Toe in the Water

A Stylish Post

A Stylish Post

Interesting occurrence this morning. But first, the tangled route I used to get to it.

Had a notification that mystified me a little. It was a tag to an entry in the Blogging Bliss Newsletter - Issue One Hundred One. Not having encountered this creature before, I wondered what I'd done to deserve a mention in it. Ever intrepid, I followed the link to find out. It was, as I had begun to suspect, a newsletter about blogs and, glancing quickly down the text, I saw that my mention was a link to my blog entry, The Hill, of a few days ago. One of my brief (very) thoughts, then.

But that meant that someone had been reading my blog, I realised. Who was this person who had become so lost in the jungle of WdC as to find me in it all? I checked. Some guy named Wordsmitty ✍️ - a name I'd seen before but not had any interaction with. Being nosey, I had a look at his Bio. And there, under the heading Writing Style, I found a link to a site entitled "I Write Like" (https://iwl.me/). At last we get to the point of this post!

Naturally, I tried it to see what it had to say about me. Picked a short story of mine at random and entered the text in the provided rectangle. It reckoned I write like Stephen King. Mildly insulted, I pondered on that. Not being a fan of the guy, I've read very little of his stuff but have my doubts that I write anything like him. Unless the site was going by subject more than style. It was a horror story that I'd entered, after all.

I picked another one, the same genre but rather a different style. This time, it seemed, I wrote like Conan Doyle.

Ah, I thought, I see your game. It's all about length of sentences and word choice. And, since I write in many different styles, depending on what I'm writing about (and even who I'm mimicking at times), I was confusing the darn thing. It could have some passing interest in that I could enter those stories that I intended to be in the style of a particular author, just to see if I'd succeeded, but I doubt it would achieve a high degree of accuracy. It can only have a limited database of authors and, for instance, I'm prepared to bet it's never heard of H. Rider Haggard nor read the poems of A.A. Milne. A thing of limited use, therefore, but an amusement for an idle moment or two.

And I say that in my best Conan Doyle voice. Elementary. my dear Watson!


Word count: 452