I Write Like... (Variation of 'Share Your Writing')

Roleplaying and Games
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#1

Stumbled across a fun little website which determines what famous author you write like and thought it’ll be an interesting variation on the ‘Share Your Writing’ threads you see on some forums.

Here’s the work I submitted, apparently I write like Dan Brown (which I have to disagree with).

My Submitted Text

The Devil Herself

All was silent when he arrived in the dead of night. Expecting the house to be asleep, he’d stumbled through the front door and was greeted by the sudden dazzle of light. As his vision slowly adjusted, he could make out the devil herself standing a couple meters in front of him, floor lamp to her left.

“Is that blood?” She exclaimed, eyeing the bright red stain on his shirt she took a step towards him.

Blurting out a surprised “No?”, he defensively took a step backwards, matching her stride.

She stopped dead in her tracks. She could see the bewilderment in his eyes, hear his heavy breathing and smell the fear emanating off his skin.

Something was amiss, she thought, eyeing his shirt suspiciously.

“That’s not a question you’re supposed to answer with another question,” she added coldly, and resumed her advance.

He kept his distance and shuffled backwards as his bewilderment quickly turned to panic. He opened his mouth to speak yet his words remained stuck in his throat, producing no more than the unintelligible stutter.

She shifted her focus from his shirt to his hands behind his back. He was holding something.

She did not break pace and continued to walk him out the front door until his foot found no more ground and he fell… down he went as gravity pulled, stumbling down the steps leading to his front door with a wine bottle in hand which shattered against the concrete ground.

“I can explain…” his voice trailed off as he averted his gaze from the devil he knows as his mother.

What do you think? Agree or disagree?

Would be interesting to see what other people get, bonus points if you share your writing (optional) so everyone else can make that assessment too.

Link: I Write Like

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#2
I write like Neil Gaiman, apparently

In a field of dead grass, beneath a yawning black sky unbroken by moon or starlight, tucked away in a little corner of the world known to few, stood the Witching Tree.

It was hard to tell what species the tree might have been, as its trunk had been scraped clean of bark centuries ago. Its branches hadn’t known the protection of leaves for as far back as memory stretched. The Witching Tree was a bleached, pale thing, stooping gnarled and crooked like a skeleton. Its boughs hung sweeping and low. Most nights it was alone in its desolate field. But on a night like tonight, when the moon was nowhere to be seen and winter’s bitter chill hung in the air, a tree this ancient was bound to be disturbed.

A tall, slender woman with wavy white hair down to her thighs and light brown skin that seemed to glow approached the tree. Though she wore not a stitch of clothing, her body was covered in a thin sheen of blood—not quite dry, but sticky and viscous. She stretched her hands out, palms slick with gore. The calloused pads of her fingertips were just millimeters away from the tree trunk when she felt a sharp pain in the center of her hand.

The blood-covered woman hissed, recoiling and examining her palm.

A single thorn protruded from the middle of her hand. Not as though it had stuck her, but as if it had grown from beneath her skin. As she watched, a single drop of sap rolled down the barbed point, inky and black.

“Thought I might find you here.”

A dry voice cut through the clearing. High and noxiously sweet, positively dripping with sarcasm. The bloody woman whirled around and scowled. “Begone, fae.”

From the other side of the tree, a golden light the size of a firefly flew in front of her. It grew bigger in a flurry of blinding sparks. When the light finally faded and the bloody woman could look without hurting her eyes, a slim figure was leaning against the smooth tree trunk, fuzzy moth’s wings tucked in neatly and sharp teeth curled into a wicked smile.

“Last I checked,” the faery said, “You’re in no position to be ordering me around.”

The woman bared her teeth. “Leave before—”

The faery held up a hand. Black claws flashed. “Stop talking.”

When the bloody woman found she could no longer speak, the faery grinned. “Much better. Now. Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to step away from the tree. You’re going to leave this godsforsaken field. You’re going to forget this place ever existed. And you’re never going to come back.”

The bloody woman’s jaw flexed as she tried to loosen the faery’s hold over her, but it was no use. She stumbled away from the tree, mind fuzzy. What was she doing here? What was this place? It was dark and miserable and the dead grass scratched the soles of her bare feet. The air smelled like honeysuckle and rot. She could hear the distant tinkling of bells. She walked aimlessly, dazed and delirious, until the ground split open beneath her and swallowed her whole.

Everything was still for a moment, as if the world itself was holding its breath.

Finally, the faery pulled away from the tree trunk and sighed. The bloody woman was only the start. Other creatures would come, more powerful things. In another shower of golden light, the faery shrank back down to the size of a beetle and landed on a tree branch, lying in wait.

It was going to be a long night.

3 Likes
#3

I remember doing this a couple years ago and the fact that it changed with each excerpt- at least for me. So here’s what I got for the five latest things I’ve written. I didn’t share the excerpts as I don’t feel comfortable doing that at this moment.

P. G. Wodehouse

Mystery thriller

Margaret Atwood

Sci-fi

Ian Fleming

Romance

J. R. R. Tolkien

Paranormal mystery

Dan Brown

Paranormal thriller/ mystery

2 Likes
#4

Apparently, I write like Bram Stoker…
Not sure how to feel about that…

I have a little paragraph instead of a long one.

Summary

A new dawn is coming and with a new dawn comes endless possibilities.
There is something so mysterious about a new day that when it comes it can leave you wondering and even wanting more. Some days are better than most, but today is life seems a little more clearer than yesterday.
I wholeheartedly welcome the new dawn.

3 Likes
#5

I write like… Jk Rowling?

Snippet

I wanted to scream.

But no matter how much I strained my lungs, only a strangled keen escaped my throat. No matter how fast I tried to run, it was like I was stuck in some thick miasma that slowed my movements—like I was stuck in a dream. Or… more like I was trapped in a nightmare.

Because monsters were hunting me.

I couldn’t see them, for either I had gone blind, or the world had been plunged into heavy, pulsating darkness, but I could hear them hissing and shuffling behind me on long, spindly, and numerous legs. I could feel them when they reached out with their hands and clutched at my clothes and hair as I ran.

“H-help me!” I wailed, grasping at more of that darkness ahead of me. My voice didn’t carry far. The echoes of my pleas seemed to linger in the heavy atmosphere like flies in a web, barely a breath away from my face. My foot caught on something I could not see. With a pitiful gasp, I fell into what felt like sand.

Hissing surrounded me. Clawed feet of unseen creatures kicked up the sand around me. I expected my breath to quicken as the din that ricocheted in my spinning head increased. I expected my heart to race. I expected my blood to turn to ice.

But neither of those things happened. I felt nothing but a sick emptiness within me.

Something else’s breath beat down on my face. I swore I could hear the slow, wet sound of toothy jaws parting.

And then there came a light.

Interesting that it changes depending on the length of my snippet. I also got HG Wells.

2 Likes
#6

I write like… JRR Tolkien.

Not really a surprise actually, I’ve been told this before.

I submitted my first paragraph from the first chapter of my Fantasy yarn. Which I leave below…

From under the dark boughs of old gnarled trees, two mounted steeds broke out into the light of day, a wild glare in their eyes, snorting and frothing at the bit. Hooves franticly pounded the ground with a matched pace. Their riders hooded and crouched low in the saddles clutching the reins, and their horses spurred on with fear of what may befall them. On they sped over rough turfs of coarse grasses as shrill cries went up into the air and faded into choking end. Winding between the rocks strewn across the lowlands, they sped towards the wide valleys before them. Only when a great distance was behind them would they slow their charge. But one rider looked back; crystal grey eyes looked deep into the darkness from under the forest eaves. Shadows, shadows deeper than the shade of the trees moved, waving weapons and cursing the light, cursing the riders as they fled .Arrows whined and swept through the air falling about them, embedding the earth with black feathered stalks.

SD

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#7

That’s cool!

SD

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#8

I can see why, you’re good at creating a magical atmosphere.

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#9

Intriguing.

I at first input the whole chapter so far of my WIP which is a mystery/thriller. I’m currently writing a male POV chapter, and it told me I write like James Joyce (Ulysses author)

I then input the latest chapter I’m editing of a chick lit/romance/slice of life from a female POV and I got JK Rowling

Third time I put in the whole first chapter of my cozy mystery/romance and I got Neil Gaiman.

Intriguing…

4 Likes
#10

Thanks. I just made up that sentence on the fly though.

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#11

I’ve done this twice and gotten Chuck Palahniuk both times, which I’m excited about because he’s one of my favorite authors! His prose style inspired me to write in first person present despite all the haters out there who told me that was a bad idea, and how that wasn’t a viable way to write fiction (again recently by an MFA student who said that it’s only appropriate for screenwriting, but they’re as pretentious as any other MFA student I’ve met…including my own classmates). My writing style has a long way to go, but I still love my story, and Fight Club is still one of my favorite books.

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#12

Thank you!! :black_heart:

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#13

I had any number of matches from different books and chapters. I honestly don’t know if the website is particularly robust. I just tried Ryan’s POV from Raised by the Mafia, and it came back with Raymond Chandler, hard-boiled noir detective writer in the 30’s….

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#14

Screenshot at Jun 15 17-05-40
Screenshot at Jun 15 17-05-40758×224 47.9 KB

Interesting… lol.

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#15

And Fireman’s Girl came as Dan Brown. Too wordy, I guess?

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#16

Lots of different results depending on which excerpts I put in. Dan Brown, David Foster Wallace, Kurt Vonnegut, P.G. Wodehouse, Lewis Carroll… Vonnegut comes up the most often.

2 Likes
#17
A very unfinished piece of writing, but apparently it's written like J. R. R. Tolkien

And so it begins again. I can barely believe my eyes, despite knowing what was coming. The familiar red glow of my world greets me as I tear my way through the doorway that keeps the worlds separate. The inspiration for the repetitive idea of an underworld that many humans have. It haunts their mythologies, their religions, over and over, a prison, a place of torment and punishment, a home of monsters and demons, where horrible people go when they die, filled to the brim with pain and horror, or sometimes just emptiness. All that isn’t exactly true, although like many myths, the idea does have a seed of truth in it. Also like many myths, that seed has been twisted and exaggerated into something practically unrecognizable. The realm I just entered isn’t hell or some other underworld. It’s my home. But then again, my name has been twisted as well.
I take one step, then two, then three. The silence is haunting. It’s empty, the lack of sound echoing through me. I flinch out of habit, expecting something that never comes. It’s too quiet. I look around, the red smoke curling through the air and obscuring much more than I’d like. I stumble. There’s nothing in front of me that I could have tripped over. The ground is flat and dry, old grey dirt so packed down by years of footsteps that it’s practically stone. I slow my feet down, fighting the urge to run as quickly as I can. Suddenly wary of making any wrong moves in a place where I should be comfortable, I fasten my hair back, the thick curls protesting being restrained. I continue to walk the worn path, taking care to minimize the sounds that feel far too obvious in the suffocating silence. I look into the woods that begin to enclose me as I tiptoe down from the plateau I had come from. The tear in space glitters from the area I just left, and I curse. My voice seems to be swallowed up by the smoke, but I know that I’ve been making mistakes from the moment I entered. I climb back up the incline, silently hoping I hadn’t let my guard down too far when I rushed through the portal. A potentially fatal mistake. One I hadn’t made in decades. Especially not at this time. I finish the much more difficult climb up, and close my hands around what appears to be a jagged rip in the air. Shoving the edges together, I reseal the gap with a few motions, familiar words uttered quietly enough so that someone would only be able to hear them if they were standing right in front of my face. I whirl around as I feel a bit of wind behind me and squint into the mist. I can’t see anything that could have caused the wind.
I creep down the incline and into the forest once again. Everything stays quiet, but I can’t shake the feeling of being watched. I keep walking. I can’t afford any more mistakes. I have the unshakeable feeling that all the luck I’ve had so far wasn’t luck at all, but carefully calculated allowances, given to me by something I can’t see. Taking a shaky breath, I turn my attention inward for a moment. My skin tingles and I can feel a subtle pull toward the other side of the woods.

1 Like
#18

Oooh, I’ve tried this site before! Many times :joy: I was upset when I got Stephenie Meyer during one of those tries, but most of my results say I write like Agatha Christie.

I’ve just tried it again and now it says I write like Dan Brown.

The excerpt I submitted:
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#19
Cory Doctrow twice for the same story, and Anne White once . Different exerpts. I don't know either of them, so I suppose that means I developed my prose style on my own.

The letter just beside that one, however, seemed a little more interesting to Sara. It was sent by someone unknown, simply signed with dT.
“Gopal,
Please exercise caution where you tread. Do not do anything rash. The kanya has very strong morals, and things will fall apart if she gets wind of our work. Do not harm her. Remember our deal. If anything happens to her, I will personally make sure your entire operation is brought to light and all of you swines face justice, no matter the cost and chaos.
I will be by soon, after the plan is carried out to help you with the transition, and to ensure you uphold your side of the deal.
Remember, a gemflower is hard at first, but subtle manipulation is what gets it to soften.
The nation is at stake here.
dT.”
Sara read through it again. The nation is at stake? What operation was the Raja running that would change the whole of Arya? What were these people planning with the kanya? Who was it that was working with Raja Gopal, and what stake did he have with the devakanya’s life?
The letter said kanya, didn’t it? That meant this was sent before the murder of the kanyastha, when the kanyastha was still a devakanya.
And what did the line about the gemflower mean? Sure, a gemflower could be manipulated into softening using the Grace within it, but Sara doubted that was what it meant. Was it somehow alluding to the devakanya, again? Devi Annika’s house symbol was a gemflower, and the devakanya was Annika’s vessel.
Who was this dT person? Clearly, they did not live in Devasena’s durbar all the time.
Confused, Sara stuffed the letter into a pouch hidden under the belt of her underskirt, about to pick up another paper when she heard faint laughter. Sara stilled.
The laughter was followed by voices that grew in volume, and soon, accompanying footsteps could be discerned.
Someone was coming towards the study.
She had nowhere to go. What could she do? Running out would ensure that those people saw her. She had to hide somewhere in here.
Could she pretend to be a devadasi cleaning up?
But she knew nothing about this household, and would not be able to answer even the simplest questions.
Sara was doomed.
Her mind raced through the possibilities, even as footsteps and conversations got closer and louder, and in a desperate bid, Sara ran to the walls.
The walls-
She was dressed as a devadasi-
Frantically, Sara searched for some hidden frame within the walls, her fingers running over every crevice in the wall and pushing until one finally gave a clicking sound, and a panel swung inwards.
Thanking the devas, Sara ducked inside and shut the door not a moment too soon as the door to the study swung open and the people entered.

For other books, I got Bram Stroker, Stephanie Meyer, JK Rowling, Anne Rice twice more, Gertude stein twive (I don’t know her, but I got her twice, so worth mentioning) and a bunch of other authors I really don’t know.