Word Maps
Wordle is a website that allows you to make word maps from a given chunk of text or URL. Curious, I wondered how my book The Weekend Fix (which is also available as a *cough* Amazon Kindle e-book and would make an ideal Christmas present) looks through Wordle's prism?
The Weekend Fix:
As would be expected, 'hill' and 'summit' take prominence, but so does OS and NN - there is an OS grid reference given at the start of each little story. As it is a personal story, names such as Brian, Alastair appear, and tellingly, 'car' is a bigger word than 'Munro'. Intrigued, I ran the text of a history book I am in the process of writing through Wordle. The results were interesting, for a couple of reasons.
History book:
If things were being given their due weight, 'church' would be a far more prominent word, and the word map highlights a deficiency in important historical words such as pope, presbyterian, industry, and empire. What also comes out most clearly from this book - a history of Britain, that is really a history of Scotland with the other parts of Britain considered - is the pivotal part England has played in Scottish history. Perhaps I have collected too much material on this relationship to the detriment of other areas?
What about my songs and poems? I ran a list of songs up to around 2004 through Wordle. 'Love' is by far the most prominent word. How hackneyed.
Songs:
My poems are a bit more fey - words such as dream, moon, heart - but also death, fuck, and, for some reason, gudgie...
Poems:
I had a bit of fun on Wordle - run some of your own text through it and see what it comes up with!
The Weekend Fix:
As would be expected, 'hill' and 'summit' take prominence, but so does OS and NN - there is an OS grid reference given at the start of each little story. As it is a personal story, names such as Brian, Alastair appear, and tellingly, 'car' is a bigger word than 'Munro'. Intrigued, I ran the text of a history book I am in the process of writing through Wordle. The results were interesting, for a couple of reasons.
History book:
If things were being given their due weight, 'church' would be a far more prominent word, and the word map highlights a deficiency in important historical words such as pope, presbyterian, industry, and empire. What also comes out most clearly from this book - a history of Britain, that is really a history of Scotland with the other parts of Britain considered - is the pivotal part England has played in Scottish history. Perhaps I have collected too much material on this relationship to the detriment of other areas?
What about my songs and poems? I ran a list of songs up to around 2004 through Wordle. 'Love' is by far the most prominent word. How hackneyed.
Songs:
My poems are a bit more fey - words such as dream, moon, heart - but also death, fuck, and, for some reason, gudgie...
Poems:
I had a bit of fun on Wordle - run some of your own text through it and see what it comes up with!
Comments
There is something beautiful about the way they turn out and interesting that it has made you think about your writing in a different way.
I'm going to go and have a go myself!
Thanks for this.