Someone on one of the mailing lists I’m on sent this around. You enter some text in the box, and it’s supposed to analyze your writing style and tell you which famous author writes like you.
I wouldn’t put much weight on the results (I get different answers depending on which story of mine I analyze, or even which excerpt from the story.). But it’s strangely addictive, nonetheless.
Apparently, my three published stories sound like Mark Twain (the e-mail epistolary), Harry Harrison (the organic chemistry science fiction story) and Chuck Palahniuk (the high fantasy story with elves).
I’ve read that this is a front for a vanity press. It kept saying I wrote like Dan Brown, which made me sad anyway…
I tried this a few times with some various things I’ve written. Mostly I got David Foster Wallace (I had to look up who he was), but I also got Margaret Atwood, Stephen King, James Joyce, and Bram Stoker.
I entered two non fiction essays and it returned Dan Brown and Cory Doctorow. I don’t know what this means.
Cory Doctorow probably has a better literary reputation than Dan Brown. But I’m not sure how much I’d trust either answer.
Re: Ruth’s comment: It very well may be a front for a vanity press, though I hadn’t heard that before. I know that whenever you submit some text for it to analyze, it gives you a window where you can sign up for some sort of writing lessons (which I don’t recommend!)