In the 1950s, a group of French writers began meeting every month. They called themselves Oulipo. The word is a kind of acrostic. The full title of the group was: Ouvroir de littérature potentielle; roughly translated, this means "workshop of potential literature".
They were experimental writers who wanted to explore new and different ways of creating pieces of literature. They would often set themselves tasks that were very demanding. For example, Georg Perec, a leading member of the OuLiPo group, once wrote a 40,000 word novel. That might not sound all that difficult - most novels are at least that length. However Perec set himself a very demanding rule: he must not include any words containing the letter 'E'!
Why did they do this?
They wanted to come up with new ways of expressing ideas. They wanted to avoid using cliches and using conventional ways of expressing things. Here is a simple example. When we sit down to write about fear, our heads immediately fill with cliches: we might write 'I felt the hairs on the back of my neck bristle' or 'A shiver ran down my spine' or 'My blood ran cold.' They wanted to make their brains work harder, looking for new wyas to express things.
And that's what TODAY'S writing task is all about.
Retell the story of Little Red Riding Hood without using ANY words containing the letter 'E'.
This means that you can't use lots of common words like:
the red he she we they ... and so on.
You also can't use:
elephant effervescence here there everywhere anywhere
You might need 20 - 30 minutes for this task. Good luck.
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