The King’s Secret Diary
Write a story from the perspective of a young servant in the court of a notoriously ruthless king. The servant secretly keeps a diary that details covert affairs, plots against the king, and insights into the daily trials and tribulations of court life.
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 Historical Fiction prompts
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- The Sculptor's ScandalWrite a story from the perspective of a young apprentice to a master sculptor in Renaissance Florence, who discovers a scandalous secret about a…
- The Gold Rush BakerySet your story during the California Gold Rush, focusing on two siblings who travel from New York to San Francisco not to mine gold, but to open a…
- The Greek Philosopher’s Roman HouseholdImagine a scenario during the height of the Roman Empire, where a Greek philosopher is taken as a slave. This philosopher, however, has ideas that…
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