The Printer's Secret Document
In colonial America, just before the start of the Revolutionary War, your main character is a young printer's apprentice who stumbles upon a secret document that could change the course of the conflict. Explore their dilemma and the repercussions of their actions.
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.
- Make the dialogue sound of its time without becoming hard to read.
- Tell it from someone the history books ignored.
- Write it as a letter that took weeks to arrive.
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 18th Century Historical Fiction prompts
- The Pirate in DisguiseImagine a tale aboard a pirate ship in the Caribbean Sea in the early 1700s. One of the pirates is actually a nobleman in disguise, seeking revenge on…
- The Apprentice's Secret PlotWrite from the perspective of a young apprentice in colonial America who uncovers a plot against the British Crown. Detail their internal conflict…
- Letters from Edo JapanDevelop a tale centered around a mysterious traveler who arrives in a small village in Edo-period Japan. Through a series of letters back home…
- The Castle SymphonyImagine a story where a struggling 18th-century European composer receives an unusual offer: to write a symphony for a mysterious patron who lives in…
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