Today multiple friends linked me to this website which will take a piece of your text and tell you which famous author you write like. About the third time it showed up on my feed, I tried it.
Chapter 8 (my favourite) of Zenith resulted with Dan Brown. So did chapter 1 and chapter 41. Apparently Zenith is written in a style scarily similar to Dan Brown.
My current WIP (which desperately needs a better working title) is similar to Margaret Atwood. Now, I can see the cynical angle here, but I had no idea Margaret Atwood was that sarcastic.
The first chapter of The Conqueror gave me, surprise surprise, Dan Brown. I don't know what it is with me and that guy, I guess I'll have to read one of his books to find out. Strangely enough, though, the second chapter resulted in Douglas Adams. I'm still trying to figure that one out. Don't get me wrong, I'm flattered, just terribly confused.
Here's the thing, though, you will never write like Chuck Palahniuk or Stephen King. I will never write like Dan Brown no matter how many times I receive that result. Every author is uniquely different than all the others, even if they use similar vocabularies or sentence structures, even if they write on the same topics. You could write the same scenes with the same characters and still you will never write the exact same book as anyone else. That's a good thing! Work it! Find your personal authorial voice and expand upon it! Go forth and create something new, not just a copy of something already available.
But hey, if you do have the ability to copy someone else's style, look into ghost writing, you could make a killing.
I didn't think the analyzer was a bad thing, to be honest. I know you didn't either, but here's my side:
ReplyDeleteThe writing analyzer took all of my writings (Most. Only the dialogueless suffered.) and consistently gave me Stephen King. I liked the consistency. I liked hearing that my bits and pieces, chapters and drabbles, all had the same "sound" to them. It may not be -exactly- Stephen King's, but it means that I've hit a consistency in my own style. I like to use dialogue. I stick to non-grandiose vocabulary. It's the easiest way for me to start to get my story across.
And plus, it never hurts to hear that I write like Stephen King. Just saying. :P