A Photographer in Vietnam
Imagine your character is a photojournalist during the Vietnam War. Assigned to capture images for a renowned magazine, they form an unlikely friendship with a local interpreter. Explore the ethical dilemmas they face, the horrors they witness, and the stories of humanity amid chaos.
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.
- 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.
- Make the dialogue sound of its time without becoming hard to read.
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 20th Century Historical Fiction prompts
- The Dancer at the DiscoSet in the vibrant heart of the 1970s disco scene, a retired dancer now owning a nightclub faces their past when a figure from their glory days steps…
- A Nurse in Colonial IndiaImagine a British nurse stationed in India during the final years before its independence in 1947. As Partition approaches, show how her loyalties…
- A Jazz Singer in New YorkIn the midst of the roaring twenties, an aspiring flapper from a small Midwestern town moves to New York City to pursue her dreams of becoming a jazz…
- The Silent Star Learns to SpeakWrite a story from the perspective of a silent film actor transitioning into the era of talkies in Hollywood. Explore the fears, challenges, and…
Fifteen minutes in? Keep going.
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