Christian Fiction Plot Generator
Generate plots for faith-centered historical novels, where a character's belief is tested by a real time and place, from Huguenot France to the Dust Bowl, and holding on to it costs something.
- Sample
The Dragoons in the Kitchen
Languedoc, 1685. Suzanne Ribot's family weaves silk and worships as Huguenots, quietly, as they have since her grandmother's day. When the king's dragoons are billeted in their house to force a conversion, her father signs the abjuration to save the looms. Suzanne won't. She plans to follow the smugglers' route to Geneva with her little brother, if she can persuade him to leave their father.
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After the Revival
Rhondda Valley, Wales, 1905. Gwen Morgan's husband was the worst drinker in the pit until he came home from one of Evan Roberts's revival meetings a changed man. She prayed for this for years. Now he gives half his wages to the chapel, preaches at the pithead and has stopped noticing her at all. Gwen has to work out what kind of faith she actually holds.
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Rain Over Boise City
Cimarron County, Oklahoma, 1935. Ruth Ann Pike is the preacher's daughter, and after the Black Sunday dust storm buries what's left of the town's wheat, her father announces a week of prayer for rain. Ruth Ann is tired of praying and wants to sell out and drive to California. When her father collapses at the pulpit, the church asks her to lead the prayers he started.
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Testament of the Centurion
In the chaotic fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., a dedicated Roman soldier finds a hidden gospel that challenges everything he knows. Navigating love, duty, and faith, he seeks truth amidst turmoil.
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Shepherdess of Eire
Mid-19th century Ireland, amidst the Great Famine, a young shepherdess is tested by floods, starvation, and loss. Finding solace in Christian faith, she becomes a beacon of hope for her village.
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Shackled Light
Arthur, a Christian slave in 4th century Rome, is granted a vision; a path to freedom. Faith pitted against oppression, this story tests the limits of his human spirit.
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Altar of the Isles
Placed in Dark Ages Britain, a child prophet is born to a humble fisherman’s family guiding the pious King Alfred's campaign against Viking invaders through divine inspiration.
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The Unveiled Cross
Amidst the brutality of the Crusades, a Templar Knight experiences a crisis of faith. Encountering a mysterious monk from the East, he embarks on a spiritual journey of redemption.
Christian Fiction: what makes the plot work
Christian Fiction delves into the lives of characters who grapple with their faith, beliefs, and spiritual journeys.
Make faith cost something concrete
Belief in these novels works best when it puts a living, a marriage or a life at risk. In Lloyd C. Douglas's The Robe, the Roman tribune Marcellus wins Jesus's robe at the crucifixion and then can't live with what he has done. Give your character a price for believing, and make them pay at least part of it.
Get the period's practice right
A Puritan, a Methodist circuit rider and a Huguenot in hiding prayed, sang and read scripture differently. Check which Bible and hymns existed in your year: the King James Version dates from 1611, and 'Amazing Grace' was published in 1779. Janette Oke's Love Comes Softly keeps its frontier faith plain-spoken, which suits a widow alone on the prairie.
Resist the tidy conversion
Readers trust a faith that has doubted. Marilynne Robinson's Gilead is an aging Iowa minister's letter to his young son in the 1950s, and its faith holds grief, jealousy and unanswered questions. An ending can affirm belief without solving every problem.
Know your publisher's standards
Christian publishers such as Bethany House, Revell and Tyndale generally keep out profanity, keep love scenes behind closed doors and handle violence with restraint. Read their guidelines before you plot, because a premise that depends on graphic content won't fit. Within those limits, the stakes can still be life and death.
More Historical Fiction plot generators
Or see the whole shelf: Historical Fiction plot ideas.
World War 2Generate World War II plots built on a real front, a real year and a person with something to hide.
World War 1Generate World War I plots that start in the mud and reach well past it: field hospitals, shell-filling sheds, Mesopotamia, the Armistice and the influenza…
United StatesGenerate plots from American history that start with a region, a law and a person it squeezes.
20th CenturyGenerate plots set in the century of telegrams, newsreels, partitions and moon suits.
19th CenturyGenerate 19th century plots driven by what moved that century: wills and railway shares, gold fields and cotton mills, gaslight and the telegraph.
18th CenturyGenerate 18th century plots built from the period's own machinery: bills of exchange, press gangs, lotteries, pamphlets and slow ships.
American RevolutionGenerate American Revolution plots that look past the famous signatures: farm wives paid in British silver, printers working both sides, militiamen far from Boston.
Civil WarGenerate Civil War plots that put a person on a real road, in a real siege or on a real date between Fort Sumter and Reconstruction.
Ancient AmericasGenerate plots set in the Americas before the conquest: Mexica merchants, Maya courts, Inca record keepers and the great houses of Chaco Canyon.
Ancient EgyptGenerate ancient Egypt plots from three thousand years of history, from the crews who hauled stone at Giza to the copyists of Ptolemaic Alexandria.
Ancient GreeceGenerate ancient Greek plots grounded in real history: plague years in Athens, chariot races at Olympia, the last days of a Bronze Age palace.
Ancient RomeGenerate plots from Rome's thousand years, from the last bloody elections of the Republic to the frontier forts of the Empire, each built around someone with a…
BritishGenerate plots from Britain's past, from Tudor priories to Victorian slums to the Blitz, built around someone placed exactly where class, religion or the crown…
RegencyGenerate Regency plots with a real obstacle between the couple, whether an entail, a debt of honor or a brother at Waterloo, and a whole Season of watchful…
EuropeanGenerate plots from Europe's past, from Venetian glass furnaces to Habsburg courts to Weimar Berlin, built around a character whose language, faith or border…
AsianGenerate plots set in Asia's past, from Song-dynasty exam halls to Joseon palaces to the Dutch post at Nagasaki, each tied to one place and one decade instead…
AfricanGenerate plots from Africa's long past, from Swahili trading towns to the Asante court to apartheid Johannesburg, built around people with their own ambitions…
AmericasGenerate plots from Latin America, the Caribbean and Canada: silver towns, sugar islands, fur posts and the revolutions that remade them, each with a…
Australian & OceanianGenerate plots from Australia, Aotearoa New Zealand and the Pacific: convict ships, gold diggings, cane fields and the long reckoning between settlers and the…
MedievalGenerate medieval plots tied to a real century and place, from Constantinople in 1204 to Essex in 1381, where oaths, tithes and harvests matter as much as any sword.
BiographicalGenerate premises for novels about real people, built on what the records leave out: the missing year, the unsent letter, the person standing just outside the…
Names, a first scene and a title
Questions about Christian Fiction plots
Does Christian historical fiction need a conversion scene?
No. Many of these novels follow a character who already believes and whose faith is tested, deepened or recovered. Readers expect a spiritual arc that matters to the plot, not necessarily a moment of salvation.
How much romance do readers of Christian historical fiction expect?
A large share of the market is inspirational romance, where a love story and a faith story run side by side and physical affection usually stops at kissing. Plenty of books have no central romance at all, especially family sagas and biblical fiction. Decide which you're writing, because the two draw different readers and different covers.
How do I handle the church's historical wrongs?
Honestly. Churches defended slavery, persecuted dissenters and blessed terrible wars, and readers of the genre know it. Let faithful characters object from inside their faith, as real believers did, such as the Quaker John Woolman, who spent the mid-1700s urging fellow Friends to give up slaveholding.
Found the plot? Write it.
Take it into Chapterly: outline it on a board, name the cast, and write chapter one tonight.
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