Statistical Methods to Analyze Creative Writing Habits in Fiction

During my interdisciplinary undergraduate degree, I decided to use statistical techniques to analyze my Creative Writing habits as a way to blend my main areas of study. I also hoped to test predictions about myself (i.e. balance and representation in my writing with the exception of length due to being exposed to short stories far earlier than microfictions) and the astrological zodiac (i.e. even distributions of element, modality, and polarity on their own as well as there being an association between element and polarity). I summarized point of view (POV), shipping status, length, genre, and aspects of character craft (specifically protagonist biological sex, activity, and astrological sun sign assignment) of 17 fictional stories that I have written. Then I used Google Sheets and R-Studio to conduct the necessary statistical tests such as Chi-Square ( 2 ) Goodness Of Fit (GOF), Chi-Square ( 2 ) Contingency Analysis (CA), Fisher’s Exact Test (FET), 1-sample t-test, 2-sample t-test, and Welch’s t-test. The data on POV, shipping status, genre, protagonist biological sex, protagonist activity, and astrological sun sign assignment all failed to reject the null hypotheses of the necessary statistical tests (p > .05) while the data on length rejected its null hypothesis (p = .008). I also tested for independence amongst POV, shipping status, length, and genre; the only statistically significant association was between POV and genre (p < .05). There was no statistically significant difference between my male and female protagonists in terms of protagonist activity based on additional testing (p = .77). Regarding any associations within the astrological zodiac, the only statistically significant association was between element and polarity (p < .001). My predictions were somewhat supported by the results. I learned that the application of statistics to Creative Writing can help any writer (myself included) better assess their habits and note potential aspects of their work than can be further diversified.Science, Faculty ofUnreviewedUndergraduat