"I Write Like" Stephen King

Stephen King. Photo by "Pinguino"A new Web site has become the talk of the literary blogosphere. I Write Like has an intriguing gimmick: just cut and paste a sample of your writing into a text box, hit the analyze button, and an algorithm will tell you which famous author you write like. I pasted much of The Poacher's Son into the site and learned that my prose most resembles that of Stephen King. This was news to me, but I'm in good company: the New York Times fed all of Moby Dick into the program. It turns out Herman Melville also wrote like King.