Constrained-Writing on Unnamed Website

The End

Anthony Wang — Mon, 03 Jun 2024 19:33:48 -0500

No, this post isn’t the end of my blog. But it is the end of a long saga that began 123 days ago…

A while back, my friend Alek posted a story on his blog. A week later, I wanted to write a parody of it in the exact same style. And so I came up with the idea of using only words from Alek’s original story, where each word in my story appears no more times than it appears in Alek’s story. And thus, the short story series was born! Some of my friends helped continue the chain, where story $i$ only uses words from story $i-1$, counting multiplicity. We also considered making a chain where story $i$ only uses words, counting multiplicity, that were in story $i-2$ but not story $i-1$, so basically the words left over from story $i-1$. It’s kind of like the Euclidean algorithm but more cursed. I guess this would converge on a small set of words that can’t form a sentence, like a bunch of copies of “the”.

Guest Post: Short Story 5

Anthony Wang — Thu, 16 May 2024 15:52:44 -0500

This story was written by my friend Peter. It’s the fifth installment in the Short Story series and only uses words from my Short Story 4, counting multiplicity.

Zhou was falling back from a year of flashcards and tired of frequently eating instant noodles. He decided to idly do crazy math problems for a month. “11!-7!, …” Zhou screamed and threw a flashcard mountain on his head. “So Zhou-over,” Zhou muffled.

Zhou called Lin in flashcard review gear, freaking out from his grueling work. “Great, I can show up in around 7,” whispered Lin. “I ran a large 11-SAT videogame for some time.”

Short Story 4

Anthony Wang — Thu, 28 Mar 2024 12:00:16 -0500

This story is narratively a sequel to Short Story 2. It’s the fourth installment in the Short Story series and only uses words from Kevin’s Short Story 3, counting multiplicity.

Zhou was looking around, surprised. His nap is a year large! But, Zhou’s tired and attempted to sleep again. Dead, burned, fancy instant noodles (IN) covering the room! From when? Zhou screamed and scrambled to 7-11.

Zhou quickly reached 7-11, in flashcard review gear. He spent time painstakingly checking important round 7-11 boxes of IN, then sat down, and meticulously sped over the cards he pulled from his flashcard mountain on the shoebox. Great. They only say IN.

Guest Post: Short Story 3

Anthony Wang — Wed, 27 Mar 2024 21:39:37 -0500

This story was written by my friend Kevin and is narratively a sequel to Alek’s original story. It’s the third installment in the Short Story series and only uses words from my Short Story 2, counting multiplicity.

Lin waited at the top of the mountain. He had never known Zhou to break a promise before, but Zhou always arrived belatedly from slowly eating his favorite food: fancy instant noodles in burned round boxes. Lin decided to idly do math problems on the mountain for a month to give Zhou time to come. If Zhou didn’t show up by then, Lin would make a plan to go to Hu’s house some night to find Zhou’s dead body in a video-game.

Short Story 2

Anthony Wang — Tue, 05 Mar 2024 22:18:21 -0500

My friend Alek recently published a short story which you should totally read, so I wrote a parody of it that only uses words from the original story, and each word appears at most the same number of times in this story as in the original. And now there are more stories in the series!

Zhou enjoyed the peaceful process of being disappointed that he was working at 7-11 instead of being a chef somewhere. The occasional car sped by outside, but the really persistent noise was his gross boss taking the year off. “Hey Zhou, what’s cooking?” Hu came over. “Zhou Zhou Zhou Zhou Zhou Zhou Zhou Zhou you down for some games tonight?” Some days Zhou would go. But today was really important, it was the day he reviewed his calendar. “Sorry Hu, gotta make fancy instant noodles (IN)”. “Ah, too bad, I got some really good ones!”. “Hu, we literally played video games all night.” “Ah good point, well see you tomorrow!” Hu walked out the door. That was the only tasty food Zhou was known to make. He took a flashcard from his pocket. He happily checked “close up shop” off the list, and reviewed the remaining items: “Dinner, review calendar, sleep”. When Zhou arrived home he quickly threw some eggs and tomatoes and IN in a pan and idly tended them. In a bit he sat down at his desk with a slightly burned dinner and got out his calendar. He added this day’s cards to a large shoe-box filled with similar items. He was a little dejected to see how most only had IN written on them. He flipped to the next month and was surprised to see a short note cramped on the page, covering the boxes for the first few days of the month.