Photograph courtesy of Lucy Ives.

The novelist and critic Lucy Ives began composing writing prompts, sometimes spontaneously in classes she was teaching. These prompts grew to a collection of three hundred and sixty-five, which will be published as a book this year. We wanted to share some of them with you here. They are unusually precise prompts, many of which aim to activate your memory or descriptive faculty; they’re appropriate for writers of all ages and levels of experience. You’ll need a writing implement and a surface and occasionally a smartphone or computer, but the majority of the work will actually happen in your head. Ives writes, “These prompts won’t solve all your problems or even any of your problems. They might make something happen.”

Distraction Diary

If you work at a computer, keep a running account of what you are thinking at moments when, instead of continuing a task, you have a tendency to turn to “frivolous” or “unnecessary” pursuits, such as digging through social media, stalking esoteric DJs, or trawling eBay. Note your thoughts and impulses at these moments. Consider allowing the note-taking to replace the activity you had thought to turn toward. Remain aimless, if possible. Observe, describe; write things you didn’t mean to write and think things you didn’t mean to think.

Exercise for Eloquence

Write a story in which the narrator refuses to tell the story. Permit the narrator to come close to telling the story—perhaps to long to tell the story, to speculate about how much fun it would be to tell the story, to stumble and almost tell the story, to attempt (and fail) to speak about other things.

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