Welcome to Writing Exercises and Prompts.

This site provides (completely free) creative writing prompts and exercises to help you get started with creative writing and break through writing blocks - as well as some fun anagram vocabulary games.

Generate random story ideas, plots, subjects, scenarios, characters, first lines for stories and more. Did I mention it's all free? Have fun :-)

- Update March 2024:
Random First Line - lots of new prompts and you can now choose a genre
Creative Writing - First Steps - dive right in with some practical tasks to get you started.

- Update November 2023: New 'Guess The Word' game

- Update August 2023: Bite-size Writing Tips and Tricks. 3-minute reads

Random List of Contents:

Random First Line Prompts

Generate a random first line for a story.

Random Subject

Prompts to encourage freewriting.

Quick Plot Generator

Generate a plot-line at the click of a button.

Random Plot Generator

Generate two characters, a setting, a situation and a theme. Change the elements until you are happy with your plot.

Murder Plot Generator

Generate elements for a murder plot. Change the elements until you get an interesting mystery to solve.

'Take Three Nouns'

Another freewriting exercise. Make connections between random nouns.

Random First Line of Dialogue

Writing prompts to help with dialogue writing.

Random Scenario

Create a 'What If?' scenario to write about.

Random Writing Exercises

Browse my random list of writing exercises.

Rhyming Dictionary

For poets and songwriters. Enter a word to find rhyming and similar-sounding words.

Random Words

Generate a selection of words and use the suggestions to kick-start your writing.

Story Title Ideas

Create your own story title.

Character Generator

Create a character outline.

Character Rounding

Create some interesting aspects to your character.

Children's Section

There's now a section dedicated to writing prompts for children of primary/elementary school age.

Town Name Generator

Generate a fictitious,'English-sounding' town name.

Famous Film Plots

Get plot ideas for your own story-writing by looking at the plots of over 100 popular films.

Random Image Generator

Use images to help you write.

Random Character Traits

Generate random traits for your characters.

Random Jobs

Generate an occupation for your character.

Random Name Generator

Choose first and last names for characters.

Character Exercises

Develop your character into a well-rounded person, quirky habits and all.

Anagram Puzzle Game

Exercise your brain and keep your vocabulary in good shape with this free anagram game.

Anagram Puzzle Game 2

Another anagram game - each word must contain the middle letter.

Anagram Solver

Enter a list of letters and discover all the words you can make with them.

Scrabble Trainer Game

Have fun improving your Scrabble vocabulary.

Lottery Generator

Because every aspiring author needs a back-up plan...