I love writing challenges. They’re a great way to stimulate your imagination, practice your skills, and encourage creative thinking. For me, I find them especially useful if I hit writer’s block, as although they impose restrictions in one aspect, I can write freely in others–and usually what I end up producing is something unexpected, but often useful.

Recently, I challenged one of my best friends, Isaac, to write a short story without using the letter “A”, and wanting to exercise my own writing muscles, I decided that it was only fair that I, too, take on the challenge. Here are a few things I learnt:

1. We use more words containing the letter “A” than we realise. I would estimate that 90% of our daily language consists of sentences with words including this letter–from conjunctions and nouns, to verbs and adjectives. And trying not to use any words with this letter is a complete and utter mission. Forbidden words include: ‘a’, ‘an’, ‘am’, ‘as’, ‘at’, ‘are’, ‘was’, ‘also’, ‘can’, ‘what’, ‘had’, ‘have’, ‘said’, ‘any’, ‘say’, ‘that’, ‘than’, ‘all’, ‘again’, ‘back’, ‘because’, ‘about’, ‘make’, ‘take’, ‘way’, ‘want’, and ‘after’.
2. Trying to construct a complete, concise sentence without using the letter ‘A” is hard. There are so many things that you want to say, that you want to say in a specific way, but you just can’t.
3. You have to be clever. So, I can’t use ‘I have’, but I can use ‘I’ve’. I can’t use ‘and’ but I can end sentences and begin new ones. I can’t use ‘a’ but I can use ‘the’. You have to be extremely selective with the words you use and how you use them.
   
   Here is what I managed to come up with:

The lights in the house flickered one by one,
the silence creeping in through every sliver.
Somewhere beyond the river, the trees,
owls cooed, wolves howled,
wind whistled in the breeze.
The boy knelt, keeled over, wheezing,
the glistening pools of liquid ice, quickly freezing
below his feet.
The chill enveloped him, like piercing knives deep into his spine,
the whine, the whine of piercing cries, echoing.
‘I come in kindness,’ the voice whispered.
‘Lies,’ the boy replied. ‘You do not seek good.’
The boy hiccoughed, sobbing into his shirt,
sodden with dirt.
‘My mother is gone. My sister too. You took them from me.’
‘They left willingly.’
‘More lies,’ the boy replied. ‘You took them in the night. Destroyed their minds. Twisting, turning their thoughts into fictions where they felt they could not go on. You left me on my own.’
‘Their choice.’
‘More lies. You do not know freedom. You simply collect souls until your collection is complete.’
‘My boy… it is not my choice. I follow orders. My list of souls… it differs every week. Some slither into the ether, where I struggle to find them. Others seek me out like I seek them.’
‘But…’
‘Hush, boy. Do not worry. It is not your soul I’ve come to collect.’
‘If not me… then who?’
The voice did not reply. The owls cooed; the wind whistled; the wolves howled. Silence surrounded the boy once more. From the house, the lights flickered out of control–more quickly with every second ticking by, before stopping swiftly.
Then, he felt it deep within his bones: the blood-curdling cry… the sound of the voice collecting his next victim.

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What do you think?

In my opinion, it’s not bad. It’s not great, but considering the multitude of words I couldn’t use, I’m quite happy with it! I may have to have another go at some point in the future, perhaps writing something a bit more upbeat because this took an awfully dark tone which was unexpected… but then, I guess that’s the beauty of these challenges because you never know what kinds of things you’re going to end up creating!

Why don’t you have a go at this challenge and see what you can come up with? (And if you do, please tag me in your posts, because I’d love to see them!)