The Boy Courier of France
A young boy in a small village in France becomes a courier for resistance fighters against the occupying forces. Describe his journey of bravery and the challenging moral dilemmas he faces as he delivers secret messages across enemy lines.
Suggested length: A short story: 1,500 to 5,000 words, or flash fiction under 1,000
Start the clock
Pick a sprint, press start and keep going until it stops. Momentum beats polish on a first draft.
Make it yours
Three ways to take this prompt somewhere nobody else will.
- Write it as a letter that took weeks to arrive.
- End with a choice that history would never record.
- Let your character believe something about their world that turned out to be wrong.
Writing historical fiction
Step into another time and feel what it was like.
Historical fiction is set in the past, usually at least 50 years before it was written. Real events and people often appear, but the story belongs to its characters. Readers come for the immersion: the smells, the rules, the dangers of a world that's gone.
What readers expect
- A vivid, well-researched setting
- Real events as backdrop or engine
- Characters shaped by their era
- Details that feel lived, not looked up
A tip before you start
Research deeply, show lightly. One telling detail in a scene beats a paragraph of facts.
More World War 1 Historical Fiction prompts
- Letters from the Western FrontPen a series of letters between a soldier on the Western Front and his lover back home. Explore how their relationship evolves with every letter…
- The Wounded Childhood SweetheartDescribe a day when she receives a severely wounded soldier who turns out to be her childhood sweetheart. How does she handle the professional duties…
- The Frontline Field HospitalImagine you are a nurse stationed at a small, makeshift hospital near the front lines. Describe a day when a group of severely wounded soldiers from…
- The Journalist in the TrenchesDescribe the emotional and mental journey of a journalist assigned to cover the war from the trenches. Focus on their struggle to maintain objectivity…
Fifteen minutes in? Keep going.
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