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Constrained Writing

121 statements
21 feature instances
12 referencing feature instances

Constrained Writing	type	FeatureClass
Constrained Writing	label	Constrained Writing
Constrained Writing	page	ConstrainedWriting
Constrained Writing	comment	This is when an author writes in an atypical pattern. The reasons for this can vary, from Leaning on the Fourth Wall (if it's related to the story in some way), to keeping certain plot points and twists hidden to the very end (e.g. avoiding gender pronouns for a Samus Is a Girl twist; see The All-Concealing "I") to simply being a stylistic choice. Some types of self-imposed challenges include writing in a particular metre, or making each line a letter longer than the one that preceded it; writing in code (e.g. replacing words with ones that appear a few places afterwards in the dictionary); avoiding certain common letters (the correct term for this is a lipogram, by the way; E is the most commonly used because it's the most commonly used vowel in several languages); using words that display some sort of complex pattern (e.g. making large chunks of the story alliterative or in palindromes); drabbles (stories of precisely 100 words) and many more. Remember this applies to any challenge imposed on the author by themselves, so normal deadlines and schedules don't count, though improvising with limited resources or using a particularly strict time limit does (see NaNoWriMo for one example). The alternative name "Oulipo" is from a group of French writers who were dedicated to this style of writing. The Other Wiki also has an article on the concept. Some authors might adopt this as a Signature Style. Unconventional Formatting can be related. When this is used within an otherwise normal piece of writing to show something specific then it is Painting the Medium. Flash Fiction is a subtrope.
Constrained Writing	fetched	2024-02-01T18:46:03Z
Constrained Writing	parsed	2024-02-01T18:46:03Z
Constrained Writing	processingComment	Dropped link to ArtistDisillusionment: Not an Item - FEATURE
Constrained Writing	processingComment	Dropped link to Eminem: Not an Item - IGNORE
Constrained Writing	processingComment	Dropped link to Improv: Not an Item - FEATURE
Constrained Writing	processingComment	Dropped link to OlderThanFeudalism: Not an Item - CAT
Constrained Writing	processingComment	Dropped link to PaintingTheMedium: Not an Item - FEATURE
Constrained Writing	processingComment	Dropped link to RapeLeadsToInsanity: Not an Item - FEATURE
Constrained Writing	processingComment	Dropped link to SongsToWearPantsTo: Not an Item - IGNORE
Constrained Writing	processingComment	Dropped link to WeirdAlYankovic: Not an Item - IGNORE
Constrained Writing	processingComment	Dropped link to WhatTheHellIsThatAccent: Not an Item - FEATURE
Constrained Writing	isPartOf	DBTropes
Constrained Writing / int_136e43a2	type	Constrained Writing
Constrained Writing / int_136e43a2	comment	An episode of Zoey 101 has Chase, Michael, and Logan challenge each other to see who can go the longest without saying any words with the letter "S".
Constrained Writing / int_136e43a2	featureApplicability	1.0
Constrained Writing / int_136e43a2	featureConfidence	1.0
Zoey 101	hasFeature	Constrained Writing / int_136e43a2
Constrained Writing / int_261c8d3f	type	Constrained Writing
Constrained Writing / int_261c8d3f	comment	The Simpsons: Multiple In-Universe examples. In "Guess Who's Coming To Criticize Dinner?", when Homer becomes a food critic, he writes a review without using the letter E. That's because the E key on his typewriter is broken. Somehow, he managed to write "Screw Flanders" over and over (perhaps written as "Scroo Flandurs"). In "Burns' Heir", Mr Burns tells Lenny that he will be fired unless he is able to explain why he shouldn't be without using the letter E.
Constrained Writing / int_261c8d3f	featureApplicability	1.0
Constrained Writing / int_261c8d3f	featureConfidence	1.0
The Simpsons	hasFeature	Constrained Writing / int_261c8d3f
Constrained Writing / int_34b6e24	type	Constrained Writing
Constrained Writing / int_34b6e24	comment	Similarly, Script Frenzy is a challenge to write 100 pages of script.
Constrained Writing / int_34b6e24	featureApplicability	1.0
Constrained Writing / int_34b6e24	featureConfidence	1.0
Script Frenzy (Website)	hasFeature	Constrained Writing / int_34b6e24
Constrained Writing / int_5082a6a	type	Constrained Writing
Constrained Writing / int_5082a6a	comment	In The Three Musketeers, Aramis mentions that he has written a poem with each line consisting of only one syllable.
Constrained Writing / int_5082a6a	featureApplicability	1.0
Constrained Writing / int_5082a6a	featureConfidence	1.0
The Three Musketeers	hasFeature	Constrained Writing / int_5082a6a
Constrained Writing / int_541debc	type	Constrained Writing
Constrained Writing / int_541debc	comment	In her first Lythande short story, "The Secret of the Blue Star", written for Thieves' World, Marion Zimmer Bradley carefully tried to avoid referring to the gender of the magician Lythande to conceal the Twist Ending that Lythande is a woman. She did slip up at one point, however:
Constrained Writing / int_541debc	featureApplicability	1.0
Constrained Writing / int_541debc	featureConfidence	1.0
Lythande	hasFeature	Constrained Writing / int_541debc
Constrained Writing / int_5755b96a	type	Constrained Writing
Constrained Writing / int_5755b96a	comment	In Dungeons and Dragons, "Sending" is a spell that lets you send a message of up to 25 words. In The Order of the Stick, every use of Sending is exactly 25 words.
Constrained Writing / int_5755b96a	featureApplicability	1.0
Constrained Writing / int_5755b96a	featureConfidence	1.0
The Order of the Stick (Webcomic)	hasFeature	Constrained Writing / int_5755b96a
Constrained Writing / int_585097a8	type	Constrained Writing
Constrained Writing / int_585097a8	comment	A Void (and La Disparition, its Gallic original) leaves out the letter E, and also has well received translations in most other European languages.
Constrained Writing / int_585097a8	featureApplicability	1.0
Constrained Writing / int_585097a8	featureConfidence	1.0
A Void	hasFeature	Constrained Writing / int_585097a8
Constrained Writing / int_6059ad6b	type	Constrained Writing
Constrained Writing / int_6059ad6b	comment	xkcd Comic 1045 discusses this. Up Goer Five uses only the ten hundred words used most often.
Constrained Writing / int_6059ad6b	featureApplicability	1.0
Constrained Writing / int_6059ad6b	featureConfidence	1.0
xkcd (Webcomic)	hasFeature	Constrained Writing / int_6059ad6b
Constrained Writing / int_6edd201	type	Constrained Writing
Constrained Writing / int_6edd201	comment	He wrote The Cat in the Hat as a challenge to write an interesting story using a very small vocabulary of words which a 6 year-old should know.
Constrained Writing / int_6edd201	featureApplicability	1.0
Constrained Writing / int_6edd201	featureConfidence	1.0
The Cat in the Hat	hasFeature	Constrained Writing / int_6edd201
Constrained Writing / int_7698b31d	type	Constrained Writing
Constrained Writing / int_7698b31d	comment	What If?: After being asked what the most inconvenient word to type on an old cellphone would be (it's "nonmonogamous", which makes you hit the 6 key 16 times in a row), Randall has some fun with sentences that can only be typed with the left or the right hand (on a standard QWERTY keyboard). He also puts together some sentences that can only be typed using the home row or the top row, and comes up with some very rare sentences.
Constrained Writing / int_7698b31d	featureApplicability	1.0
Constrained Writing / int_7698b31d	featureConfidence	1.0
What If? (Blog)	hasFeature	Constrained Writing / int_7698b31d
Constrained Writing / int_7b34993f	type	Constrained Writing
Constrained Writing / int_7b34993f	comment	The novel Ella Minnow Pea is about a fictional nation where the founder's statue has the phrase "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog". As a storm keeps damaging the letters, it's taken as a sign that they should be forbidden, and the text accordingly stops using each letter as it's banned.
Constrained Writing / int_7b34993f	featureApplicability	1.0
Constrained Writing / int_7b34993f	featureConfidence	1.0
Ella Minnow Pea	hasFeature	Constrained Writing / int_7b34993f
Constrained Writing / int_83c751a1	type	Constrained Writing
Constrained Writing / int_83c751a1	comment	Reportedly Green Eggs and Ham was a challenge to create an interesting children's story using no more than 50 different words.
Constrained Writing / int_83c751a1	featureApplicability	1.0
Constrained Writing / int_83c751a1	featureConfidence	1.0
Green Eggs and Ham	hasFeature	Constrained Writing / int_83c751a1
Constrained Writing / int_89fd748e	type	Constrained Writing
Constrained Writing / int_89fd748e	comment	J. C. Gorham wrote Alice's Adventures in Wonderland retold in words of one syllable
Constrained Writing / int_89fd748e	featureApplicability	1.0
Constrained Writing / int_89fd748e	featureConfidence	1.0
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland	hasFeature	Constrained Writing / int_89fd748e
Constrained Writing / int_a2e8230b	type	Constrained Writing
Constrained Writing / int_a2e8230b	comment	The Dick and Jane series of beginning reader books limited its vocabulary to a word list chosen for each educational level. Especially in earlier volumes, this resulted in very stilted, repetitive prose. Nonetheless, they were popular for a generation of students until they were supplanted by the much more entertaining Dr. Seuss volumes above.
Constrained Writing / int_a2e8230b	featureApplicability	1.0
Constrained Writing / int_a2e8230b	featureConfidence	1.0
Dick and Jane	hasFeature	Constrained Writing / int_a2e8230b
Constrained Writing / int_a5b8b965	type	Constrained Writing
Constrained Writing / int_a5b8b965	comment	Around 1800, German poets were hotly debating whether or not one should write sonnets in German (it being a form originally created in Italian and according to some better suited to the Italian language). Johann Heinrich Voss, best known for translating The Iliad and The Odyssey into German hexameters, was in the "against German sonnets" camp, but in order to show that he did this as a matter of choice, not because he was unable to write proper sonnets, he wrote the Klingsonate (roughly: "tinkle sonata") in 1808, which consists of three parodistic sonnets. In the first, each line consists of one syllable; in the second there are eight lines of three syllables each and six of two syllables; the third has lines of eleven syllables each and uses a lot of Italian words.
Constrained Writing / int_a5b8b965	featureApplicability	1.0
Constrained Writing / int_a5b8b965	featureConfidence	1.0
The Iliad	hasFeature	Constrained Writing / int_a5b8b965
Constrained Writing / int_b30a5d2b	type	Constrained Writing
Constrained Writing / int_b30a5d2b	comment	In Wonderful Town, Ruth says that the letter "W" fell off her typewriter after she wrote her thesis on Walt Whitman, making herself "the only author who never uses a 'w.'"
Constrained Writing / int_b30a5d2b	featureApplicability	1.0
Constrained Writing / int_b30a5d2b	featureConfidence	1.0
Wonderful Town (Theatre)	hasFeature	Constrained Writing / int_b30a5d2b
Constrained Writing / int_bc95994d	type	Constrained Writing
Constrained Writing / int_bc95994d	comment	Gadsby: A Story of Over 50000 Words Without Using the Letter "E" by Ernest Vincent Wright.
Constrained Writing / int_bc95994d	featureApplicability	1.0
Constrained Writing / int_bc95994d	featureConfidence	1.0
Gadsby	hasFeature	Constrained Writing / int_bc95994d
Constrained Writing / int_beacc602	type	Constrained Writing
Constrained Writing / int_beacc602	comment	The Pilgrim's Progress: in words of one syllable
Constrained Writing / int_beacc602	featureApplicability	1.0
Constrained Writing / int_beacc602	featureConfidence	1.0
The Pilgrim's Progress	hasFeature	Constrained Writing / int_beacc602
Constrained Writing / int_c6b960b3	type	Constrained Writing
Constrained Writing / int_c6b960b3	comment	As explained in an afterword, The Squares of the City by John Brunner is based on a chess game (specifically the 1892 world championship game between Wilhelm Steinitz and Mikhail Chigorin), with key characters representing various pieces and their interactions representing their positions; when a piece has the potential to take another piece, this is echoed in the story with one character being under threat from another, and when a piece is taken, the corresponding character is "taken out of the game" by death or imprisonment.
Constrained Writing / int_c6b960b3	featureApplicability	1.0
Constrained Writing / int_c6b960b3	featureConfidence	1.0
The Squares of the City	hasFeature	Constrained Writing / int_c6b960b3
Constrained Writing / int_dd7daf0d	type	Constrained Writing
Constrained Writing / int_dd7daf0d	comment	Ad Verbum is an Interactive Fiction game built around Constrained Writing, as the protagonist explores a wizard's mansion where each room has some kind of linguistic constraint that is reflected in the description of the room — and in the commands that the game will accept within that room. All the rooms on the initial floor are constrained to be alliterative. Rooms on higher floors have more elaborate constraints, such as that old favorite, "Abandon all fifth orthographic glyphs". As a Shout-Out, one of the rooms is a library whose contents include a readable copy of Robert Pinsky's constrained poem "ABC" and an empty dust-jacket from a disappeared copy of A Void.
Constrained Writing / int_dd7daf0d	featureApplicability	1.0
Constrained Writing / int_dd7daf0d	featureConfidence	1.0
Ad Verbum (Video Game)	hasFeature	Constrained Writing / int_dd7daf0d
Constrained Writing / int_f0a86c12	type	Constrained Writing
Constrained Writing / int_f0a86c12	comment	An episode of How I Met Your Mother sees Barney attempt to get a woman's number without using the letter "E". "Hi. My word for... this guy... (points at self) is Barrrr...nooo. Barno! You... look... not ugly. Your... dial thing (point at his phone) ... is what?"
Constrained Writing / int_f0a86c12	featureApplicability	1.0
Constrained Writing / int_f0a86c12	featureConfidence	1.0
How I Met Your Mother	hasFeature	Constrained Writing / int_f0a86c12

The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.

What If? (Blog) / int_42cc824b	type	Constrained Writing
The Monster We Made / Fan Fic	seeAlso	Constrained Writing
Dick and Jane / int_42cc824b	type	Constrained Writing
Ella Minnow Pea / int_42cc824b	type	Constrained Writing
Gadsby / int_42cc824b	type	Constrained Writing
Green Eggs and Ham / int_42cc824b	type	Constrained Writing
House of Chains / int_42cc824b	type	Constrained Writing
The Cat in the Hat / int_42cc824b	type	Constrained Writing
Thieves' World / int_42cc824b	type	Constrained Writing
Blake Skye Private Eye (Podcast) / int_42cc824b	type	Constrained Writing
Wonderful Town (Theatre) / int_42cc824b	type	Constrained Writing
Ad Verbum (Video Game) / int_42cc824b	type	Constrained Writing

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