Constrained Writing

Constrained writing is similar to writing from prompts in that it requires a limitation imposed upon a work to inspire creativity. But it leans more towards the technical areas of writing rather than the subject matter (writing without punctuation, writing without verbs, writing without the most common vowel), and thus it is generally seen as a lot more hardcore.

You may recognize Dr Seuss on the list of notable authors, who wrote a book using only fifty words in order to win a bet.

For those brave enough, who else finds this an enormously interesting aspect of literature?

Very, very interested. It sounds exactly the kind of thing that I would suck at.

I wouldn't mind trying some one of these days, but I'd need to find a constraint that sounded fun to work with.

Or you need the right amount of money.

My very first contest entry had only two lines of dialogue, and both consisted entirely of monosyllabic words. At the time, I liked the fable-like quality it had, although I haven't tried anything similar since.

I already did some, I think. (Most of Night Life had a cap of 500 words.)

Not that constrained, but somewhat. It was more an effort to prevent me going off on another major project than anything else.

edited 26th Feb '12 10:29:17 AM by Night

While I like the idea very much, I've never done this because writing is difficult enough as it is. Once I tried to write an in-universe short poem that was ridiculously constrained, but it predictably failed miserably and I abandoned it after six lines or so.

Night: Word count isn't in-depth enough to be constrained writing. True drabbles are 100 words and plenty of people can write them. It would only be constrained writing if scenes or entire novel chapters took place in, say, 10 words or less. ("My mother is a fish.")

Dealan: It's totally fine if you've never done any of it. This is pretty much only practiced by the most hardcore of literature nerds.

My first exposure to constrained writing was through Oulipo, which I learned about in this specialised English course I was enrolled in when I was in seventh grade. It's cool stuff, and in one way or another has been an influence upon how I write ever since.

edited 27th Feb '12 8:32:44 AM by JHM

I can barely find a way to express my ideas without any of these rules... That's not for me.

It's not a rule. It's an idea. Like for plots, you say "What if—", only instead of a plot thing you work with format.

But, like I said, it's a super-hardcore idea which only really nerdy people think about. It's fine if you don't feel up to it.

I find it interesting, although I've never actually read any prose constrained writing. I don't think I'd try the prose version myself; although I have done it for poetry, which has produced probably some of my best poems.

It's a great idea and I have found I do it naturally.

I've been watching some of the Academy Award Best Film deconstructions at http://www.kalbashir1.blogspot.com/ and I've noticed that they're broken down into 5 acts. I've found that I start my stories by trying to distill each act into ten words. I find that the story starts off sounding like a poem almost. Or even musical lyrics. Fascinating.

Good writing unblock technique too.