How to make readers know that my work has used a hidden constraint?
According to this wikipedia article, Constrained writing is a literary technique in which the writer is bound by some condition that forbids certain things or imposes a pattern. The same link also provides examples of constrained writing. I will mention a few for reference:
Ernest Vincent Wright's Gadsby (1939) is an English-language novel consisting of 50,000 words, none of which contain the letter "e".
let me tell you (2008), a novel by the Welsh writer Paul Griffiths, uses only the words allotted to Ophelia in Hamlet.
How do readers come to know about used and hidden constrained a work has used? Do authors openly promote or do marketing of the same? What is the proper way to notify readers from the work itself that it has used some constraint?
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/43436. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
1 answer
You do not.
Nowhere in Green Eggs and Ham does Dr. Seuss tell you that the whole thing is written using exactly 50 different words. It's an "Easter Egg" as @Alexander points out in a comment. It's for readers to notice, or learn about from others having noticed.
An Easter egg is fun because the reader has a moment of "oh cool, it really is only 50 different words, I haven't noticed it before" (to continue with the same example). Had Dr. Seuss informed the readers of the constraint, the effect would have been instead "author stroking ego with unnecessary BS".
Discovering that a verse is in fact an acrostic, or that the novel doesn't use a certain letter, or anything similar, is only fun when you discover it yourself, or when a friend shows you and then you go and check for yourself. It's not fun when the author tells you about it, and takes away from you the glee of the discovery. You wouldn't want game developers to publish a list of all Easter Eggs when they release a game, right? They wouldn't be Easter Eggs then. Same here.
Crucial to the Easter Egg effect is that the piece of literature must be thoroughly enjoyable without ever finding the Easter Egg. Green Eggs and Ham is fun regardless. The Easter Egg is a nice bonus, it's not the main thing your creation has to recommend itself.
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