A Not Very Useful Writer's Meme

[dr_phil_physics]

Name Dropping R Us

Tuesday everybody seemed to be playing with I Write Like... and then publishing the results. The idea is that this website analyses your writing and compares it to a number of Big Name Authors. I suppose this is supposed to be an ego boost, like those short Facebook IQ tests -- as if you could measure IQ with a handful of questions. I think the Which LOTR Character Are You quizzes are probably more interesting than I Write Like...

I ran a couple of pieces of various lengths, some published, some not, through the website. One story, comparing versions, went from Dan Brown to Douglas Adams. It was not a comedy piece, so I'm not sure what the point was. One scored a William Shakespeare. Really? Ol' Bill certainly had a way with those 29th century hard military SF war stories, complete with marines in armored fighting suits, didn't he? Nice to know I'm in such good company.

I don't think very much of their word analysis algorithm, based on other people's results and my own. Dan Brown, for example, shows up a lot because he's a best selling author whose books have a lot of technical issues and dialogue. Which sounds like a lot of SF/F, when you think about it. Duh.

Frankly, My Dear, I Don't Give A Damn

Whatever the algorithm being used, my LJ Friends linking to this are all SF/F/H authors -- and I doubt the people who cobbled this up are very well in tune with genre writing. And then there are people who've dumped in things like computer technical manuals and legal briefs -- and gotten similar results in terms of authors.

When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And painting with a hammer as a broad brush not only is a bad mixed metaphor, but also likely to give really meaningless results.

Me? I prefer the jimhines method:



Now that I am happy to post for all the world to see.

Dr. Phil

UPDATE: I ran the text from the Declaration of Independence and it came back H. P. Lovecraft. Not useful, unless you are into the Mother Of All Conspiracy Theories.

Comments

[anothernathan.livejournal.com]

I write like a syphilitic garden slug with prosthetic hands.

I stumbled across it via Margaret Atwood's tweets...

[(Anonymous)]

Atwood was bemused/offended to discover she writes like Stephen King and James Joyce. But the funny part was that when I ran a post about it (http://shouldersofgiantmidgets.blogspot.com/2010/07/flattered-by-website-id-never-heard-of.html) through Like I write, the result was that the post was written like... Margaret Atwood. So she's in their database, she just doesn't write like herself, apparently.

I'll take being told that I write like Vonnegut as flattery, though I don't really believe it, it's not consciously done if it is true, and I think the algorithm they're using is totally frelled.

-Eric.

Re: I stumbled across it via Margaret Atwood's tweets...

[dr-phil-physics.livejournal.com]

Wonder who Dan Brown and Stephen King write like? (grin)

Actually -- no I don't. (evil grin)

Dr. Phil

[aloysius7.livejournal.com]

I write like I'd like to have what I'm writing be published at some point.

[dr-phil-physics.livejournal.com]

And that is the secret to success, methinks. If you try to write like a Joyce or King or Atwood, you'll fail.

"There is no try, only do." -- Yoda

Dr. Phil

[steve-buchheit.livejournal.com]

Now the bigger question would be if you submitted the same text from different computers/ip addresses and if you would get the same results. Or if the thing is a partial processor with a random number generator on the back-end.

Me, I write like someone who has been dead for a decade. Or at least that's been my sample output for the past month.

[dr-phil-physics.livejournal.com]

So, you input the Declaration of Independence (http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html) text. (I only used the actual text and not the signatures.) And see if you get the same. (grin)

Actually, most of the names in this system are for Dead Men. But not all. (evil grin)

Dr. Phil

[steve-buchheit.livejournal.com]

Also got HP? Okay, either randomize not so random, or they've picked up on this thread and have a cludge installed to return ol' HP for the DoI.

[dr-phil-physics.livejournal.com]

I think it just analyzes a few simple word patterns. Might be more sophisticated than just a vocabulary list, but then there's no intelligence looking at this -- I just dumped in a directory listing of 352 zip files and it came back as Ian Fleming. Really? Seriously? (grin)

Dr. Phil