The Wounded Childhood Sweetheart
Describe a day when she receives a severely wounded soldier who turns out to be her childhood sweetheart. How does she handle the professional duties while her emotions are in turmoil?
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.
- Give the hero a rule of the era they have to break.
- Choose one real detail of the period, like a price, a law or a song, and build a scene around it.
- Keep the famous event offstage and show its ripples.
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
- 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…
- The Frontline NurseWrite a story from the perspective of a nurse working in a makeshift hospital near the front lines during World War I. Show how she keeps going, and…
- The Brother in Ward FourWrite a story from the perspective of a nurse in a makeshift WW1 hospital. She receives a patient who turns out to be her estranged brother, believed…
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