

At first I thought this was just a frivolity but I can see some reasons why the analysis turned the way it did. I can understand Wells and Lovecraft, and maybe Puzo makes sense. Chapter 7 has seventeen short scenes, so that explains the choice there.