Today we are all about writing. Scanning the Internet I found a site that will analyze your writing and tell you what famous author you write like. I found both the article about it and the site quite interesting. The first of the following two links is the article about the site. The second of the two links is the site where you submit a paragraph of your writing and in seconds it will come back and name the author that you write like.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100716/ap_en_ot/us_web_i_write_like
http://www.neatorama.com/2010/07/14/i-write-like/
Curiosity got the best of me so I clicked the "analyze your writing button" in the box under the featured author's name and submitted two paragraphs from Searching For Justice. The fist paragraph that I submitted was from the Lost Loves that I wrote about on the blog about a month ago. The second paragraph was the introduction to Searching For Justice that I shared on the blog over a year ago, titled "Don't Shoot My Daddy."
When I wrote romance the author that I wrote like was an author that I really had never heard of before. David Foster Wallace. Ever heard of him? Is this a good thing or a bad thing?
When I wrote drama and suspense the author that I wrote like? I know him. I studied him in school. We all had to study him in school. George Orwell. Does that mean I write drama well? Or is my writing futuristic?
Come on now all of you go to the web site and submit something you have written. It can even be a comment you have recently posted on the blog. Then tell me who you write like. I want to know who your inner writer is!
Speaking of writing. One of the blogs that I go to frequently posted a link to an article by Janet Fitch where she listed the rules of writing. Because I always like to give credit where the credit is due this is where I found the link:
http://chaoschronicles.com/blog/2010/07/13/ten-things-to-like-this-tuesday-july-13-2010/
And this is the link to the article about the rules of writing:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2010/07/janet-fitchs-10-rules-for-writers.html
While I like some of her rules I don't agree with all of them. Do you agree with them? When you read a book would you want to read a book written under Fitch's ten rules for writing?
WHO AM I?
Yesterday's answer was Lillian Hellman
I was born in 1849 and died in 1887, the lady with the Torch embraces some of the words that I have written. I was the fourth of seven children born to a Mom and Dad that had settled in New York during the colonial period. From a very early age I studied European literature and learned several languages. My writings fascinated Mr. Emerson so much that he corresponded with me until he died. While I am most known for sonnets and poems I also wrote a novel and two plays. I became interested in my Jewish ancestry after reading Mr. Eliot's novel. That lead me to began translating the works of Jewish poets into English. In the winter of 1882 multitudes of destitute Ashkenazy Jews emigrated from the Russian Pale of Settlement to New York. I taught technical education to help them become self-supporting. I was an important forerunner of the Zionist movement. These are my words on the lady that greets you as you come into the big city in the East:"Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" Who Am I?
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8 comments:
Oooh, writing (G).
Okay, did the analyze thing. I first entered the opening three paragraphs of my book on "Choices" (managing panic disorder). That said I was Dan Brown. I then entered the first few paragraphs of a proposal for the book. That came back as David Foster Wallace. Like you, I'd never heard of him. Off to Google. the LA Times book editor called him one of the most influential and innovative writers of the past twenty years. His fiction was often concerned with irony and combined various writing modes and voices. All in all, I'm not sure what any of that says about my writing, but if he's considered innovative and influential, I guess that's a good thing? (VBG>
Fitch's rules... some I agree with, some not so much, most I'd have liked further definition and examples for those who are early in their writing careers.
Hi Bill, I did the analyze thing as I saw it first on your facebook. I am not familiar with many authors, but it said I write like William Shakespeare, one I did know! I used a paragraph from one of my blogs. This was fun.
How funny! I also write like David Foster Wallace. I must pick up something of his to see if I consider that a good thing.
As to Fitch's Rules, and as a reader, I agree with some, don't fully understand some others, and might argue with a couple. I followed the link to Elmore Leonard's advice, and with his Rules, I pretty much agree down the line. And I'd add one of my own, even though I'm not a writer. Pat's rule: break very long blocks of prose into paragraphs. When I'm in the library selecting a book to read, if I see many pages full of text with no breaks, unless there's a compelling reason to read the book, I tend to move on to another one.
Hi DR
Dan Brown is a best selling author and that is a compliment that you write like him! Thank you for looking up Wallace. I'll go with influential and innovative! We both should be on the New York Times best seller list soon!
I am with you about Finch. She needed to expand a little more.
Bill
Hi Dona
I'm glad you enjoyed the assignment. It doesn't surprise me that you came back like Shakespeare from redding your blog!
Bill
Hi Pat
DR, you, and I have known each other the longest then any others on the blog so in some ways it isn't surprised we would write like the same author.
I actually completely agree with you about breaking up paragraphs. And I am also going to add short chapters. When the chapters get to long I lose touch with what I am reading and have to go back.
Bill
I'm with you and Pat on the long paragraphs of narrative. Readers want "white space" of paragraph breaks, if only to mentally catch their breaths. Also, most long paragraphs contain two or three ideas and each loses impact if jumbled with the others.
Yes to shorter chapters. The standard in the romance industry was roughly 20 pages, so readers could take a break. If there was/is a major change of scene or character or idea, two double spaces between paragraphs give a reader another chance to take a break and to better understand the story has shifted gears. I don't mind longer chapters, if there are breaks within them.
IF you're losing touch with what you're reading, the writer is introducing too many characters/ideas/plot jogs within a chapter and without the breaks to let you know that. IMHO.
Pat, remember the key to Wallace's success was "innovative." I think that bodes well (g).
Hi DR
That makes three of us thinking the same way!
A lot of my chapters don't make it twenty pages. I'm also fine with longer chapters as long as they have natural breaks.
OK, I mean I may be addicted to I Write Like thing. I submitted two more chapters from my book and they also came up David Foster Walalce. So three of the four times I submitted writings I was him. Has to have some basis of truth in it.
Bill
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