Train Your Adaptability
This exercise trains adaptability—one of the skills that separates good writers from great ones. Real stories don't follow outlines perfectly. Characters surprise you. Plot twists emerge. The best writers learn to embrace those surprises rather than fighting them.
You'll be surprised how creative you become when forced to connect seemingly unrelated ideas. Some of my favorite story moments have come from constraints like this—connections I never would have made if I'd planned everything in advance.
Prompts That Keep Coming
Start writing your story as you normally would. At random intervals, a prompt will appear on screen—it might be a character detail, an object, a setting change, or an unexpected event.
Your challenge is to incorporate each prompt into your narrative without stopping. Don't pause to plan; weave it in as naturally as you can while maintaining your story's flow.
The prompts keep coming throughout your session. By the end, your story will contain elements you never would have chosen deliberately—and often, those are the most interesting parts.
Related Exercises
Story Dice
Roll for random story elements—characters, settings, objects—and weave them into your narrative.
Tighten Up
Practice the art of concise writing—learn to say more with fewer words.
Quest Mode
Turn your writing practice into an adventure—defeat monsters by hitting word and time goals.
Morning Pages
Stream-of-consciousness writing with gentle nudges—clear your mind and access deeper creativity.
POV Swap
Write the same scene from three different perspectives and discover how point of view transforms a story.
Basic Practice
The simplest way to build your daily writing habit—just you, a timer, and words on the page.
Timed Sprint
Race the clock and push your writing speed—see how many words you can produce when time is tight.
Blind Mode
Write without seeing your text—trust your instincts and discover what emerges when you can't self-edit.
Hemingway Mode
Silence your inner editor—the backspace key is disabled, so you can only move forward.
First Line Continuation
Skip the blank page—start from a compelling opening line and see where it takes you.
Character Monologues
Write monologues for different character types and develop your ability to create distinct voices.
Alphabet Challenge
A playful constraint that sharpens your vocabulary—each sentence must start with the last letter of the previous one.