The Writhing Society: A Salon for Constrained Writing Techniques

The Writhing Society meets to practice and discuss the techniques of constrained writing. We practice the methods invented by ourselves and by other writers, artists, musicians, and mathematicians. Today's topic: filigrane

The filigrane, a form invented by the oulipian Michèle Métail, is a text featuring a word in absentia.  Think of a watermark on a dollar bill or a sheet of stationery.  (Click here to see examples of watermarks.)

To create a filigrane:  First, think up a word found in many expressions.  Find a word that appears in a number of compound words and common expressions.  This word is your “watermark” word.  It can be a stem of a compound word.  It can be both a noun and a verb.  Then, make a list of those expressions.  Write out those words and expressions.  Maintain the word as-is.  If the word is “cry,” then “crybaby” may appear on your list but “crying” may not.  A sample list using the word “light” yields “light at the end of the tunnel”; “light on your feet”; “daylight”; “you are the light of the world”; “many hands make light work”; and “lightsaber.”  Finally, strike the “watermark” word from the list, and compose a text / texts using the remaining words.  Assemble a text using all the words except the “watermark” word.  Use whatever punctuation and capitalization you’d like.  A potential text using the “light” list from above reads like so: “On The Feet Day, you are at The Many Tunnel, the end of your make-work saber world of the hands.”

This workshop will take place online via Zoom. Please RSVP to receive the Zoom link prior to the event.

The Writhing Society combines a class with a salon. In a two-hour session, you can expect a few minutes of introductions and explanations, an hour plus of silent writing, and a half-hour or so in which we will read our work aloud. Then, if there's a little time left for questions and discussion, we'll do that. If you know nothing about writing with constraints, if you do not think of yourself as knowing much about writing, come anyway. No prior knowledge required. This is nothing like your ordinary writing workshop. We work in a relaxed, supportive, playful atmosphere, and we welcome new members.

What are constraints? Constraints are rules, specific and arbitrary, that drive you to say what you hadn’t expected to say in ways you never would have chosen to say it. Constrained writing always involves a collaboration of languages: yours and someone else’s. It allows you to take directions from something outside yourself. In a world where forms of expression thought to be “free” in fact come ready-made from the discourses of powerful groups, composing with constraints becomes a disciplined practice for escape, from these or from oneself, and a source of fresh ideas.