Margaret and Me

I write like a girl.

By now, you might have already seen I Write Like, a “statistical analysis tool which analyzes your word choice and writing style and compares them with those of famous writers.” If you haven’t, then head on over and paste a few hundred words of your best writing into the text box, click “analyze”, and see which author’s name pops up.

For me, it was Margaret Atwood.

Much to my chagrin, I must confess that I was unfamiliar with the acclaimed literary works of Margaret Atwood. I will even admit that I hadn’t heard of her name before. Alas, my ignorance! I must bewail it.

But a quick stop at the local library remedied my plight; I checked out both The Handmaid’s Tale and Oryx and Crake. I started Oryx and Crake yesterday, and I was immediately absorbed by this darkly humorous story. The post-apocalyptic dystopian genre is a favorite of mine, and I can already tell this is one book I’m not likely to put down anytime soon.

So, back to writing like a girl . . . (If that girl is Margaret Atwood, I take it as a compliment!)

I don’t have a problem with this soulless computer program’s assessment, and there’s nothing wrong with being in touch with my feminine side. But I wanted a second opinion. So I visited the Gender Genie, where I submitted another writing sample and received the following results: According to the vocabulary choices in my 500-word passage, my “female” score was 570 while my “male” score was 610. “The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: male.” Phew. Close one.

In all seriousness, writing as well as Margaret Atwood is something I can only aspire to, and I am exceedingly grateful to have discovered her body of work.
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