What Is Writing Exercises and Prompts?

Updated 2026-10-11

Writing Exercises and Prompts (writingexercises.co.uk) is a free creative writing resource site. It provides prompts, exercises, and generators to help you start writing and break through writing blocks, plus a set of anagram vocabulary games. It is aimed at writers who need a starting point, a nudge past a blank page, or a quick practice task rather than a full course.

What the site offers

The site organizes its tools into a few main areas, each with a different job.

Plot Development

Tools for generating or shaping story plots:

Plot Generator
Murder Plot Generator
Fantasy Plot Generator
Quick Plot Generator
Plot Structure
Common Plot Lines

Use these when you have a premise but no sequence of events, or when you want a ready-made situation to write into.

Character Development

Tools for building and deepening characters:

Character Generator
Character Rounding
Character Exercises
Random Traits
List of Character Traits

These suit the stage where a character feels flat and you need specific traits, contradictions, or rounding questions to work with.

More Generators

A wider set of prompt and generator tools:

Create A Setting
Dialogue Prompts
First Line Prompts
Famous Film Plots
Image Generator
Random Job/Occupation
Story Title Generator
Subject Generator
What If? Scenario
Random Words Exercise
Take Three Nouns
Name Generators (including a Town Name Generator)

These are useful when you want a single constraint — a first line, a setting, a "what if" — to launch a scene rather than plan a whole story.

Anagram Games

Vocabulary-focused games and tools:

Anagram Game 1
Anagram Game 2
Anagram Drop Game (marked NEW)
Guess The Word
Anagram Solver
Scrabble Trainer

These are word-play exercises rather than story prompts, useful for warming up or for vocabulary practice.

Articles

A library of short guides on craft topics, including:

Creative Writing First Steps
Unlock Your Inner Storyteller
The Perfect Opening Line
Short Guide to Literary Genres
Choosing Your Narrative Perspective
Creating Memorable Characters
Creating Character Dialogue
Pacing Your Story
10 Fantasy Prompts
Short Guide to Worldbuilding
Using Literary Devices
End Your Story With An Impact
Revising Your First Draft

There is also a Children's Section, a Rhyming Dictionary, a Random Exercises page, a List of Jobs/Occupations, and a Lottery Generator.

How to use it

Pick the problem you actually have. If you cannot start, use First Line Prompts or Image Generator. If your plot stalls, use Plot Generator or Plot Structure. If a character feels thin, use Character Rounding or Random Traits.
Run the generator or read the prompt, then write immediately — the value is in the constraint, not in perfecting the prompt.
If you want to improve craft rather than generate material, read the relevant article (for example, Pacing Your Story or Creating Character Dialogue) and apply it to a draft you already have.
For warm-ups or vocabulary work, use the Anagram Games section separately from story writing.

What to expect

The site describes its prompts and exercises as completely free. The page evidence does not list prices, payment platforms, or login requirements, so treat those details as unconfirmed rather than assuming any paid tier or account system.

It is a prompt-and-exercise site, not a structured curriculum: you choose the tool that matches your current block. If you want a guided sequence, the Articles section is the closest thing to instruction, while the generators are best used as starting points you write from right away.