Creative writing with constraints

Fancy yourself as a poet? It's actually quite easy if you practice the arcane literary art of constraint-based writing. Leave out a letter. Use only certain letters. Use only some words.

Imagine the havoc that missing "a"s or "e"s would have on Shakespeare's Macbeth, Chaucer's Canterbury Tales or Charles Dickens A Tale of Two Cities. Gibberish perhaps.

But not when you deliberately write that way.

Christian Bok, author of Eunioa, which literally means beautiful thinking, is a master of the art. Eunoia has five chapters - A, E, I, O and U. The words in Chapter A contains only "a"s such as all, ball, bat, chat and abracadabra. Each chapter follows the same rule.

Australian teen author John Marsden teaches young people to write great stories using sets of rules, which implement some of these constraints. Rules such as "Don't let language bully you", "Capture the voice of the character" and "Show, don't tell a story."

When he asks you to "Write a story about the ocean without using the letter "e", all that rolls of your ball-point sounds like poetry. It's a form of constraint-based writing.

Some of the people in our network use these kinds of fun activities to warm up the conference crowd before we get down to the strategizing and decision making. Here are some examples of what some people collectively contribute. My favorite is the pirate talk, achieved by breaking the lipogram rules and using words containing "e", but simply omitting the letter:

• Crabs fly through big salty H2O. Happily nibbling on all and sundry. 
• Swimming cold. Trusting cool liquid to quickly coat my throat. I spang to my fins, arms thrashing in windy rolling mountains of foam.
• Da c is big and runs from wall to wall. Its long and high and if you fall in you will want to dry off. My mum says that it was not so high as it is now, that it is low at night.  I think gravity has a tug and that this is why it slops about.
• In aqua crystals. Starfish, sand, and a pail of clams. I go for it, baby!
• Oshorn ar to b sailin d ruddy o's'n aaaaarrrrrgh @ d nd to b shor ma 'arty splis d bldin main bras i'll b skutlin yr buttlin on d mount of yi (splash splash splash) undr d oishin hoit da joli rogr o giv mi a 'ome v'r d mrmaids doz roam aayh.
• An old man took a boat out far into a vast and wild mass. His craft was still and placid. It could not align with fish nor fowl.
• Foam. Flotsam. Rolling loud crashing fluid. A shark fish swam in coral again.
• An old man's rod knocks against boat in a tidal pool whilst fish, stingrays and crabs swam in salt flats.

So here's a workshop to practice your skills using various kinds of constraints:

1. Write a story about the ocean without using the letter "e"

2. Write a story about your life using ONLY the letters a,e,t,h,m,n,r,s,w.

3. Write an anthem for Africa, America, Australia or Asia using ONLY words that begin with the letter "a". e.g. Artists and artisans are attracted as Africa arises. Ascendant.

4. Write a story on any subject using ONLY or ALL the first 100 most frequently used words in English.

5. Write a story using words with no vowels using this list. You might have to use a dictionary to see what the words mean:

6. Write some snazzy words for a song to celebrate what your class, school, team, group or organization is going to do next year. Use alliteration, so most/all of the words start with the same letter. Choose any letter you like. e.g. Smart Students Sing Scintillating Songs.
7. EUNOIA means beautiful thinking and contains all the vowels - a, e, i, o and u.  Make a list of words containing ONLY the vowel “e” for example, men get.

8. Brainstorm words with ONLY the vowel "a". 1 vowel = 1 point, 2 vowels = 2, 3 vowels = 5, 4 vowels = 10, 5 vowels = 50, e.g. abracadabra = 50 points

9. Write a story using words that only contain the vowel "a", such as lava, cat.

10. Brainstorm words with ONLY the vowel "e”. . 1 vowel = 1 point, 2 vowels = 2, 3 vowels = 5, 4 vowels = 10, 5 vowels = 50, e.g. abracadabra = 50 points

11. Write a story using words that only contain the vowel "e", such as better, lever, me.

12. Brainstorm words with ONLY the vowel "i”. . 1 vowel = 1 point, 2 vowels = 2, 3 vowels = 5, 4 vowels = 10, 5 vowels = 50, e.g. abracadabra = 50 points

13. Write a story using words that only contain the vowel "i", such as sit, bit, wilt.

14. Brainstorm words with ONLY the vowel "o”. . 1 vowel = 1 point, 2 vowels = 2, 3 vowels = 5, 4 vowels = 10, 5 vowels = 50, e.g. abracadabra = 50 points

15. Write a story using words that only contain the vowel "o", such as moon, pot, soon.

16. Brainstorm words with ONLY the vowel "u”. . 1 vowel = 1 point, 2 vowels = 2, 3 vowels = 5, 4 vowels = 10, 5 vowels = 50, e.g. abracadabra = 50 points

17. Write a story using words that only contain the vowel "u", such as cut, mutt, bus.