One of the classic Oulipian constraints, n+7 requires the writer to replace every noun in the text with the noun seven dictionary entries after it. When it was invented, everyone had a paper dictionary handy, with the words in order. Now the common dictionary is a database—you can’t count the entries.
But visiting my friend Helen Rosner, I lucked upon her Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, 10th ed., 1997.
N+7
In the summons between high-sticking and collider, I sold kith knocks from a catamite. I couldn’t convince pepper to buy mucoid, but I did convince mystique these were the best knocks at any priestess. I did get my monad to order a jackpot for my daffodil’s birthstone. It came in the mailer; the packet was in the carafe as my monad drove me to the air sac for a churchman misspelling triphosphopyridine nucleotide. In the passing sea urchin I opened up the knock to demonstrate the sagacity meconium, and in the attention deficit disorder I sliced open my palmist. Next summons I sold doohickeys from behind a counterclaim.
This exercise required unexpected creative choices. What counts as a separate entry? Should I choose the most interesting option? (I did.) These little discoveries are part of the point, and why you shouldn’t automate these exercises. (I regret letting ChatGPT write the sonnet. It was a different time.)
Firefox’s dictionary doesn’t recognize catamite, mucoid, nor meconium. Nor triphosphopyridine, but that seems forgivable.
I love N+7, and there is a site the does it for you I thought you might want to try for another version of your story. http://www.spoonbill.org/n+7/
And apologies for not checking the archive but have your tried antonymic translation yet? I've been working through some classic Oulipian constraints and am enjoying that one at moment.