Having read Perec's A void, there are some interesting “cheats” involved in the work (at least in its English translation), where certain phrases end up standing in for their forbidden equivalent, e.g., “that man” for “he.”
I came across a reference to another writer's work where he wrote 5 medium-length pieces where the only vowels were A, E, I, O and U. He said that he created word lists from a dictionary and then wrote using only those words.
Writing to a constraint in general is a surprisingly liberating process and while some of the Oulipo practices are not necessarily generative on their own, they do force the writer’s mind out of the well-trod tracks that it would otherwise travel along.
I came across a reference to another writer's work where he wrote 5 medium-length pieces where the only vowels were A, E, I, O and U. He said that he created word lists from a dictionary and then wrote using only those words.
Writing to a constraint in general is a surprisingly liberating process and while some of the Oulipo practices are not necessarily generative on their own, they do force the writer’s mind out of the well-trod tracks that it would otherwise travel along.