A piece of writing that deliberately avoids a particular letter. The best-known examples avoid E, which is the hardest because it is the most common letter in English — a novel-length one is a genuine feat, and a paragraph is a good exercise.

Can the rules ever contradict each other?

No, and that is the point of generating them in order. Banned letters are drawn first, then required words are filtered to only those that avoid them. Drawing both independently produces impossible sets often enough to ruin the exercise, and an impossible set is indistinguishable from being stuck.

Does it check what I have written?

No — your writing never reaches this page. Each restriction comes with a plain instruction for checking it, which in every case is a search in whatever you are writing in.

Restricted Vocabulary Challenge Generator

Writing a paragraph without the letter E forces you past every word you would normally reach for, which is the entire point: the exercise is not the missing letter, it is the vocabulary you find while working around it. The awkward part is setting the rules — a required word containing a banned letter makes the whole thing quietly impossible.

Number of restrictions

One banned common letter is already hard.

Your brief will appear here.

What this generator does

Produces a set of writing restrictions — letters you may not use, words you must include — with a check alongside each so you can verify a finished piece rather than argue about it. The set is guaranteed satisfiable: a required word is never offered alongside a banned letter it contains, which is the contradiction that makes a hand-made challenge impossible in a way nobody notices until they have been staring at it for twenty minutes.

How to use this tool

Choose how many restrictions you want.
Press Set the challenge.
Write to the rules — each one comes with a way to check yourself.
Draw a harder set once the first is comfortable.

Understanding the controls

Number of restrictions: How many rules to apply at once. One banned letter is a warm-up; three restrictions together is genuinely difficult and starts to change the sound of the writing.
Difficulty: Which letters are in the pool. Banning E is the famous one and the hardest by a distance; banning less common letters is a much gentler exercise.

Worked examples

The famous one: Do not use the letter E anywhere. Search the finished piece for 'e' — no matches.
A required word: Use the word 'quixotic' at least once.
Combined: No letter A, no letter S, and 'lantern' must appear.
The contradiction that never appears: 'No letter U' will never be paired with 'use the word hush'.

Common use cases

Vocabulary practice that pushes past habitual word choices
Writing group challenges with an objective pass or fail
Editing practice — rewriting an existing paragraph to fit the rules
Classroom exercises where the marking is unambiguous
A puzzle for anybody who enjoys constrained writing

How this generator works

Banned letters are drawn first, then required words are filtered to only those that contain none of them, and the set is drawn from what remains. Doing it in that order is what makes the result always satisfiable — drawing both independently produces contradictions often enough to matter, and a rule set that cannot be satisfied is indistinguishable from being bad at the exercise. Each restriction carries a plain instruction for checking it, because a constraint you cannot verify is a suggestion.

Randomness and fairness

Letters and words are drawn with the browser's cryptographic random number generator, in that order so the set is always satisfiable. Nothing about the checking is random — the instruction beside each rule is exact.

For how randomness is produced across the whole site, see how Generate Random works.

Assumptions this tool makes

Restrictions apply to the whole piece rather than to individual sentences.
Letters are matched without regard to case, so banning E bans it capitalised too.

Limitations and good to know

It sets the rules and does not check your writing. Each restriction comes with an instruction for checking it yourself, which is a search in any editor.
Banned letters apply to every word including names and titles, which is what makes them hard. Relax that in your own group if you want to.
Required words come from a fixed list. You cannot supply your own vocabulary.
Some sets are much harder than others. Banning E is a famously difficult exercise and banning Z is barely noticeable.

Common mistakes

Setting your own rules without checking they can coexist: A required word containing a banned letter makes the exercise impossible, and it looks exactly like being stuck. This never offers such a pair, which is most of its value over doing it by hand.
Starting with three restrictions: One banned letter is already hard if it is a common one. Add restrictions once a single rule stops slowing you down.
Writing normally and then editing to fit: That is a different and much harder exercise, because the piece resists. Writing to the rule from the first word is where the unfamiliar vocabulary comes from.

Practical tips

Use your editor's find function as you go rather than at the end. Catching a banned letter in the sentence you just wrote is far easier than unpicking a paragraph.
Read the result aloud. Constrained writing develops an odd rhythm, and hearing it is the interesting part of the exercise.
For a group, use the same set and compare. The words people reach for when the usual ones are gone differ enormously.

Troubleshooting

Fewer restrictions came back than I asked for: Required words are filtered against the banned letters, so a tight set of letters leaves fewer usable words. Ask for fewer restrictions or draw again.
The challenge feels impossible: Check whether a common letter is banned. E, A and T each remove a large share of English; the exercise is meant to be hard but a set with two of those together is punishing.

Privacy and your data

Nothing is entered and nothing is stored. Challenges are generated in your browser, never uploaded and never written into the page address, and your writing never touches this page at all. Analytics records only that the tool ran.

Frequently asked questions

What is a lipogram?: A piece of writing that deliberately avoids a particular letter. The best-known examples avoid E, which is the hardest because it is the most common letter in English — a novel-length one is a genuine feat, and a paragraph is a good exercise.
Can the rules ever contradict each other?: No, and that is the point of generating them in order. Banned letters are drawn first, then required words are filtered to only those that avoid them. Drawing both independently produces impossible sets often enough to ruin the exercise, and an impossible set is indistinguishable from being stuck.
Does it check what I have written?: No — your writing never reaches this page. Each restriction comes with a plain instruction for checking it, which in every case is a search in whatever you are writing in.