Write Draw Pass Game: Secret Phrases, Timers and Sheets: how it works
Write draw pass is telephone on paper: a sentence becomes a drawing, the drawing becomes a sentence, and by the last box nothing matches. This page deals every player a secret starter phrase from a deck of 200, times the drawing and writing passes, and links three fold-over sheets to print. The phrases are original, and the rules are below in six steps.
Deal a secret phrase to every player
Give each player a pen and a sheet with 5 boxes, 7 boxes or 9 boxes. Tap a set: Animals up to something for a family table, Dry humor for grown-ups after bedtime. Then send the phone around the circle. Each player presses Next card, copies the phrase into box 1 without showing anyone, and hands the phone on. After the last player, press Next card once more, so the card left on the screen belongs to nobody. Anyone may write a phrase of their own instead.
The rules in six steps
1. Everyone passes their sheet to the left. 2. Read the phrase and draw it in box 2, with no letters or numbers. 3. Fold the paper back so only your drawing shows, and pass left. 4. Write what the drawing shows in box 3, fold so only your sentence shows, and pass. 5. Keep alternating until every box is full. 6. Unfold each sheet and read it aloud from the top. To time the passes, tap 1 min and Start round for a drawing pass, then 30 s for a writing pass, and tick Sound to hear the bell. Nobody scores. As a house rule, vote for the sheet that drifted furthest.
Which sheet to print, and what the phone remembers
Pick the box count so every sheet ends on a sentence and nobody sees a sheet twice: 5 boxes for five or six players, 7 for seven or eight, 9 for nine or ten. With four, use the 5-box sheet and have each player write and draw their own phrase before the first pass. Each sheet opens as a plain page: choose Print in your browser and run one per player. All 200 phrases are listed under the tool in five groups. With No repeats tonight ticked, the phone deals no phrase twice in one evening.
Tips
Pass the phone one way and the sheets the other. The neighbor who may have glimpsed your card then gets your sheet last.
Stick figures are the point. Tell nervous drawers that a rough drawing makes a better reveal than a careful one.
At the reveal, the sheet's owner reads box 1 and every player owns up to their box as it comes.
Hard cards such as That Sunday evening feeling have no single object to draw, so keep them for players over twelve.
A round started after the bell puts a new card on the screen. Ignore it: tonight's phrases are already on paper.
Questions and answers
How many players does it take?
Four is the floor, and ten is about the ceiling for one circle. With fewer than four, a sheet comes back to someone who has already seen it. With more than ten, split into two circles, because the reveal of a dozen sheets runs long. Nobody waits for a turn: there are as many sheets moving as there are players.
How do we play without a printer?
Fold a blank sheet into as many strips as the box count, or give each player a stack of index cards. With cards, write on the top one, pass the whole stack, and move the top card to the back once you have read it, so the next player sees only your entry. At the reveal, lay each stack out in order.
Is this the same as the boxed drawing telephone games?
It is the pen-and-paper folk game that several boxed and online versions are built on. It has no owner and no official rules, and this page is not connected with any publisher. The 200 phrases were written for this site. If you own a boxed version, these phrases work as extra starters for it.
What makes a good starter phrase?
A subject, an action and one odd detail: A goat eating the homework, A yeti selling snow cones. One detail gives the drawer something to get wrong and the next writer something to misread. Avoid names of people in the room and anything only half the table knows.
What if a player cannot read the drawing at all?
They write their honest best guess, however strange. A wild guess is what moves a sheet from A dragon roasting marshmallows to a lizard at a campfire, and that drift is the payoff. The only real fouls are writing words in a drawing box and peeking under a fold.
Charades Ideas by Theme and AgeCharades decks by crowd, format and occasion: funny scenes for adults, kids, teens, reverse and telephone charades, animals, Bible stories and holidays.
A school bus going through a car wash with the windows open
A science fair volcano erupting on the principal
A shopping cart race in an empty parking lot
A sleepover where nobody sleeps
A snow day announced on the radio
A snowman in the kitchen
A sock puppet telling a joke
A tall man in a tiny car
A teacher slipping on a banana peel
A tent collapsing on a camping trip
A toddler painting the dog
A tooth fairy stuck in a window
A vacuum cleaner chasing a cat
Dad asleep in a lawn chair
Grandma winning an arm wrestle
Grandpa teaching a robot to dance
The last five minutes of the school year
Movers carrying a piano up a spiral staircase
Trying to gift wrap a bicycle
Twins fighting over the last cookie
Waiting for the microwave to finish
Fairy tales and make-believe 40
A centaur entering a horse race
A cyclops trying on glasses
A dragon melting a birthday cake by accident
A dragon roasting marshmallows
A dragon's first day at fire safety class
A fairy godmother directing traffic
A genie stuck in a ketchup bottle
A ghost afraid of the dark
A ghost trying to get its picture taken
A giant using a tree as a toothbrush
A gingerbread man running a marathon
A knight with a frying pan for a shield
A knight writing a thank-you note to a dragon
A mermaid riding a bicycle
A mummy tangled in toilet paper at the store
A pirate crew voting on where to bury the treasure
A pirate walking a poodle
A princess fixing a tractor
A robot holding hands with a toaster
A robot watering flowers
A scarecrow teaching a yoga class
A sea monster in a swimming pool
A snowman sunbathing
A spaceship parked in a driveway
A superhero doing laundry
A superhero whose only power is finding lost socks
A time traveler asking a dinosaur for directions
A troll collecting tolls on a bike path
A unicorn in a car wash
A vampire at the beach with a parasol
A werewolf at the barber shop
A witch riding a leaf blower
A wizard grading homework with a wand
A wizard stuck in an elevator
A yeti selling snow cones
An alien family on a road trip to Earth
An alien ordering ice cream
The monster under the bed is scared of the kid
Three little pigs building a skyscraper
The tortoise and the hare in a rematch with referees
Dry humor for grown-ups 50
A coupon that expired yesterday
A dishwasher loaded the wrong way
A fitted sheet that will not fold
A five-minute break that lasted an hour
A forgotten lunch in the office fridge since spring
A gym membership card gathering dust
A houseplant judging its owner
A lawn mower that starts on the twentieth pull
A meeting that could have been an email
A parent teaching a teenager to drive
A password that needs one more special character
A retirement party for the office stapler
A shopping cart with one wobbly wheel
A smoke alarm chirping at three in the morning
A to-do list that starts with: make a to-do list
A video call with the camera pointed at the ceiling
Asking for directions and remembering none of them
Bringing a salad to a potluck full of desserts
Building a bookshelf with one screw left over
Hitting the snooze button nine times
Holding the door for someone much too far away
The junk drawer that will not close
Leaving the reusable bags in the car again
Looking busy when the boss walks by
Making a noise every time you stand up
The middle seat on a long flight
The neighbor's leaf blower at seven in the morning
Nodding along while the mechanic explains
On vacation, still checking work email
One sock missing from every load of laundry
Parallel parking while a crowd watches
Picking the slowest line at the grocery store, again
The printer jams five minutes before the deadline
Reading the manual as a last resort
Refusing to make a second trip with the groceries
Replying to everyone by mistake
Six friends failing to pick a restaurant
Small talk in an elevator
Stepping on a toy brick in the dark
The tangle of cables behind the television
Tax season at the kitchen table
Telling the waiter to enjoy the meal too
That Sunday evening feeling
The thermostat war at the office
Trying every key on the ring before the right one
Unexpected item in the bagging area
Waiting on hold for forty minutes
Walking into a room and forgetting why
Walking the same way as a coworker after saying goodbye
Wearing slippers to a video meeting
Holidays and seasons 30
A beach umbrella flying away
A building inspector at a gingerbread house
A family in matching pajamas, including the dog
A ghost handing out candy
A groundhog refusing to get out of bed
A leaf pile with a dog hiding inside
A leprechaun opening a bank account for his gold
A New Year's resolution that lasted one day
A pumpkin carving a person
A reindeer learning to parallel park a sleigh
A sandcastle with a moat and a drawbridge
A skeleton at the chiropractor
A sled pulled by one small, determined dog
A snowball fight between grandparents
A snowman shopping for a carrot
A snowy street with a candle in every window
A turkey hiding in a pumpkin patch
A valentine from a secret admirer, who is the dog
A witch stuck in a tree
An April Fools' prank that backfires
An elf on a coffee break
Back-to-school shopping with a very long list
Cupid with terrible aim
The Easter bunny delivering eggs by scooter
Fireworks startling a scarecrow
The kids' table at Thanksgiving dinner
Santa asking a snowman for directions
Santa's sleigh at a drive-through
Trick-or-treaters dressed as their parents
Untangling the holiday lights
How this list was compiled: Own work. The Game Night Generator editors wrote all 200 starter phrases for this page on 2026-09-19; nothing was copied from a boxed game, an app or another list. A phrase was kept only if it names something a player can sketch in a minute and a neighbor can put back into words: a subject, an action and one odd detail. Easy phrases have one subject doing one thing, Medium phrases add a place or a second object, and Hard phrases are moments and feelings with no single object to draw. Screened line by line on the same day: no real people, no brands, no film, show, book or song titles, and nothing about alcohol, drugs, sex, self-harm or anything illegal. The grown-up set is dry rather than rude, about offices, chores and errands, and is clean enough to read aloud to anyone. A script compared every phrase with every other deck on this site on 2026-09-19 and found no phrase in common. The core of the game (players alternately write and illustrate captions, and the paper is folded so that each player sees only the entry just before theirs) was checked on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_game, in its section on the pen-and-paper drawing variant, on 2026-09-19. That article gives no player count, no box count, no time limits and no scoring, and it does not use the name write draw pass, so the six steps, the box counts and the time limits on the page are the editors' own way to run a folk game that has no official rules. Licence: own work
