Michael S. answered • 06/09/21
BA in History and 7 years teaching Social Studies.
First, it would be helpful to know if your short story needs to be completely historical non-fiction or historical fiction--as in either telling a story of an actual event or making up your own story with the words included that are not directly about the facts of an actual event.
Then, look at the words you have that could be used as the main issue of your story that could begin your story. This could be something such as using "communism" to base your story off of the spread of Communism, or you could use the word "mutiny" to tell a story about "infantry" rebelling against a say a "communistic dictator" or the amount of "casualties" they've endured in the "trenches", etc.
After that, you'll want to see which words could go together well in a sentence like I mentioned above in the example of "infantry" starting a "mutiny" against a "communistic dictator" due to all of the "casualties" they've suffered while fighting in the "trenches."
Then you'll want to look at the words that would be part of the resolution in your story, these could be words such as "ultimatum", "reparations", "stalemate", "armistice" or "assassinate" (assassinate could also be in the beginning of your story such as what started off WWI).
Please reach out if you have any further questions!
