Writing with a constraint: find ideas through a simple rule

Which writing constraint should you choose to get started?

A useful rule fits in one sentence. “Write something original” isn’t enough: it’s impossible to know exactly when you’ve followed it. “Tell a story about a departure using the words button, station, and jam,” by contrast, gives you three points to work from. You can look for connections between these elements without having to invent an entire world at the same time.

Oulipo publishes many literary constraints. A lipogram excludes one or more letters; an exercise in style retells the same story in different forms. These descriptions are creative resources, not formulas whose effectiveness is scientifically guaranteed. You don’t have to start with a challenge as demanding as writing a long text without the letter e.

If what you mainly need is to set down what’s on your mind,writing freely upon waking offers a different approach. Here, you deliberately accept a limit to work on form. You can alternate these two practices in the same journal, simply noting the rule above each attempt.

Preparing a scene small enough to play with

Choose an event you could tell in a minute: a forgotten key, a cake carried on the bus, a plant moved onto the balcony. A complicated plot would make it hard to observe the constraint. The more modest the starting point, the easier it is to see differences in vocabulary, rhythm, or point of view.

First, write a baseline version without any special rule. For example: “Nora arrives at her door. Her key is at her sister’s place. She puts down her bag and sits on the stairs.” These sentences aren’t meant to be literary. They establish the facts so the following versions remain comparable and you’re not just evaluating three different stories.

You can also start from a specific memory, changing the details if other people are involved. Note what comes from the memory and what you’re making up. A constraint doesn’t turn an assumption into a fact or give you permission to publish private details about someone close to you.

How can you practice writing with constraints in three versions?

First version: require three concrete words

Return to Nora in front of the door with the words “orange,” “ticket,” and “sock.” First, look for a practical connection rather than an extraordinary explanation. An orange rolls out of the bag, a ticket serves as a bookmark, a sock protects a fragile object. The rule becomes interesting when these details take part in the action instead of being tacked on at the end to satisfy the prompt.

Write about ten lines, then underline the three words. Ask yourself what would disappear from the scene if you removed them. If the answer is “nothing,” rework just one detail to give it a function. The ticket could have the sister’s number on it; the orange could roll down the stairs and lead to a chance encounter with a neighbor.

Second version: limit sentence length

Keep the same events and decide that each sentence will have no more than eight words. This limit is a workshop suggestion, not a standard for good writing. It makes you choose where to break things up and which details to keep together. You may get a brisk rhythm, but also a succession of overly mechanical, similar sentences.

To vary the rhythm, alternate actions and details: “The door won’t budge. Oranges clatter inside her bag. Nora reads the ticket again. No number.” Then read the whole piece aloud, softly. A short sentence isn’t necessarily clear; a pronoun with no referent is still confusing, even when it contains only three words.

Third version: remove emotional explanations

For now, set aside words like “worried,” “sad,” “annoyed,” or “happy.” Write what Nora does: she checks a pocket that’s already empty, folds the ticket, keeps her jacket on despite the heat. Several interpretations remain possible. This is a chance to see whether the context provides enough clues without pinning the character to a label.

The guide to writing dialogue between characters can extend this version: add just one line of dialogue, then notice what it adds. If it explains the earlier gestures word for word, it may not be necessary. If it creates a contrast, it opens up another interpretation.

Rereading without confusing difficulty with success

Give each version two different reads. The first checks the rule: Are the words there? Do the sentences stay within the limit? Has an emotion been named? The second looks for what makes you want to keep reading: an image, an unexpected detail, a change of pace. A text can pass one of these checks and still fall short on the other.

Don’t revise everything right away. Circle a sentence you’d like to keep and mark a passage that feels forced. This distinction is more useful than “it’s good” or “it’s awful.” In your learning journal, you can write: “The required words help me come up with objects; the length limit makes my transitions abrupt.”

Another reader may notice effects you no longer see. First ask what they understand about the scene, then what surprises them. Avoid revealing the rule at the start: that way, you can see how the text works as a story before presenting it as a game. Our method for asking for feedback on a creation helps you ask a specific question.

When should you loosen or abandon the rule?

A chosen constraint can become too demanding for today’s session. If you spend all your available time counting letters without building a sentence, narrow the scope. Ban one rare letter, keep only two required words, or work in four lines. You’re changing the exercise, not cheating, as long as you clearly note the adjustment.

You can also keep the rule for the first draft and then remove it. Take your best version and add a long sentence again if it makes the scene easier to follow. The final text doesn’t need to show how difficult it was to write. Keep the intermediate versions in your creative project journal to revisit the detail that sparked an idea.

If you’d like to try again, prepare a solo creative session short one instead of a performance plan. One constraint per session is enough. You can sort them in your idea notebook according to their effect: getting started, surprising, shortening, or changing the voice.

Creating a truly personal rule

Observe an object or a habit from your daily life. A box with six compartments might suggest six paragraphs; the trip between three stops could become three scenes; the colors of a dish towel might provide a short list of words. This way of finding a rule connects the form to something you can look at, instead of waiting for abstract inspiration.

After a creative observation walk, choose just one element you collected. Avoid piling on rules to make the exercise seem impressive. If you want to combine two constraints, try each one separately before bringing them together: you’ll know which creates an interesting effect and which needlessly blocks the narrative.

At the end, write a short note about how you made it: the starting point, the rule, and what you changed. You can keep an imperfect text without sharing it. This note turns the attempt into a resource you can reuse and lets you return to it after a break without having to reconstruct the whole session.

Your constraint workshop

A complete scene: from the rule to the writing choice

Let’s use another situation to move beyond the prompts: Salomé brings a dish to her neighbor, who doesn’t answer. The starting version consists of a few facts. She climbs the stairs, rings twice, sets the dish on the doormat, then hesitates before leaving. The story already contains a wait and a choice. You can work with these elements without inventing a frightening disappearance or adding a dramatic twist.

With the required words “string,” “Sunday,” and “window,” the first draft could become: “The string holding the lid in place had left marks on her fingers. Salomé rang a second time. Behind the hallway window, Sunday went on without her. She set down the dish, then picked it back up: the cat from the third floor sometimes wandered through the stairwell.” The last sentence doesn’t follow any particular challenge, but it gives a concrete reason to extend the scene.

Notice the different roles of the three words. The string adds a sensation and recalls the trip; Sunday establishes a time; window allows for a brief shift in focus. None of them has to carry the whole plot on its own. You might find “Sunday went on without her” too heavy-handed; if so, replace that image with the sound of a ball in the courtyard. The revision is about the effect you’re aiming for, not defending your first idea.

Next, try the five-sentence rule without reusing these exact formulations. Use one sentence for the arrival, one for the first ring, one for the wait, one for setting down the dish, and one for the decision. You may discover that ringing twice takes up too much space. Combining both rings in one sentence frees up room for a detail that changes how the scene reads, such as the smell of food cooking behind the door.

The version without emotion words could emphasize a repeated action: Salomé keeps tucking the string under the dish, even though the lid is already secure. This gesture doesn’t universally mean embarrassment. It becomes a clue because you connect it to an interrupted visit and a delayed decision. Leave room for reasonable uncertainty; you don’t have to provide a psychological explanation for every movement.

Planning a week of writing with constraints

On the first day, gather three modest situations and choose the one with the fewest characters. On the second, write a neutral version that establishes the facts. On the third, add a vocabulary rule. On the fourth, work on a form rule. This schedule is a trial plan, not a scientifically validated method or a required timeline for becoming creative. You can do it all in one afternoon or spread out the sessions.

Set aside the fifth session for comparison, without writing a fourth version. Choose one criterion: how well the event is understood, the distinctiveness of an image, or the rhythm of the reading. Giving each version an overall score could obscure what interests you about each one. An awkward version may contain the best detail; a smooth version may have lost the surprise you were looking for in the first place.

On the sixth day, put together a free-form version using the elements you chose. Copy the sentences instead of moving the originals right away: that way, you’ll keep a record of the differences. Pay close attention to the transitions. A sentence from a lipogram and one from a very conversational story may not fit together without some editing. Check the verb tenses, pronouns, and vocabulary, then be willing to lose a beautiful sentence if it no longer serves the whole piece.

On the last day, write a three-line recap. Name the rule that helped you discover something, the one that took a disproportionate amount of effort, and the question you’ll carry into next time. A takeaway like “I discover actions by imposing objects” is useful. “I’m creative” or “I’m not creative” tells you much less about the specific conditions of your work.

What if you want to practice with others?

Give the same situation and rule to two or three people, making it clear that sharing their work is optional. A shared constraint alone doesn’t make for a fair contest: writing habits, language, and fatigue vary. The value of the group is seeing how many paths a prompt can open up. Before commenting on the quality of others’ work, ask each participant what surprised them in their own text.

When giving feedback, describe a specific effect: “I understand the change when the dish is picked up again,” rather than “your character is touching.” The first comment shows a connection between a sentence and the way it’s read; the second may feel nice, but it offers less help with revision. Don’t suggest a new ending without knowing whether the writer wants suggestions. They’re free to keep a silence, an intentional awkwardness, or a version you like less.

Finally, explain what may be shared after the workshop. A text read aloud isn’t automatically cleared to be photographed, published, or shared in a messaging app. Keep other people’s drafts out of your files unless they agree. The writing rule can be demanding; the environment should let people experiment without fearing that their work will be shared unexpectedly.

For a complementary perspective, watch this video from TED-Ed.

How can you tell exactly what your rule checks?

Write down what must be present, absent, or placed somewhere specific before starting. These three instructions need different checks. A required word may appear anywhere; a repeated opening requires a position; a forbidden letter concerns every word in the chosen passage. Defining that scope prevents you from changing the rule whenever a line resists it.

The Oulipo defines a lipogram through the exclusion of one or more letters. The anaphora exercise instead works with presence at a particular position. Difficulty assigns no quality score: the results still need reading.

An original example of a conflict: requiring an opening containing a letter that the second rule forbids makes the two requirements incompatible. Check the exact words before combining the rules. Keep one constraint, or change the other and write that change above the draft. This creates a different exercise, not permission to claim the original rule was followed. Keep a reference version so you can compare the effect of the change.

What should you state before counting letters?

Write down the scope and convention before running a search. A rule might cover the sentence alone, the title and sentence, or the whole passage you share. The same draft gives different findings if you move that boundary afterward. Keep preparation notes separate rather than announce a result that applies to another passage.

For a forbidden letter, also decide how capitals and accents are treated. Under an e-family rule, “café” still matters. A search limited to unaccented e may not flag it. That does not contradict the first search: it follows another convention. The Oulipo lipogram definition concerns excluded letters; your checking method must make the chosen rule explicit.

Finally, review proper names and quotations. An exact reference does not become editable because it resists the challenge. In fiction, you can choose another name and record the change; in factual writing, relax the exercise rather than distort a fact. The new workshop for writing a lipogram without e lets you test both conventions and keep a local note. This formal check remains separate from reading the story.

Sources

• Oulipo: writing exercise.
• Oulipo: lipogram.
• Oulipo: prisoner’s constraint.