How exercises work

Exercises are structured writing prompts with a constraint. The constraint is the point. It trains a particular craft skill by forcing you to work inside a boundary.

A few examples of constraints: write a scene that takes place inside a single held breath. Write dialogue where the real argument is never named. Compress a story to exactly 50 words.

Each exercise is tagged to one or more craft skills. Completing it adds XP to those skills and moves you along the six-level progression for each.

Finding exercises

Browse the exercise library from the navigation. Filter by writing type (fiction, poetry, screenwriting, and others) or by skill (dialogue, pacing, clarity, compression, and others). Exercises are labeled by difficulty, beginner through advanced.

The home page shows recommended exercises based on your skill focus and your current level. These recommendations use your submission history to surface the exercises most likely to move your weakest skills.

Completing an exercise

Open an exercise and read the prompt. Some exercises include a moment or constraint you choose before you start, for example a character or a setting. Write your response in the editor. When you are done, submit.

After you submit, the prose engine grades your work and shows your results. You will see your scores for each metric category, how you compare to the benchmark for your writing type, and observations drawn straight from your text. Reading your results covers how to read all of that.

Exercises and your notebook

Your submission is saved to your notebook automatically. After submitting, you can keep editing it, publish it, or request peer feedback on it.

Word count targets

Some exercises set their own word count target. When they do, word count is scored against that target rather than a general benchmark. The exercise page says so explicitly.