Blognothing: Writing Style

It’s cool to have an idea of how you write.

Writing is a required activity for all of us. We may not like it but we could never get away from it, just like me, we just need to do it. So, here I am, trying to become a writer by creating five blogs to hone my skills at creating sentences and paragraphs. Five blogs for four years could be an accomplishment, yet I could never say if I have improved my writing skills and style.

Yesterday, as I discovered how to maximize Google reader, I chance to encounter a particular entry of James, the author of Mind Inception, about his style in writing. He was able to have a glimpse of his style through an online facility called “I Write Like”. One has to paste his composition to a textbox and after clicking the “Analyze” button, the facility would return a name of a writer that best describes the style of the submitted composition. I know it is not a credible gauge but it’s cool to have an idea of how you write. Perhaps, it can become an inspiration.

What blog entry could I possibly try? I logged in to Blogger and see my stats on the most viewed entries. For the first time, I saw what it was, “Tunay na Tripper”. This is about my manifesto of who a real tripper is. It is a spin-off to the more famous “Ang Manifesto ng Tunay na Lalaki”. Without even realizing that it is written in Filipino, I copied and pasted it to the “analyzer” and viola!

I write like
J. K. Rowling

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

That made me laugh, not out loud. J.K. Rowling? This got to be kidding. And my golly! It analyzes even scripts in Filipino. Perhaps, the facility has a translator too. Hahaha. Ok, I would not believe that. I guess, I should try my luck on the other entries. One by one, I copied and pasted the blog entries.

9. Boytoy – Stephen King. This is a story about me and my friend who got involved with a mysterious character. King “is an American author of contemporary horror, suspense, science fiction and fantasy fiction.” King is my most favourite author, reading almost all of his books and watched screen adaptations of his work.

8. Want to See My Peacock – Cory Doctorow. This is more of an essay about expectations that most often than not were unmet and irony between the cyberspace and real world. Doctorow “is a Canadian blogger, journalist, and science fiction author who serves as co-editor of the blog Boing Boing. He is an activist in favour of liberalising copyright laws and a proponent of the Creative Commons organisation.” That’s what Wikipedia tells about him. Cool.

7. Toy Master – Anne Rice. This is a sequel to “Boytoy” thus the atmosphere of the story is still of mystery and intrigue. Rice “is a best-selling American author of gothic, erotic, and religious-themed books from New Orleans, Louisiana”. She is the author of the worldly known “Vampire Chronicles” series. She is another favourite author of mine.

6. SPO4 J. Dela Cruz – William Gibson. This is a story of a random encounter and re-encounter, an example that the world could never be large enough for two people. Gibson “is an American-Canadian writer who has been called the "noir prophet" of the cyberpunk subgenre of science fiction.” I never heard of him. Maybe I could read one of his books.

5. Spotlight – J.D. Salinger. This is a story of events that could put someone into the spotlight or a celebrity status. Salinger “was an American author, best known for his 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye, as well as his reclusive nature”. I always hear his name from one of the bloggers here. Maybe he could tell me if I write like Salinger. ;)

Big names here and I would really be flattered if others could validate the “analyzer” in “I Write Like”. There were other entries that I tried for analysis and other writers popped out like David Foster Wallace for Undergarment, Take a Shit, Professional Fee, and The 3rd CR; Robert Louis Stevenson for Random Chat #1; Jack London for Catching Jack; Harry Harrison for Blackout; Gibson and J.D. Salinger came up again for Colt45 and Next Destination, respectively.

Here comes the most interesting part, in order to satisfy my curiosity and to determine the consistency of my writing style, I submitted my Nude Photography Series and here’s the result: J.K. Rowling for series 01, 02, 03, 04, and Chuck Palakniuk for series 05. Did I laugh for the first four results? I did not. The truth is, my jaw dropped. The entries are all in English now and they were all consistent for having J.K. Rowling as the writing style. This is something to be studied because I only read one Harry Potter book. As for Palahniuk, he “is an American transgressional fiction novelist and freelance journalist. He is best known for the award-winning novel Fight Club, which was later made into a film”. I need to reread my entry again. Hehehe.

There you are. Nothing much to do and curiosity kills the cat (I did not finish my work today because of this. Hehehe.) It’s good to know that my writing style (?) is associated to different authors that are mostly popular. I am a hodgepodge of them, a mutation, a mongrel. On the other hand, this could be good because I could build a style that is my own. The next question is, could I sustain writing?

I wish. ;)