When you are facing down a blank page (or screen), a constraint-based prompt—for example, “you must use the words ‘cloud’ and ‘green’” or “you must set the scene in a crowded grocery store”—can get your brain working in unexpected ways.

In this creative writing guide, long-time teacher and novelist Alice LaPlante shares 100 original exercises that will simultaneously push you into a corner and give you the tools to write yourself out of it. LaPlante explains the purpose of each exercise—to sharpen your ear for dialogue, generate surprising images or access intense emotions—and breaks down student examples to reveal how to achieve these goals. Whether you are looking to jumpstart new ideas or find a fresh angle on a work in progress, and whether you write fiction, creative nonfiction or poetry, Write Yourself Out of a Corner will strengthen your imagination and your craft.