constrained writing

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 forwards and backwards.Alliteratives, in which every word must start with the same letter (or subset of letters; see Alphabetical Africa).Acrostics: first letter of each word/sentence/paragraph forms a word or sentence.Reverse-lipograms (each word must contain a particular letter).AnglishAnagramsAleatory (where the reader supplies a random input).Univocalic poetryLimitations in punctuation (such as Peter Carey's book True History of the Kelly Gang, which features no commas)
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