Frequently Asked Questions

Constrained Fiction

What is constrained fiction?

This site is dedicated to constrained fiction. It publishes stories that meet some arbitrary literary constraint. These constraints can be simple or complex, syntactic (e.g. the lipogram challenge), stylistic, semantic (e.g. plot restrictions), or any other form that enters the warped minds of the site administrators.

Each week or so, we will set a fresh challenge, consisting of a new constraint to meet. The challenge is set by the editors, but anyone can make suggestions for future challenges. If you have a constraint you'd like to see, please use the comments page for the current challenge to propose it.

Why is it interesting?

  1. Constraints set additional challenges to the writer. Writing to a constraint is like solving a puzzle. Graceful solutions have a pleasing feel - like watching the moves of a chess master - on top of their value as stories.
  2. Writing to constraints forces authors to think in new ways, explore possibilities they would not otherwise have considered, and hence (hopefully) produce innovative stories that would not otherwise have been written.

Authors

What is your privacy policy?

Simple. We will never give your email address to anyone else. And we won't use it ourselves unless absolutely necessary.

Stories

How do I write a story?

Anyone can submit stories for publishing at constrained.org - but you will need to create an account. To submit a story to a challenge:

  1. Log in.
  2. Go to the challenge you wish to enter.
  3. After the challenge description, you will find a link to 'Enter the challenge'. Click on it.
  4. Fill in the story-submission form and hit 'submit'.
  5. Sit back and prepare to bask in literary glory.

Your story will then be added to the site. Note that, whilst in some challenges the constraints are automatically checked (and you will be told when submitting if your story breaks the constraint), this is not possible for all constraints. In such cases, stories are published before they are checked - so if your story violates the challenge constraint, it may be published, but later removed.

How you write a story is your own business.

Can I use HTML tags in my story?

No. But see text-formatting below for what you can do instead.

Is text-formatting possible (e.g. using italics)?

Yes. You can add simple formatting to your stories as follows:

Not good enough, you say? Your story just won't work without a spiral of Japanese kanji characters? Tell us - we will add more formatting options if there is enough demand for them. Except for blinking text because that is wrong.

Why has my story vanished?

The editors of constrained.org will on occasion remove stories from the site. The circumstances for this are:

If we should remove a story of yours, we will normally notify you by e-mail with the reason, and will return a copy of the story to you. Our decisions in such matters are final.

Also, we cannot guarantee against accidental data loss. Hence, if you value your story, for safety please MAKE YOUR OWN COPY.

Comments

Why have some of my comments have vanished?

When a story is deleted, all comments on that story are also deleted (where else would they go?). If you write a comment that you don't want to lose, MAKE YOUR OWN COPY.

Oh yeah, we also reserve the right to delete comments at our own discretion.

Copyright Issues

Who owns the copyright for stories published here?

The authors.

If you wish to use a story published here, contact us and we will pass your request on to the author. Stories published here may not be reproduced (except by constrained.org) without the authors' explicit permission.

What can constrained.org do with my stories?

We can publish it on constrained.org. That's it.

Moderations

What are 'moderations'?

'Moderations' are scores given to a story by readers. Anyone with a constrained.org account can moderate stories (note: you need to be logged in to moderate stories).

How does the moderation scheme work? / How is my score calculated?

A story's score is calculated as a weighted average of the moderations it receives. Moderations are weighted according to the score (at the time they make it) of the user making the moderation.

A user's score is calculates as a weighted average of the moderations their stories have received. Note that you can improve your score by deleting unpopular stories.

Why do you do that?

Moderations provide a simple way of giving valuable feedback to authors, and allowing site visitors to identify the best stories.

Moderations are weighted so that, when evaluating stories, the opinion of a good writer will count for more than that of a random web-surfer.

About constrained.org

How do I contact you?

Email 'joeh' at the host 'dai.ed.ac.uk'.

What technologies do you use?

constrained.org is built in python using the twisted network framework. All the software used to create and serve this site is free/open source.