# who do you write like



## Trilby (Jan 30, 2013)

I followed a link to a website 'who do you write like' 

Mistake...

After submitting a sample of a ms - I was told that I write like Dan Brown, but here's the real crunch... wait for it... along side there was a link to a, 'how to improve your writing' site.

Dan Brown, mmm, wish I had his money.


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## Potty (Jan 30, 2013)

Apparently I write like Arthur Clarke... who's that then?


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## dolphinlee (Jan 30, 2013)

Yesterday's effort was Enid Blyton with a smattering of Dr Seuss.

I was aiming for P D James

I put various sections on my book into the site and got Leo Tolstoy, J D Salinger, Cory Doctorow, Neil Gaiman, Cory Doctorow, William Gibson and Cory Doctorow again. 

Two things

Does this mean the style of writing in my book is wildly inconsistent? and

Who is Cory Doctorow and should I be flattered.


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## Sam (Jan 30, 2013)

Rudyard Kipling, apparently. That's not random at all. 

On the second offering of text, it seems I also write like Arthur Clarke. Clancy would be so disappointed.


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## dale (Jan 30, 2013)

it actually said HP Lovecraft on my latest finished work. i honestly thought i had pushed my lovecraft and poe
influences away to an unnoticeable distance.

I Write Like H. P. Lovecraft




well, after pasting a section of a different short story in the analyzer, it said kurt vonnegut.
so i guess it depends on the mood i'm in when writing.

http://iwl.me/b/8ccf5154


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## Ariel (Jan 30, 2013)

That makes me feel better.  Mine said I write like Neil Gaiman, which is what I was aiming for.


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## Bruno Spatola (Jan 30, 2013)

Haha, J.K. Rowling. 

I doubt its accuracy, but great fun anyway.

Edit: Oh my Christ, I tried three of my other excerpts and got, "Ray Bradbury" on all of them. It _definitely_ doesn't work, lol.

Edit Two: Okay, I just typed, "There once was a man from Kent" and it said "Agatha Christie".


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## Circadian (Jan 30, 2013)

It said I write like Gertrude Stein and William Gibson.  Who _are _these people?


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## Deleted member 49710 (Jan 30, 2013)

With three different paragraphs from the novel I got Stephen King, Lovecraft, and Dan Brown. Have read little and nothing by the latter two so I have no idea if that's accurate. Stephen King I did read a lot when I was in high school, so I guess the influence is plausible. One LM entry got Arthur Clarke, another got Palahniuk.

This would be a lot more interesting and instructive if there were some explanation of what exactly is the basis of comparison-- "word choice" and "writing style" is pretty vague. Do they mean sentence length? Word length? Frequency of modifiers? Punctuation? What? As is, this is about as useful as those quizzes on Facebook that tell you what kind of pie you are. Maybe less.


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## Terry D (Jan 30, 2013)

That was fun...

I plugged in a chapter of my new book (a chapter in which an east St. Louis gang banger is murdered by a serial killer) and it spat out William Shakespeare.

Then I put in one of my LM entries and got William Gibson.  Another LM entry came back with Stephen King.

I wonder... if i put excerpts from their work will it come back with my name?


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## Bloggsworth (Jan 30, 2013)

Told me I wrote like Mr Bean on a bad day...


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## JosephB (Jan 30, 2013)

Cory Doctorow, Nabakov and Margaret Atwood. And I'm a Banana Cream Pie.


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## Bruno Spatola (Jan 30, 2013)

I think it analyses all the words you use, and compares them with other authors' works. The more words you have in common, the closer to that person you'll be. I used the name Harry Potter in a sentence I just typed and Rowling came up. I mentioned Legolas, Gandalf, Sauron, elven, flame, and dark in another and Tolkien came up.

I think that's how it works, anyway: words in common, frequency of use.


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## dale (Jan 30, 2013)

dale said:


> it actually said HP Lovecraft on my latest finished work. i honestly thought i had pushed my lovecraft and poe
> influences away to an unnoticeable distance.
> 
> I Write Like H. P. Lovecraft
> ...



i decided to place my 1st story in there where i was actually TRYING to write with a lovecraftesque tone; and that
one came back as James Fenimore Cooper. who knows.


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## Arcopitcairn (Jan 30, 2013)

I got Jack London and Douglas Adams. Huh.


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## moderan (Jan 30, 2013)

I put in a segment of William Gibson's All Tomorrow's Parties, and it identified that correctly. My last LM entry followed, and that told me I write like Chuck Palahniuk. Other stories elicited results ranging from David Foster Wallace to the aforementioned William Gibson and Stephen King.
I wonder what the pool is? Doesn't seem very deep guessing from the replies on this thread.


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## Charlaux (Jan 30, 2013)

I got Mark Twain. Hrm.


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## Ariel (Jan 30, 2013)

It probably isn't that deep considering that there are authors similar to Neil Gaiman and if I were to be honest I'm fairly certain I don't write like he does.


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## dale (Jan 30, 2013)

ok. just to really test this thing, i put in this quote from the tale "the black cat" by edgar allen poe....



> Pluto - this was the cat's name - was my favorite pet and playmate. I  alone fed him, and he attended me wherever I went about the house. It  was even with difficulty that I could prevent him from following me  through the streets.



according to this site, edgar allen poe writes like Margaret Mitchell.

I Write Like Margaret Mitchell


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## tepelus (Jan 30, 2013)

On the second draft of my WIP, I put in the first four chapters I've redone so far, it came up with L. Frank Baum (author of The Wizard of Oz series)

Then I did just chapter one -- L. Frank Baum
Then chapter 2 -- Margaret Atwood
Then chapter 3 -- Neil Gaiman
Then chapter 4 -- Anne Rice

Surprisingly, none came up with Bram Stoker since I use the name Dracula (in reference to the historical Dracula, not the vampire) all throughout.


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## Bruno Spatola (Jan 30, 2013)

Hmm, I tried multiple excerpts from Clive Barker's _The Hellbound Heart_, and it came up with Stephen King, Edgar Allen Poe, and H.P. Lovecraft. Very apt comparisons, actually, but it didn't pull out the author's name.

With a more refined searching technique and wider content to draw from, it could be very accurate.

Authors I've never heard of that it suggested: 

Ursula K. Le Guin
David Foster Wallace


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## alanmt (Jan 30, 2013)

Robert Louis Stevenson!  Yay, although perhaps not as sublime a writer as I could have hoped for.  For a bit of my elf noir, it gave me Margaret Atwood.


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## candid petunia (Jan 30, 2013)

For my prose, I got -- James Fenimore Cooper and Ursula K. Le Guin (who are they?).

For poetry -- Rudyard Kipling, James Joyce, H. P. Lovecraft and J. K. Rowling.


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## dale (Jan 30, 2013)

candid petunia said:


> For my prose, I got -- James Fenimore Cooper and Ursula K. Le Guin (who are they?).
> 
> For poetry -- Rudyard Kipling, James Joyce, H. P. Lovecraft and J. K. Rowling.


i got cooper, too. had to look him up. he wrote "the last of the mohicans".


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## Ariel (Jan 30, 2013)

Ursula K. Le Guin is a fantasy novelist, I think.  I've seen her books in that section anyway.  I tried to read one once.  I couldn't do it.


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## Terry D (Jan 30, 2013)

Ursula K. Le Guin is (or was, she may have moved on by now) a very fine science fiction writer, T_he Left Hand of Darkness_,  and _The Lathe of Heaven _are some of her better known works.


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## moderan (Jan 30, 2013)

I am saddened that people had to look up James Fenimore Cooper. I'm sure Natty Bumppo would agree. Ursula LeGuin writes fantasy too (Earthsea anyone?), but I'm not sure if she ever kippled. She did invent the ansible.
More of my things get the David Foster Wallace comp than anything else. I'm not sure how infinite the jest is but I'm ok with that.


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## Leyline (Jan 30, 2013)

For a segment of "Yard Sale Season" and "Morningsong" I got Chuck Palahniuck. For my story "Burnt", my LM entry "Gifted & Talented" and a section of "Pictures Of Churches" I got Cory Doctorow. For my flash piece "The Girl From The Future" I got William Gibson. 

Pretty much just junk, I think.


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## JosephB (Jan 30, 2013)

Yeah -- it's random. I used paragraphs from the same story and got different authors.


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## FleshEater (Jan 30, 2013)

That thing is pretty nifty! I typed in, I know this because Tyler knows this, and Chuck Palahniuk came up!

I got Dan Brown, and J.K. Rowling...I've never read either of them.


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## candid petunia (Jan 30, 2013)

The last of the Mohicans. I've read that book and I really liked it; I must have been small then. The name of the author had slipped my mind. 

Don't think I've heard of Ursula LeGuin.


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## moderan (Jan 30, 2013)

That's very sad too. Read this:Omelas
Cannot recommend it highly enough.


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## CitizenUnknown (Jan 30, 2013)

I got Oscar Wilde for one of my pieces. I am not entirely sure how I feel about this... but I think I may be insulted... Maybe.
On another one I got Neil Gaiman, whom I have never actually read, but whom my sister insists is freaking phenomenal, so I may be okay with this lol


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## Leyline (Jan 30, 2013)

moderan said:


> That's very sad too. Read this:Omelas
> Cannot recommend it highly enough.



Same here. I consider it one of the finest short stories ever written, partly because it breaks every 'how-to-write' rule on the planet except the most important: be _phenomenal_. And it leaves me in tears even after hundreds of readings.

It can be uncomfortable for some, because 'Omelas' is every society that has ever existed and probably ever will. But it posits a choice.


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## Leyline (Jan 30, 2013)

CitizenUnknown said:


> I got Oscar Wilde for one of my pieces. I am not entirely sure how I feel about this... but I think I may be insulted... Maybe.
> On another one I got Neil Gaiman, whom I have never actually read, but whom my sister insists is freaking phenomenal, so I may be okay with this lol



No point in being insulted. It's a short piece of code with an extremely limited look-up table of writers to reference. It isn't actually telling you anything.


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## CitizenUnknown (Jan 31, 2013)

Leyline said:


> No point in being insulted. It's a short piece of code with an extremely limited look-up table of writers to reference. It isn't actually telling you anything.



I know lol I'm not actually insulted, I just thought it was comical because I don't think I actually write anything like Oscar Wilde and am not particularly a fan of his work.


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## popsprocket (Jan 31, 2013)

I continually get Shakespeare across a number of pieces of writing...

That makes me wonder if the people who wrote this algorithm have ever actually read any Shakespeare.


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## moderan (Jan 31, 2013)

The algorithm was written by an infinite number of trained monkeys.


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## Nee (Jan 31, 2013)

I do not write like anybody else. Which may seem odd because I have attended as many as 4 workshops or lectures a year since 1980 by Ray Bradbury RIP. And have had a number of other workshops and/or heated conversations with well know authors as well. Frank Herbert, Dean Koontz, Barnaby Conrad, Gayle Lynds, John Steinbeck Jr, Janet Evanovich, Christopher Moore, and Stephen King, to name a few.

Sorry to be all name drop-ish...but I have made a concerted effort over the years to hone my skills and expand my knowledge of literature and the psychology of fiction, and the best way to do that is read as much as you can and talk to those who have written novels that you've liked.


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## moderan (Jan 31, 2013)

Nee said:


> I do not write like anybody else. Which may seem odd because I haveattended as many as 4 workshops or lectures a year since 1980 by Ray Bradbury RIP. And have had a number of other workshops and/or heated conversations with well know authors as well. Frank Herbert, Dean Koontz, Barnaby Conrad, Gayle Lynds, John Steinbeck Jr, Janet Evanovich, Christopher Moore, and Stephen King, to name a few.
> 
> Sorry to be all name drop-ish...but I have made a concerted effort over the years to hone my skills and expand my knowledge of literature and the psychology of fiction, and the best way to do that is read as much as you can and talk to those who have written novels that you've liked.


I don't think anyone in-thread is actually claiming that they write like any of the named authors, or like an infinite number of trained monkees either.
It's about a crappy piece of software.
But please...I am a rant fan. Pray continue.
I do disagree...I think the best way to improve is to write, and to keep doing it, and to submit the results to professional editors.


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## tepelus (Jan 31, 2013)

You mean the website is not for realz? I haz a sad. :cry:


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## Tiamat (Feb 1, 2013)

From novel excerpts to short stories, I got Vladamir Nabokov the most frequently.  Also got Chuck Palahniuk a few times, Ursula Le Guin once, and James Joyce once.

Kind of fun but most certainly not accurate.


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## Rustgold (Feb 1, 2013)

I was going to say that I write like myself.

Anyway, their program said I write like :



> Chuck Palahniuk
> H. P. Lovecraft
> Ursula K. Le Guin
> Stephen King
> ...



Interestingly, each piece was in the general category that the authors were best known; so I'd suggest that the program is merely looking for key words.  Maybe I'll test this with some not so random words.


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## Rustgold (Feb 1, 2013)

Yep, it's just looking for key words.



> "Are you a wizard?" Gary asked.
> 
> 
> John nodded
> ...



No second guesses who I got.


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## Bruno Spatola (Feb 1, 2013)

Thought so. Simple but not un_-_clever.  

No-one else get Ray Bradbury besides me?


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## beanlord56 (Feb 1, 2013)

A sample o _Ex Tenebris Lux_, and it says I write like James Fenimore Cooper. A sample of _Star Soul_, and I apparently write like Margaret Atwood. Yeah, this thing pulls author names out of its virtual butt. As I read my own stuff, I notice similarities to Ted Dekker, Rick Riordan, and J.K. Rowling, all of whom inspire me the most.


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## candid petunia (Feb 1, 2013)

I still don't understand how my poetry -- which has no mention of wands, wizards/witches, robes or dormitories -- got J. K. Rowling. :topsy_turvy:


Edit: And thank you moderan, for the link to the story of Omelas. Definitely gave me food for thought, a well-written story.


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## popsprocket (Feb 1, 2013)

It seems to be taking sentence structure into account too.


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## Bruno Spatola (Feb 1, 2013)

You could paste a huge excerpt from a manual for a Dyson vacuum cleaner, it has to decide on an author in the end.


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## Jeko (Feb 1, 2013)

Appartantly, my writing is a mix of:

Douglas Adams
Cory Doctorow 
H. P. Lovecraft
J. D. Salanger
Jack London
Ernest Hemingway
Stephen King
James Joyce


Hmm...


I typed in 'Hello, I am a very big turtle' with each word on a separate line and it came up with Kurt Vonnegut. Writing a shopping list gets me James Joyce. 'I like writing words' gets me Lewis Caroll.

Double hmm...


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## dolphinlee (Feb 1, 2013)

Trilby, thank you for this thread. It is certainly a lot of fun.


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## Jeko (Feb 1, 2013)

> On another one I got Neil Gaiman, whom I have never actually read


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## Mike63031 (Feb 1, 2013)

Dan Brown?  Darn, I was doing my best imitation of Janet Evonovich.:scratch:

R/Mike


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## Baron (Feb 1, 2013)

I came up as David Foster Wallace.  I've never read any of his books.


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## moderan (Feb 1, 2013)

He's worth reading.


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## Baron (Feb 1, 2013)

More for the reading list...

*Adds to the pile that Foxee dropped off*


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## moderan (Feb 1, 2013)

I gave Foxee a pile of to-reads. She hasn't spoken to me since. Karma or Dharma? You make the call?
The funny thing is that my things were often seen as David Foster Wallace-like also, and you and I don't have remotely the same style.


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## Bruno Spatola (Feb 1, 2013)

I think a computer recognizing similarities in style is years away, for writing at least. There's probably a machine out there which can do it with artwork, measuring geometry and what have you. The best computers for assessing and comparing art will always be humans . . . I hope. 

*Terminator theme*

Who's playing that? Not cool.


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## moderan (Feb 1, 2013)

It's just a conversation-starter.
So who do you really think you write like?
People have often compared my work to that of the late RA Lafferty because I tend to non-sequitur, wild humor and have a skewed perspective on things. But that's only if they've read Lafferty. Otherwise they go with Douglas Adams.
I find that no more imaginative than the computer program, in the main. But I do it too...some standard of comparison seems to be recommended, as a handle, as a way of approaching things.


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## Bruno Spatola (Feb 1, 2013)

I don't think I write quite like any novelist I've read, but I have been told my writing has the impact of Clive Barker a few times, in the way I describe things. I like using graphic, surreal imagery, juxtaposition, internal dialogs (often otherworldly), words with certain sounds, like ones that end with 'k'. My mother says my work reads like a movie would play, which makes sense -- I've been inspired more by film than any other medium.

So I'd say Clive Barker and J.K. Rowling. My pacing is like Rowling's. I embellish like a poet would, layering, but not in an annoying way, I don't think. I own over twenty Stephen King books, and my writing is nothing like his. Interesting.


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## moderan (Feb 1, 2013)

Barker started as a painter and gravitated to theater after painting some scenery for backdrops. He wrote short stories and things on the side, until the writer Ramsey Campbell came to talk to his class in Liverpool. After that, he was inspired. Campbell was encouraged by Lovecraft. So that's a fine tradition to be part of.
I've never read more than a couple of hundred pages of Rowling's things. I find them far too derivative for my liking, and they don't instill in me the sense of wonder that would be needed to continue.
And I think the closest comparison to my writing is Ellison. Harlan, not Ralph. I have more science content but the angry sardonicism and iconoclasm are as much a part of my things as they are of his.


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## Leyline (Feb 1, 2013)

The biggest influence on my 'style' is probably Carl Sandburg, though I don't think I've ever lived up to even his weakest work. His ability to conjure beauty and emotion from the most common language has never been equaled in my opinion. 

But, really, I don't think 'style' is a static thing. It's a mask you pull over content, the sugar coating the medicine. Where it comes from is probably one of those questions that it's nearly impossible to answer, unless a writer is actively imitating another writer. An organic, honestly formed style is probably a distillation of so many elements that it truly has become something new.

Or, as Sandburg said:*STYLE*

*STYLE--go ahead talking about style.
        You can tell where a man gets his style just
         as you can tell where Pavlowa got her legs
         or Ty Cobb his batting eye.*
* 
   Go on          talking.
        Only don't take my style away.
                   It's my face.
                   Maybe no good
                                      but anyway, my face.
        I talk with it, I sing with it, I see, taste and feel with it,
         I know why I want to keep it.*
*
Kill my style
                                       and you break Pavlowa's legs,
                                       and you blind Ty Cobb's batting eye.*​


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## moderan (Feb 1, 2013)

Well-said, sir. But I think you read a bit like Sturgeon. Maybe it's the reaching for Sandburg that does that. Either way a laudable effort. Your humility humbles me.


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## Leyline (Feb 1, 2013)

moderan said:


> Well-said, sir. But I think you read a bit like Sturgeon. Maybe it's the reaching for Sandburg that does that. Either way a laudable effort. Your humility humbles me.



*Beams with pleasure to be compared to Sturgeon*

Mr. Waldo was, of course, a huge influence. I remember, vividly, reading 'A Saucer Of Loneliness' for the first time, probably age 10 or so. It was early morning, a Saturday, and Friday had been library day. I'd been immersed in an anthology of SF stories until I fell asleep, dreamed about them, and grabbed that book before the sleep was even out of my eyes. "If she's dead, I thought, I'll never find her in this white flood of moonlight on the white sea" I read and sleep was banished. I also remember the second, third, fourth and fifth reads well because they happened right after as I searched in vain for the bottom of that damned story and never found it. I've read it many, many times since and still haven't. Just new levels that it works on. It's one of the most technically accomplished stories I've ever read, and one of the most human and powerful. I've been trying to use the line 'All About The Pretty Ones Who Really Own The World" as a story title for thirty years and it's always the kiss of death, because it means I'm going to be crippled with insecurity before a single word is written.  But I love that line. It's about the superficiality of most novels and film, but it -- like the story -- speaks much deeper than the surface meaning.


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## moderan (Feb 1, 2013)

For me it was this:
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





and this:





Bought the same day in 1974 at Waldenbooks in Woodfield Mall. Read the same day in my room in western Chicago. I skipped dinner and read til past dawn. I remember seeing the first piece of yours, long before I did any reviewing, before I even registered here (for the second time), and it felt like that (the second was the Lafferty tribute where I introduced myself-thinking-this guy's read the same stuff-that never ever happens).
_Microcosmic God_ is the piece a lot of your writing reminds me of, both in word choice and in spirit. And that's mighty. I wish you thought as highly of your work as I do. But then many wish I thought less of my own work *laughs* I see no reason for false humility *ducks*
But _when you care, when you love_, that gets left on the page. And your love of reading and writing is in every word.


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## Jagunco (Feb 3, 2013)

I fed three paragraphs of my semi finished novel into and I got three different writers. Lovecraft Joyve and some other bugger I never heard of....

Im oddly flattered in an unconvinced way


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## moderan (Feb 3, 2013)

It's a silly little thing, but fun. I doubt anyone takes it seriously.


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## Nee (Feb 3, 2013)

I put up a poem I recently posted here and got Mary Shelly. I
I Write Like Mary Shelley

So then I did another and got, Cory Doctorow
I Write Like Cory Doctorow

Okay….so another, Ursula K. Le Guin
I Write Like Ursula K. Le Guin

Really…? How bout this one then! Dan Brown—no e’ffin way!
I Write Like Dan Brown


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