A website for identifying my writing doppelganger named Cory Doctorow when I used a sample from a short story and Kurt Vonnegut when I used one of my articles. As I tested different parts of a novel, the analysis said my writing was like Stephen King, Agatha Christie, and Cory Doctorow, who showed up more than any other author. I do a bit of blogging and have just begun to dabble in science fiction. But, the website uses measurable writing traits such as syntax, frequency of parts of speech, length of sentences, and reading level. My content is not the same as his. According to critique partners my fiction is closer to the work of Catherine Ryan Hyde or Melody Carlson.

My writing style is simple and straightforward with a few of my favorite nuanced words thrown in the mix. Some of these are higher level vocabulary. I tend to use phrases ironically and describe characters through their dialog. The style is not hard to read, even though I’ve been told by more than one person that it borders on poetic. However, I show much more than I tell, which means longer amounts of text are required for each scene. Sometimes I feel like I must go back and carve my stories out of the monolith I have created.

Reader’s preferences are subjective. Readers of my short works either love them or ask to be told exactly what is occurring. This second group of readers struggle with understanding what others pick up easily. My challenge is to figure out what kind of person prefers my writing style and substance as this doesn’t seem to be defined by age group or favorite genre.

Finally, I settled on the idea of looking at the themes in my writing. Those are the cohesive elements found throughout my poems, short stories, essays and few longer works. The following were the themes repeated throughout my work:

· Becoming mature as an adolescent/young adult

· Adapting to not fitting in to society

· Repaying for the damage one has caused

· Dealing with atypical mental processing or personality disorders

· Sacrificing for another person/group of people

· Approaching old age and death as an adult

A theme is the underlying main idea that is integral to the story. It makes no statement and is not the same as didactic writing in which the reader is told what to think. People may not even consider the themes of their stories. But, they all have at least one, whether the author realizes it or not. So, take the time to review your work and discover the focus of your themes.