Me, apparently.
It appears that I owe readers here an apology, and my psychiatrist a visit. Yesterday I ran across a website that analyzes one’s prose and informs writers whose style among those in the pantheon of famous novelists their literary efforts most resemble. I gave the site two selections from Ethics Alarms to assess.
The verdict? The novelist my writing evokes is none other than H.P. Lovecraft, but with fewer typos.
Lovecraft was an iconic horror writer, wrote like nobody else who ever lived, or so I thought, and was almost certainly insane. If you haven’t had the pleasure of experiencing H.P., here is a typical passage…
“The nethermost caverns are not for the fathoming of eyes that see; for their marvels are strange and terrific. Cursed the ground where dead thoughts live new and oddly bodied, and evil the mind that is held by no head. Wisely did Ibn Schacabao say, that happy is the tomb where no wizard hath lain, and happy the town at night whose wizards are all ashes. For it is of old rumour that the soul of the devil-bought hastes not from his charnel clay, but fats and instructs the very worm that gnaws; till out of corruption horrid life springs, and the dull scavengers of earth wax crafty to vex it and swell monstrous to plague it. Great holes are digged where earth’s pores ought to suffice, and things have learnt to walk that ought to crawl.”
Regarding this disturbing discovery, I want to say…
- I’m so sorry.
- Why didn’t anyone tell me?
- You can check out your own prose here, at I Write Like. Be sure you let me know what you find out. I’m hoping that it thinks everybody writes like Lovecraft.
- “Evil the mind that is held by no head” is the new motto of Ethics Alarms.
Ethics Alarms 
I tested three samples. Two came back Lovecraft. One came back Arthur C. Clarke.
I’m guessing it has more to do with paragraph length than anything else.
Like Arthur in Maine, I fed it three samples. The first, a lengthy facebook response to a serious question came back Lovecraft, while samples two and three, less serious posts, came back Stephen King!
Ethics IS horrible then. People told me that, but I didn’t believe them.Then again, evil the mind that is held by no head.
I submitted a paragraph from a university essay and an email to an aunt. They both came back Jane Austen. This pleases me!
It must have spotted the difference between British English style and American English style. Good find, Mr Marshall.
You should be pleased—you’re a genius, I’m a depressive psychotic.
Don’t feel so bad; I have multiple personality disorder. Three samples, three authors: Gertrude Stein, James Joyce, and Cory Doctorow. Kinda scary. Nonetheless, a great find, Jack. Thanks for sharing.
Well, you know what I always say…evil the mind that is held by no head!
I fed it my last three blog pieces (2 Lovecrafts and a Cory Doctorow) and two e-mails to a favorite former student (one Lovecraft and a David Foster Wallace). At least I have company.
First submission (intro to my unpublished book) – Chuck Palahniuk (I actually enjoyed both the Fight Club book as well as its movie adaptation)
Second submission (more technical chapter in said book) – Isaac Asimov
Interesting.
Three samples; Daniel Defoe, H. P. Lovecraft and William Gibson. Looks like multiple personality disorder is my diagnosis.
I gave it 5 samples: Stephen King, H.P.Lovecraft, P.G. Wodehouse, Cory Doctorow, H.P. Lovecraft again. The lack of reliability is disturbing.
Is that more disturbing, or the fact that all three of my submissions turned up Lovecraft?
I think you need to look at the bright side. Your writing IS consistent.
I submitted one example and from that example I’m a “Dan Brown”.
I wasn’t satisfied with the Dan Brown comparison due to critisms that the structure of his writing was simplistic. I actually enjoy his writing.
I submitted another sample and it turned up “Vladimer Nabakov”. I can live with that so I think I will just stop there.
Yes, quit while you’re ahead. Because evil the mind that is held by no head.
Which means that you’ll never win a literary contest. Then again, who needs literary contests when you can afford a garage full of Ferraris?
Thanks. Indeed, I’ll take crazy H.P. over Hack Dan Brown any day.
So in this case it’s “evil the mind that is held by no italian cylinder heads”?
–Dwayne
How did P.G. Wodehouse get in there? Was your story along the lines of “Bertie Wooster: Vampire Slayer”?
It would be fun to see you actually write an Ethics Alarm post in H.P. Lovecraft-style prose.
“The unknowable and eldritch craft of Ethics has driven many a politician to the brink of madness and beyond. Such a horrid revelation does not in any manner disturb the nation’s citizenry, so possessed by the spirit of apathy they are…”
I may take you up on that.
Well Jack, it’s clear enough from the picture you’ve been using that you do, in fact, have a head. So one of two things is going on here:
1) You really did lose your head over “He’s Not One of Us” or
2) “evil the mind that is held by no hair”
–Dwayne
I write like Stephen King, David Foster Wallace, Rudyard Kipling, and James Joyce.
I’m either going to be very rich someday, or this means of analysis might be completely arbitrary.
Do those four writers have any stylistic similarities at all?
Hmmm. I just asked the site to analyze a long passage by Kurt Vonnegut, It said HE wrote like Dan Brown!
Kurt was a depressive, and this wouldn’t have helped a bit. Do you think this website may be assuming expertise it doesn’t really have? After all, evil the mind that is held by no head.
Or so I’ve heard.
Oh-oh. I just pasted the Lovecraft passage above into the site. It thinks HP writes like Dan Brown too. That cinches it: Dan Brown spoils everything he touches.
Five different characters as narrators, five different authors. I don’t know if that means my writing is improving or I do have many personalities. Anne Rice, Isaac Asimov, Harry Harrison, James Joyce, and Stephenie Meyer, which I found to be a late Halloween fright…
Yikes.
This seems like an easy gig. Gonna work on constructing a website that will analyze the level of an individual’s financial intellect by closely examining the $100 bills they voluntarily submit.
Brilliant!
Remind me to go nowhere near that website. Ever!
Did this over a year ago. Anne Rice. Bull crap.
Just tried again. Cory Doctorow. That is a little more credible.
I tried several pieces of legal writing and they all came back Lovecraft. Insert appropriate joke here.
I also tried the first three paragraphs of “The Man Who Would Be King” and learned that Kipling wrote like Nabokov.
Ah HA! Finally, proof that lawyers hail from the bowels of Hell, belched out by the eye-less slime demons summoned by the twitching, stench-filled Old Ones, with their black flecking tongues dripping putrid pus on their scaly nether reasons, as they cry “Glork! Glork!” and besmirch all that is holy!
Actually, Jack, your writing has always reminded me of Lovecraft. Only concern is that so many others actually write like Lovecraft, too.
I’d settle for Edgar Rice Burroughs. He wasn’t a great writer, but did he make money!!
I got Anne Rice on one and David Foster Wallace on another….