Saturday, August 14, 2010

I Write Like ...

I read in a Wall Street Journal column about a website that would statistically analyze a text and compare it to statistics for famous writers: iwl.me

I cast about for something to feed into the analyzer. The more significant things to hand were briefs. So I tried it out with two paragraphs from a recently-written, fact-intensive statement of the case. I was rewarded with:


I write like
Edgar Allan Poe

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!



Now ... I suspect that my paragraphs were not evocative of The Masque of the Red Death. Only that of the writers whose statistics were in the comparison database, my brief was more like something written by Edgar Allen Poe than, for example, Hemingway or Faulkner. I am, however, thrilled that my cool, dispassionate briefing style may be mysteriously dark at its tell-tale heart.