My Inner Dan Brown...

Get out your chequebooks folks. Apparently I write like Dan Brown. Or at least that's what the writing analysis website I Write Like (iwl.me) seems to think. As if there weren't enough ways to waste your time on the internet (reading blogs, for instance) there is now even something to amuse the technophobic literary wannabes like myself. All you have to do is paste in a chunk of your writing, click the button and presto - your literary twin is revealed. Based on an algorithm I could not possibly begin to understand (sounds too much like maths for my poor brain), the site claims to "analyze (sic) your word choice and writing style and compare them with those of the famous writers". Leaving aside the fact that analysing the webmaster's writing would reveal a syphilitic monkey as their twin, the site rates pretty highly on my schtick meter.

Don't get too carried away though. Analyse too many chunks and you might be in for a rude shock. Rather than paste in any selections of my real writing, I just chose random bits from this blog. Initially I was compared to Kurt Vonnegut. Score! Next up was H. P. Lovecraft. Sure, I get how reading this crap could induce nightmares. Third time it was Vladimir Nobokov (I really should have hung up my hat and rested on my laurels at this point). But then I had to go and blow it all. Dan Kill-Me-Now Brown.

This revelation has, of course, led to something of an existential crisis for me. I am at a loss to explain why my blog doesn't get Brown-like numbers, or why they have yet to make a film of Bait For Bookworms. Is Tom Hanks too good to play me? In a last ditch effort to save face, I just copied and pasted the two paragraphs above into the analysis box and... presto! Back to Kurt Vonnegut. I think if I can manage to go full circle without ever having been accused of writing like Stephenie Meyer there is still hope. Crisis averted.