I Write Like

[randy_byers]

Seeing the "I Write Like" meme on a few of my Friends' pages, I started thinking about who has actually influenced me as a writer. It's not an easy question to answer, and my knee-jerk response to the meme is "I Write Like Myself". However, when I was taking creative writing courses in college my professor (Don Taylor) said my style (such as it was

Comments

[shsilver]

How about:

[randy_byers]

I think we need one for Carl Brandon. Or Froggy.

[shsilver]

Or "I write like a poor man's Avram Davidson."

[randy_byers]

A boy can certainly dream.

[ajr]

I put a few things in the "I Write Like" meme, and got a different result every time. Some of them quite odd.

Then I put in a Ray Bradbury short story, and it told me that 'I' write like Stephen King. So I put a Stephen King story in, and it told me that 'I' write like Raymond Chandler. So I put the first chapter of 'The Big Sleep' in, and it told me that 'I' write like Charles Dickens.

Not exactly the most encouraging of results...

[randy_byers]

It did look like people were getting random results, so I'm not sure what the point of the thing is. I think they're missing a bet in not broadening the pool of writers they randomly refer to. Might at least get people to hit Wikipedia to figure out the reference. "I write like Djuna Barnes?!!!"

[kalimac]

I've picked up a few ticks from some of my favorite authors, that I'm conscious of.

[randy_byers]

Yeah, there are a few things I do that I can certainly spot as specifically borrowed from others.

[maryread]

Everyone can't write like Dan Brown. Fortunately.

I had a class where we did that replacing-the-parts-of-speech exercise, and if you can keep it up after you get the feel for it, why not? Angela Carter was my favorite, and it wasn't even a story I had brought in. At the time I was wondering how Wendell Berry did it, but I think that was more a matter of content than style.

Thank you for a thoughtful post about this annoying thingy. I'm tired of calling them memes. What are they, semi-random code generators?

[randy_byers]

I haven't read anything by Wendell Berry, so you've sent me to Wikipedia, which has a very interesting article. I would never have guessed that he was a farmer, I'll tell you that, although one of my favorite lit teachers in high school had a farm and eventually retired from teaching to farm full time.

I think the annoying thing about that particular meme is that it isn't actually doing anything. If it was really attempting to analyze writing styles, it might be interesting even if the results were weird or wrong. But what the hell, I should go check out what's happening in the MLB All-Star game.

[surliminal]

Yeh I think if anyone had come back with "I write like Marge Piercy" or Kate Atkinson or even Joanna Russ I might have been interested ; but no one I've sen is anyone I want to write like! Still it's nice to see a meme sweeping LJ like the old days.

[randy_byers]

I Write Like Stephenie Meyer?

[surliminal]

Is that for ME? Want to take this outside?? :-P

[randy_byers]

But it's twilight out there!