By now you've already heard about I Write Like. It's the site that, using some kind of complicated algorithm, can analyze a selection of your writing and tell you which famous author you write like. I say you've already heard about the site because it has been visited 1,000,000 times by now.
Anyway, being as vain, naturally curious, and insecure as most writers, I had to check it out.
I asked the site to analyze some selections from my current work in progress, about which I am very excited. While the contents of that work in progress are top secret, I can let you in on this much: it's told from multiple perspectives, including that of a young man and a young woman. I gave the site four different chapters to analyze, two of them coming from the young man's perspective, and two from the young woman's.
For each chapter coming from the young man's perspective, the site told me that I write like . . . drumroll please . . . Cory Doctorow. Sweet! Considering that I loved Little Brother, and that the super-secret work-in-progress has certain thematic similarities with that book, I'm a big fan of this result.
For each chapter coming from the young woman's perspective, the site told me that I write like . . . drumroll please . . . Margaret Mitchell. Again, sweet! Considering that Gone With the Wind sold over 30 million copies and earned Ms. Mitchell the Pulitzer Prize in 1937, I'm a big fan of this result as well.
Now, as great as the whole "I Write Like" idea is, and as much fun as it is for us authors, there are two things that I particularly, umm, like about it. First, the site detected a distinct difference in writing style between the sections told from the young man's perspective and those from the young woman's perspective. The two characters have much different voices -- or, well, they're supposed to -- and I'm taking the "I Write Like" results as a small confirmation of success on that front.
(Aside: you know how certain actors seem to play themselves regardless of what qualities their characters are supposed to have, while others, like Meryl Streep, disappear into their roles? When you're writing from a particular character's perspective, it's sort of like you're trying to inhabit a role. I'm taking this "I Write Like" thing with a grain of salt, but the fact that the site found one character's passages different from the other's suggests the two "roles" feel distinct. Hooray!)
Second, with respect to each character's two passages, the results were identical. So, I'm taking this as a small indication that each voice is consistent. To go back to the acting analogy again, I suppose this means I didn't, like, suddenly lose my southern accent halfway through the movie.
Check it out for yourself and see who you write like . . .
