Friday 3 May 2013

More on "I Write Like"

I did one post on "I Write Like," a web site that reveals what writer writes most like you. It's fun. However, it occurred to me that it would be even more fun to post samples of famous writers' work for the site to chew on. Does Hemingway write like Hemingway? Or does Shakespeare write like Hemingway?Here are a few results.

When I put in Hemingway's short story "Hills Like Elephants," I discover that Hemingway writes like Rudyard Kipling. Surprisingly, when I tried "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi," I discovered that Rudyard Kipling writes like Rudyard Kipling. Surely that is an anomaly, as it is inconsistent with the other conclusions of this fascinating web service.

Mark Twain writes like Shakespeare, at least in his classic "The War Prayer." In contrast, Shakespeare writes like Shakespeare, based on a sample from "As You Like It."

A bit from Robert E. Howard's "Red Shadows," reveals that he writes like Stephanie Meyer, the author of the Twilight series. On the other hand, Stephanie Meyer, who provided a sample chapter from her novel The Host on her website, writes like Robert Louis Stevenson.

Theodore Sturgeon gave good advice when he said, "Ask the next question," so I immediately took "The Story of the Young Man with the Cream Tarts" from Stevenson's New Arabian Nights for the site to chew on. Stevenson writes like Anne Rice, apparently. So does Edgar Allan Poe ("The Masque of the Red Death"), whereas Anne Rice herself (Chapter 1 of Taltos) writes like Chuck Palahniuk, the author of The Fight Club.

I think this mad trail should end with that or it might never end at all.

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