tags: [ai-generated, meta]
- A person you love
Prompt: “Write 1,000 words about someone you love without explaining why you love them.”
Tests: observation, tenderness, portraiture, restraint.
- A childhood object
Prompt: “Write about an object from your childhood that you still remember.”
Tests: memory, sensory detail, emotional association.
- A place
Prompt: “Describe a place you know extremely well without giving its name.”
Tests: physical observation, atmosphere, specificity.
- A failure
Prompt: “Tell the story of a time you were unmistakably wrong.”
Tests: vulnerability, narrative, ego management.
- An ordinary ritual
Prompt: “Take an ordinary daily ritual and make the reader see it differently.”
Tests: defamiliarization, observation, conceptual imagination.
- Another person
Prompt: “Write a portrait of someone you strongly disagree with, in a way that they would recognize as fair.”
Tests: empathy, complexity, restraint.
- Something beautiful
Prompt: “Write 800 words about something you find beautiful without using the words ‘beautiful,’ ‘amazing,’ ‘incredible,’ or ‘wonderful.’”
Tests: imagery and linguistic precision.
- A mystery
Prompt: “Write about something in your life you genuinely don’t understand.”
Tests: ambiguity and intellectual curiosity.
- A memory you’re uncertain about
Prompt: “Write about a memory you’re no longer sure actually happened the way you remember it.”
Tests: epistemic humility, psychological depth.
- Something completely outside their expertise
Prompt: “Spend an afternoon somewhere you know almost nothing about and write about what you noticed.”
Tests: curiosity, observational ability, ability to relinquish authority.