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How to Write Your Own Hangman Phrases That Play Well

Setting a good phrase is a craft. How to choose length, check difficulty before you play, avoid the common traps and write phrases that are fair and fun.

1 November 2026 · 5 minute read · Zaher Khan

Anyone can pick a word and draw some blanks, and most hangman rounds are set in about four seconds. A well-chosen phrase takes a little longer and is worth the effort, because the setter decides almost everything about how the round feels. A good phrase is tense without being unfair, familiar without being obvious and funny, clever or warm in the way the room wants. A poor one is over in two guesses or unsolvable, and either way the game is flat.

This article treats setting as the craft it is. It covers how to choose the right length, how to test a phrase before you use it, what makes a phrase fair, the common traps and how to build a small collection of your own that you can reuse. Everything here is easy to do with nothing more than a pen.

Start with the person guessing

The first question is never what phrase do I like, it is who is guessing and what would they enjoy. A child wants something familiar and long enough to fill in quickly. An adult who plays well wants something that will make them think. A mixed group wants something everybody could reach. A phrase that suits you and defeats everyone else is not a clever phrase, it is a poor choice for the occasion.

Choose the length first

Length is the setter's biggest dial, and it works in the opposite direction from what people expect. A longer phrase is easier, because common letters appear more often and the board fills in steadily. A shorter phrase is harder, because there is little to read. Decide how difficult you want the round to be, and let that choose the length before you choose the words.

Test it before you use it

The most reliable way to judge difficulty is to play your own phrase against yourself. Write it down, then cross out every E, A, R, S and T, which is what a typical guesser will try first. See how much of the phrase is left. If more than half the letters are crossed out, it is easy. If fewer than a quarter are, it is hard. This takes ten seconds and tells you exactly what the guesser will experience, which is far more reliable than your own sense of how hard it feels, because you already know the answer.

What makes a phrase fair

• Everyone at the table could plausibly know every word in it.
• It is spelled the way it is normally spelled, with no unusual variants.
• It contains only the letters A to Z, apart from spaces and punctuation you plan to show.
• It does not depend on specialist knowledge, a name or an inside reference.
• It has a clear, single wording, so that two reasonable guessers would arrive at the same answer.

The common traps

Several habits produce poor phrases, and most are easy to avoid once you know them. Reaching for the strangest word you know produces a trivia question. Choosing a phrase with a tricky spelling means the game is lost to the dictionary rather than the guesser. Using a name, a title or a reference only you understand excludes everyone else. And choosing something so short and so rare that no sensible opening can find a foothold produces a round that is only fun once.

Add humour or warmth on purpose

The best phrases carry a small payoff. A funny reveal, a shared experience or a warm sentiment turns a guessing game into a moment. The reveal is the setter's one chance to land something, so choose phrases where the last few letters complete a picture. The printer smells fear works because the final word arrives as a small joke. A phrase that merely exists, with no reveal, is perfectly playable and forgettable.

Check the letters

Before you commit, read the phrase aloud and then spell it out, letter by letter, to make sure it contains nothing unexpected. Apostrophes cause trouble: shown in place they give away the word, and hidden they confuse the guesser, which is why many phrase lists avoid them altogether. Numbers, symbols and accents are best avoided in a paper game. If the phrase needs one, tell the guesser how it will be treated before the round begins.

Draft three and keep the best

Writers rarely keep their first attempt, and setters should not either. When you have a phrase in mind, write down two alternatives on the same theme and compare them side by side. Read each aloud as the guesser will hear it, and ask which one has the best moment when the last blank is filled. Often the second or third version is the one that sounds natural when spoken, and the first was simply the one that arrived fastest. The comparison also shows you things you would miss otherwise, such as one version having a repeated word that makes it easier, or another with a long word in the middle that makes the centre of the board hard to reach.

It is also worth saying the phrase to someone who has not seen it, a few letters at a time, and watching where they hesitate. Hesitation is the most honest feedback a setter can get. If they pause on the second word, that is where the phrase is hard. If they never pause, it is probably too easy. One short trial like this tells you more than any amount of private judging.

Build a collection

Once you have written a few good phrases, keep them. A short list in a notes app or the back of a notebook means you never have to think of one on the spot, and it lets you match a phrase to an occasion instead of making one up under pressure. Group them by difficulty, such as easy, medium and hard, and by theme. After a few weeks you will have a set you trust, and you will have a much better feel for what makes a phrase work.

The create page on this site lets you type your own phrase and share it with a friend, which is a convenient way to try out something you have written. And the phrase lists are worth reading as examples of the craft: each one explains, underneath, why particular phrases work, which is the best short course in setting there is.