I Write Like Me

A close friend introduced me to a curious website today. It is called "I Write Like", and claims to tell you which famous authors you are similar to in terms of writing style.

http://iwl.me/

'What a great idea!' I thought to myself. So immediately I set about seeing if my Dickens parody was like Dickens, my The Importance of Being Earnest spoof similar to Wilde, or my Year 12 Lit SAC on The French Lieutenant's Woman was like John Fowles.

And after receiving mixed responses, including quite an adamant consensus by the website that my blog style is most closely aligned with that of H. P. Lovecraft, pioneering gothic and horror writer, whose works had the unifying theme of 'cosmic horror', or the incomprehensibility of human existence and life (perhaps not entirely mismatched).

I am easily distracted by websites such as this one. And so it is that I am going to attempt to discover what it is that makes this site match writing with specific authors.

***STOP READING NOW IF YOU HAVE NO INTEREST IN A DETAILED, QUASI-SCIENTIFIC SERIES OF HYPOTHESES AND TESTING***

Hypothesis #1: The website merely links you to authors based on word association, not tone or style.

Test 1: Harry Potter

This test is very straightforward. I chose a gothic story I had written which received the label of 'Oscar Wilde'.

I then prefaced this with: "Hermione, Harry, Ron, Dumbledore, Snape, Godric Gryffindor, Rowena Ravenclaw, Salazar Slytherin, Helga Hufflepuff, Hagrid, Hogwarts, Lupin, Flitwick, Expelliarmus, Avada Kedavra."

These are all specific to Harry Potter. Not to the broader fantasy genre, but specifically Harry Potter.

And lo, suddenly I was writing like J.K. Rowling, according to the website.

Conclusion: Hypothesis #1 has been supported by this experiment.

I actually don't have any more hypotheses after that. It seems I've cracked the code. But now comes the best part - trying to get your writing named as certain authors, without using words which directly reference their writing...in only a few sentences.

For example:

J.K. Rowling

"You shouldn't have done that," said Gemima, frowning disapprovingly.

"It wasn't stealing! There was nobody there anyway," replied George defensively, feeling a twinge of guilt all the same.

Success!

Charles Dickens

Not 5 years ago, had you asked the inhabitants of Lyme whether Mr Bumblescoff was a hard working man, you would almost certainly have received a response firmly planted in the negative, but today, this was certainly not the case - indeed, it was well known (and, one suspects, enthusiastically circulated by Mr Bumblescoff himself!) that he was the very epitome of respectability, industry, and productivity.

Success!

etc.