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This has been making a run around the internet these days. It's a site that checks the gender of your writing, supposedly to determine if you are a man or a woman who is writing. Not sure I believe you could ever tell on such a small set of key words. However, it is fun to pump in text and see the results.
Check out the Gender Genie
Okay, so how did I fare? I found the results interesting. Out of 14 completed stories (I didn't bother with just snippets as I quickly observed that portions of a story might present different results from the whole) 10 came out as Male, and 4 as Female. The stories that registered as "Female" were so by a large margin. Most of the stories that registered as Male, did so by much smaller margins, often within a very small percent. A few I wonder if a different edit might have skewed them the other way. I wasn't able to accurately predict which stories I thought would register one way or another. As I ran through, I made little theories: stories with internal conflict would all register as female, where those with external conflict would register as male. *bzzzz* Though my most outlandishly violent story did come up decisively male, other stories of action were much closer to a middle ground than I expected. Other stories, where the crux of it is internal conflict, and somewhat personal, came out male as well. And some female. So that theory went out the window.
Then I thought, well perhaps it would be those stories where female characters play a stronger role. Two out of the four "female" stories did have substantial female characters. Another one does make references to the main characters wife, but the fourth doesn't have a woman at all. On the other hand, four of the "male" stories have substantial female characters, or several. My thought there was logical, since she her and hers, were 3 of the 16 "female" signifiers, I figure a story without a female character was much less likely to produce a high "female" score. Interestingly, the existence of male characters is irrelevant, as the counter words, he him and his, are not among the words counted.
I was tempted to run my novel through, to see how it fared. But, I thought that 153K words would break the page. Maybe not. But I didn't want to push it.
I make no claims to the accuracy of such a tool. Nor do I know what to make of it, when it can vary quite this much for one writer.
I can only say this: It's an amusing way to waste a little time. And it also inspired me to take out an old piece, and actually type it in to get a read on it. However, one old story was my limit. I've got 1/3 of a new story done, and I need to get cracking on that.
Check out the Gender Genie
Okay, so how did I fare? I found the results interesting. Out of 14 completed stories (I didn't bother with just snippets as I quickly observed that portions of a story might present different results from the whole) 10 came out as Male, and 4 as Female. The stories that registered as "Female" were so by a large margin. Most of the stories that registered as Male, did so by much smaller margins, often within a very small percent. A few I wonder if a different edit might have skewed them the other way. I wasn't able to accurately predict which stories I thought would register one way or another. As I ran through, I made little theories: stories with internal conflict would all register as female, where those with external conflict would register as male. *bzzzz* Though my most outlandishly violent story did come up decisively male, other stories of action were much closer to a middle ground than I expected. Other stories, where the crux of it is internal conflict, and somewhat personal, came out male as well. And some female. So that theory went out the window.
Then I thought, well perhaps it would be those stories where female characters play a stronger role. Two out of the four "female" stories did have substantial female characters. Another one does make references to the main characters wife, but the fourth doesn't have a woman at all. On the other hand, four of the "male" stories have substantial female characters, or several. My thought there was logical, since she her and hers, were 3 of the 16 "female" signifiers, I figure a story without a female character was much less likely to produce a high "female" score. Interestingly, the existence of male characters is irrelevant, as the counter words, he him and his, are not among the words counted.
I was tempted to run my novel through, to see how it fared. But, I thought that 153K words would break the page. Maybe not. But I didn't want to push it.
I make no claims to the accuracy of such a tool. Nor do I know what to make of it, when it can vary quite this much for one writer.
I can only say this: It's an amusing way to waste a little time. And it also inspired me to take out an old piece, and actually type it in to get a read on it. However, one old story was my limit. I've got 1/3 of a new story done, and I need to get cracking on that.
