Which Famous Writer Are You Like?

I just discovered this really awesome tool from a post at Olivia Herrell's blog: I Write Like.  What you do is paste in some text that you've written and a statistical algorithm analyzes your writing and comes up with the famous writer whose work yours most resembles.

I got the following results on various excerpts:  James Joyce, Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, and 3 or 4 Stephen King's.  Which is pretty good company to be in.

Curious, I tested it on an excerpt of "The Return of the King" and found that it correctly identified Tolkein. Rats. I was hoping perhaps it would identify him as Stephen King (since his is the most frequent result), and that by implication I might actually write like Tolkein.

However, I was a little curious about the fact that none of the results were women.  So I tested it on a excerpt of Rosamund Pilcher's Winter Solstice, and it identified her as H.G. Wells.  Perhaps she's not well-known enough, so I tried Agatha Christie and got Mark Twain.

Ouch!

Dorothy Sayers was identified as H.P. Lovecraft.  I don't even know who that is. Toni Morrison was Vladimir Nabokov. I had to look him up. He was born in St. Petersburg in 1899.Wow!  Wrong gender, race, continent and century.  The only thing right about that was the hemisphere.

At least Jane Austen was recognizable.

Danielle Steel was another Stephen King.

So, take this with a grain of salt.  The moral of the story, I guess, is that we all pretty much write like Stephen King.  Probably due to the success of "On Writing."  Or because he pretty much typifies the modern standard style for genre fiction.

And, now that I have succumbed to the analytical temptation of the day... back to writing!

Wait, Wait!  Woo-hoo!  I tried another excerpt to pull up the Bradbury badge and got.. J.K. Rowling!  That's the one I'm using folks.

P.S. Interestingly enough, one of my contemporary short stories came up as Jane Austen. I know this is all totally off-the-wall, but I still have a serious case of the warm fuzzies!

P.P.S. My resume was analyzed as Isaac Asimov!  Can I put that ON the resume?  "By the way, I write like Isaac Asimov.  As you can clearly see."  Actually, it was probably the amount of technical jargon on there - and the mention of NASA - that triggered that label.