h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

http://iwl.me/
rather than clutter up Bel's journal with multiple postings I thought I'd borrow the idea and analyse my own writing. I came up with the following:

Cane Toads - Arthur C Clarke
Cleethorpes - James Joyce
Shirley Nolan OBE - James Joyce
Buskers and Busking - Robert Louis Stevenson
Hank Marvin - Douglas Adams
Pink, the Diva Colour - Arthur C Clarke
The Great Flood of 1953 - Arthur C Clarke
Coca-Cola - Kurt Vonnegut
Vasectomy - Stephen King
Friends and Friendship - Stephen King
Sir Elton John - Stephen King
Elvis Impersonators - David Foster Wallace
Green, Nature's Colour - David Foster Wallace
'Little Green Men' - David Foster Wallace
Streakers and Streaking - David Foster Wallace
Cocaine - David Foster Wallace
Queen Elizabeth II - David Foster Wallace
Barbra Streisand - David Foster Wallace
Carrie Fisher - David Foster Wallace
Johnny Depp - David Foster Wallace
Supporting British Tennis Players at Wimbledon - David Foster Wallace
Sextans the Sextant - David Foster Wallace
Taurus the Bull - H.P. Lovecraft
Virgo the Maiden - H.P. Lovecraft

I've given up hoping there's a female writer in their database...

I think the only two women mentioned so far on the other thread are Stephanie Meyer and JK Rowling, so think yourself lucky!

RF

Not quite, two of my stories came up as female writers:

Margaret Atwood, Ursula Le Guin

Oh, and somebody else came up as Mary Shelley, I think.

I stand corrected, as the man in orthopaedic shoes said.

RF

...and I've had a Jane Austen. Mind you, I live in Jane Austen country (or so the road signs say)

Ah yes, "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a Screwfix Catalogue."

Gordon ran some of his writings through the text box and his came up as David Foster Wallace and Stephen King. After a short discussion regarding how fast the analysis was - even with a humongous chunk of text to "read" we agreed it's probably just picking up keywords while promoting its own writing course.

coolio

- Margaret Atwood (from a piece about NaNoWriMo)
- Cory Doctorow (?) from one of my fic pieces

well, they are right. The book On Writing by Stephen King does have some excellent tips, I've read it myself.

I got George Orwell. Had no idea I was that bleak.

I entered snippets from my current article, which is yet to enter PR.

The first snippet said I write like H P Lovecraft

The second snippet I was said to write like Douglas Adams!

There is no point in trying to top that one, so didn't try anymore *hic*

You and Gordon may be on to something.

I ran my Rabelais thru - only to find out that it's in the style of Dan Brown?!

I was just the tiniest bit dubious - so I went to Dan Brown's website and copied an excerpt from Da Vinci Code and then pasted that into iwl - it did in fact report that his excerpt was in the style of Dan Brown - which I confess I wasn't expecting.

Still dubious, I cut an excerpt from Slaughterhouse 5 it was reported to be in the style of Vonnegut.

Ok, so finally, I made this test - I pasted in the following:
; asl;k folsd jfd j;oiaheg lkenf lkdshx opdfu boju df;ob Ok xzdfc;klm d/zfc bv/oj eszrd;ojk vzdslfh /odfjb /d

and found that it is in the style of David Foster Wallace?!

I couldn't help myself - I found an actual excerpt of David Foster Wallace's and pasted that in - only to find that he writes like Stephen King.

It is to wonder.