On Writing a Very Flat Story Using Only the Letters Without Ascenders and Descenders
a c e i m n o r s u v w x z
I’m sure someone else has come up with something like this, but as far as I know, Flatglish, like yesterday’s Japanglish, is my own invention.
My Flatglish story was broadcast in November 2007 on Radio 3’s The Verb, presented by Ian McMillan. And, again, I was writing in response to a very difficult writing challenge.
This challenge was mine.
I’d started to become very aware of how words looked on the page, and how, occasionally, a very upspiky (belittled, lighttight) or downspiky (gappy, gypped) or very flat word (overnumerousness) or series of words (a nice sea anemone) would appear in a sentence. Like hills, caves or plains. (I’ve had fun looking some of these up just now.)
What, I wondered, could I make of this?
The main rule of Flatglish is: You can’t use any letters that have ascenders (sticky-up bits), those being b, d, f, h, k, l, t, k, nor any that have descenders (floppy-down bits), g, j, p, q, y. (The type of font you use, and your style of handwriting, has a distorting effect here. I was going by what appeared on my screen when I typed in Big Caslon.)
This leaves fourteen usable letters: a c e i m n o r s u v w x z.
You’ll notice that i has a pesky dot, but I decided to let that pass as flat enough. If you want to be a splitter, and write a dialect of Flatglish using only four of the vowels, please do. See you next month.
The other cheats are —
Apostrophes can be used for and when written as ’n’.
Sentences don’t have to begin with capital letters, because otherwise eugh. So we’re in e.e. cummings’ territory here.
Proper nouns such as America are allowed to lie low, as are names such as Marianne.
Exclamation marks sneak through — jeez, I’ve been very lax here, haven’t I?
One aside —
A couple of years after I wrote this story, I attended a reading by Tim Clare, Ross Sutherland and Joe Dunthorne. They were appearing under the banner Lost in Translation. Among the Oulipian poems they presented were some lipograms. These are writings that forbid the use of one of the vowels. (In the case of Georges Perec’s novel, La Disparition, translated into English from French by Gilbert Adair as Avoid, this is the most common French vowel, e.) They also presented some univocalisms, which are writings that can only ever use a single vowel. What they said they’d learned, having each had a go at all the vowels, was that — without meaning to — they ended up writing on similar themes. There was, they confessed, something about univocalisms based around e that almost forced them to write about sex. (See, Excess Essex sex scenes, etc.)
I think there might be something similar that happens when someone writes in Flatglish, but I’m not yet sure what it is. Perhaps you can help me find out.
marianne’s men
marianne is a nice woman: mini-size’n’wise. marianne is a news camera-woman.
one morn, marianne – in marianne’s snooze-room – snoozes.
marianne is amorous. marianne sees romance in men’n’women. marianne moons.
so, marianne is morose.
marianne moans. ice is in marianne – ice in marianne’s innerness. marianne senses sourness, weariness, wariness.
once, a man was in marianne’s room.
marianne’s man’s name was xavier zorro-morrow – sonorous name, no? xavier was a no-nonsense man: ursine, vicious, moronic.
moonsome marianne can see xavier now – enormous in size, enormous in sex.
ooooo, marianne coos. xavier, xavier, xavier.
noon arises. noon is over. no-one comes. marianne moans anew.
sun is now in marianne’s room.
marianne moves, eases arm over arm.
in marianne’s ears a wee-wee-wee noise. wee-wee-wee comes nearer.
marianne sees a mouse run.
(mice are marianne’s main animus)
eeee, screams marianne. eee! a mouse! a mouse!
no-one comes.
marianne’s screams renew.
in comes a man – norman waznovic, an american man.
norman assesses marianne’s room.
an assassin? a crime?
no, marianne cries, a mouse!
i see.
so, norman sees one mouse, seizes mouse, exercises niceness.
vicious mouse, cries marianne
no. mouse is nice, norman avers.
marianne sees norman is nice. norman senses no man-scuzziness in marianne’s snooze-room.
soon, we see, norman is mr romance – a moonsome wooer. norman runes verses on marianne’s name.
norman woos marianne: cinema movies, zoos, circuses.
sea-scene, sun in area, anemones in view.
xavier zooms in on a wave. ace reverse. xavier carries a sax – wow. xavier oozes sex.
norman is aware.
xavier coos, marianne, i miss my nice mari-wari-woo-woo. come to see me soon, woman.
marianne wavers.
marianne’s wires cross.
marianne’s warniess is excessive.
marianne sees norman is nice.
moons wax, moons wane. suns rise in zones over us, unrise.
marianne reasons: norman is so nice. xavier was a wiseacre.
marianne’s sassiness rises.
a new moon arises over marianne’s snooze-room.
norman arrives, roses in norman’s arms. coos in marianne’s ears: o marianne, mine? come, ice-woman. we are now one.
marianne swoons. romance is in marianne once more.
marianne marries norman.
news camera is on as rice rises over marianne’n’norman
news carries
xavier coos, i’m so over marianne.
no, in xavier’s snooze-room xavier cries, cries, cries.
Slowly catching up! Bravo!