Constrained writing

From Free net encyclopedia

Constrained writing is a literary technique in which the writer is bound by some condition that forbids certain things or imposes a pattern.

Constraints are very common in poetry, which often requires the writer to use a particular verse form.

The most common constrained forms of writing are strict restrictions in vocabulary, e.g. Basic English, E-Prime, defining vocabulary for dictionaries, and other limited vocabularies for teaching English as a Second Language or to children. This is not generally what is meant by “constrained writing” in the literary sense, which is motivated by more aesthetic concerns. For example:

• Lipogram, a letter (commonly e or o) is outlawed;
• Palindromes, such as the word “radar,” read the same both ways;
• Alliteratives, in which every word must start with the same letter (or subset of letters; see Alphabetical Africa)
• Acrostics;
• Reverse-lipograms (each word must contain a particular letter);
• Ander-Saxon;
• Anagrams;
• Aleatory (where the reader supplies a random input);

The Oulipo group is a gathering of writers who use such techniques. The Outrapo group use theatrical constraints.

Gadsby is an English-language novel consisting of 50,100 words, none of which contain the letter “e.”

In 1969, France’s Georges Perec published La Disparition, a novel that did not include the letter “e.” It was translated into English in 1995 by Gilbert Adair as “A Void.”

In 2004, a new marvel from France: a novel, entirely without verbs: Le Train de Nulle Part (“The Train from Nowhere”) by Michel Thaler. [1]

One famous constrained writing in the Chinese language is the Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den which consists of 92 characters, all with the sound shi. Another is the Thousand Character Classic in which all 1000 characters are unique without any repetition.

Cadaeic Cadenza is a short book by Mike Keith using the digits of pi as the length of words.

External links

• Mike Keith’s World of Words & Numbers, a site with many pieces of constrained writing
• “Poe, E.: Near a Raven,” a retelling of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven in which the lengths of words are the values of the digits in pi
• "Constrained.org" - a website for constrained literaturept:Escrita constrangida