creative writing on war and peace

1001 Writing Prompts About Peace

March 16, 2021

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Whether you are a novelist, short story author, or poet, there are certain things you are expected to do as a writer. Some of these things would make you better at your craft, while the others would make your readers better people. One of the things you could do for your readers is write stories that would spread awareness about important matters, such as peace.

In this day and age, it is important to promote peace to people of all ages to prevent the increase of arguments, misunderstandings, conflicts, and even wars.

Below are writing prompts. Used to compose poems, short stories, personal essays, or novels that would promote peace.

A Princess seeks a remunerative job to pay off her expenses, because her peaceful home is where her heart truly lies.
In the future, violence is no longer used to settle differences. It is up to you to figure out a way to keep the peace without using violence.
You are given the rights to choose the laws of the world. Create a law that you believe will promote peace.
In a world with increased violence, how would people find a peaceful solution?
Describe your efforts to calm down a friend who is deeply upset. What are they, and are they successful?
Someone once told me that maintaining peace is a lost cause because people just aren’t peaceful anymore, what do you do to combat that?
A peace treaty has been signed. Write a paragraph about what your country is like now that peace has been achieved.
Write a humorous post about how to avoid fighting.
A noble strives to establish peace in his or her nation.
An unexpected tragedy takes place and many wonder what could have been done to prevent it.
As humanity evolves, we move closer and closer to peace among all people.
Write a scene that makes peace an idea that is worth living for.
In an effort to put out a crisis, one nation starts a war.
Write about a time in history where war was about to start but didn’t.
The king/queen’s subjects are constantly engaged in war. It is up to the king/queen to establish peace for the kingdom.
What would it take for the human race to not fight with themselves, put down their weapons and form a world full of love?
What were your ideas like? Let us know in the comments!
The United Nations summons all of the world’s leaders to end the cycle of violence and promote peace. Each leader approaches this challenge in an entirely different way.
Write about everlasting peace in the world.
What, in your opinion, breeds war?
Your character is from a planet that does not have peace. When a mysterious box shows up and promises instant peace, your character is naturally skeptical.
Write about people going to extremes to promote peace in their communities.
Write about jealousy or the feeling of being left out and why peace in the present circumstances is important.
Write about a battle that has the protagonists and antagonists reaching a peaceful conclusion.
In a galaxy far, far away, the dark side gains control and it’s up to brave souls to bring peace back to the galaxy.
Write about a war-torn home.
This is a popular writing prompt. It lends itself to many possible essay topics concerning the meaning of peace.
After many wars, your dream is realized. The Great Council meets to make peace and build a future.
Write about the concept of peace in non-Christian terms.
A celebration broke out, replete with wild dancing and merriment as a treaty was signed
A terrorist group has taken people hostage. It’s up to you to promote the arts in the hopes of saving their lives.
Write about a character who is very empathetic to others, despite the conflicts around them.
People from all over the world come together to discuss peace. Each person has a differing perception of it. What does this say about human nature?
Write about the times you tried to promote peace.
Have you come across someone who is addicted to conflict/warfare in your life?
Looking for something here at the Writer’s Rules that is not listed in this post? Why not let us know…
In a world filled with ever-escalating violence, what can one person do to end it?
What steps can we take to achieve peace? The story will take place in a fantasy realm.
Write about what war means to you.
What is a peace ritual that you believe is a good representation of peace?
Can peace ever be attained?
Write about a friend of yours and a time they were the cause of peace or the peacekeeper in your life.
Sketch something that depicts or inspires peace.
Write a poem or story about a lasting peace.
A peace treaty is signed. But peace is thrown into jeopardy by a specific person. How do you rectify the evil actions of this person?
Write about circumstances that are causing your character to feel discouraged and negative.
Write about a time when people across the world had peace for a day. What did they do, and what did you do?
This is the personal touch section. It is similar to a human interest story, and should emphasize feelings—especially in your own life.
Write about how you would maintain peace between two nations.
Make a list of ten ways to get along better with someone.
Write the story of a peace-keeping agent.
Imagine that you are racing against time to create a perpetual peace in the world.
Out of devotion to peace, someone goes to see a fight and steps in when there’s about to be bloodshed.
Write about being at peace with oneself.
Write about a war and what steps need to occur to prevent another.
Describe hardship and strife at home based on the events in your life.
You’re on a train. In front of you, everyone is fighting, but you try to be the one person who stands for peace.
Write about a time that you did something to ease pain and suffering.
Write about a revolution with a cause worth fighting for.
A peaceful demonstration turned confrontational in front of your eyes.
Jersey Shore, Muhammad Ali, and Ed Koch are all in an argument about peace and hatred. Who is wrong and why?
Write a rhyming poem about peace
It is your birthday. You are surrounded by loved ones, enjoying each other’s company.
A shooting occurs outside of a courthouse. The families of the victims want to send the shooter to death row. However, your job is to promote peace among these warring parties. How do you do it?
A person surprised another person with a new pen at an art show. That caused peace to erupt.
Write about one peace that has been lost.
Write about a peace of mind you’ve never had.
War is just a simple misunderstanding.
Now that you are a grown-up, you must remind people about peace.
An invasion is taking place. Write the views of the people who see this as an opportunity to create peace by uniting under one ruler while those who are deeply concerned about freedom and peace in the invaded country fight to maintain a free and peaceful life.
Write about a time of peace in history.
The world is in turmoil. As chaos spreads, a hero appears to keep the peace.
Imagine a world where peace-making is a lost art.
Your neighbor seems to be preparing for a war. You must convince her peace is the correct path.
You are in a foreign place and feeling the need for peace. What do you do?
What actions or activities promote peace?
How would you swap places with an animal in a zoo that lived in peace?
Write a short story in the world you’ve created to explain how the world stays at peace.
Write about a time when you made someone feel better in the wake of a disaster or tragedy.
You must create a sign that will, in a single glance, inspire the people to live in harmony.
Imagine a world where everyone was peaceful. Write about this world using your own unique words. Make it simple. Make it complex. The choice is yours!
Why is peace so important?
What would happen if no one would fight for peace? Write about how peace would be restored.
Write about a time when you lost/found peace of mind.
The world seems peaceful, but not for long.
After years of fighting over what is right and what is wrong, two sides make peace. How will they celebrate and what will they do?
What is peace to you?
How would you feel about war if you lived in a peaceful village or town that is attacked by a vicious enemy?
What happened to make you stop fighting others and instead find ways to work toward peace?
What happened to cause peace to end?
Write a story about or against peace.
On the same day, two friends fight. One causes a fight with a group of people while the other one plans to bring peace. How does each student change the world?
Find an incident where peace was almost lost, or was lost, but was miraculously brought back. What do you think would have happened if peace hadn’t been restored?
People are always looking for war, always trying to prove themselves, always trying to prove something. It’s time for a quiet revolution. Use a fictional character and have them bring peace to the world.
Explain the benefits of peace in your life.
Write about a time when you lost your patience but decided peace was more important.
When peace breaks out, how do you celebrate?
You’ve been walking for months. Weary and hungry, you find an uninhabited island. A booming voice tells you that you have been thoughtless in your life and has given you a chance to gain peace of mind by living like one of the animals. What do you choose or is it made for you?
Now that war has ended, what will you do with your life?
Write a story about world peace.
Write about a peaceful protest you have read or participated in.
Write about a peaceful protest.
Write about the strange creatures that live in an alternate dimension, and what peace means for them.
A holocaust survivor attempts to promote peace in her nation.
Her father was once a warrior, but he no longer believes in war. It’s up to his daughter to begin the war for their family’s glory.
It’s possible to keep the peace by working together as a group. What causes individuals to focus on fighting instead of solving disagreements?
Write about how you would bring a peaceful end to a violent conflict.
Write about a young person, with or without special abilities, who is able to keep the peace.
There is violence in the streets. A new leader has risen up and with that he brings turmoil. It’s up to you to restore peace to the people.
World peace means different things to different people. What does world peace mean to you?
Imagine an all out war with modern weaponry. Would peace still be attainable?
How would peace be achieved in your family, workplace, neighborhood, community, and so on?
Make a list of ways in which you encourage peace.
Migration in the modern era is fraught with contention. This is a place to examine what is most likely to cause conflict regarding this issue.
There’s a peace treaty with the insect kingdom and it’s up to you to protect it.
What is peace? Why is it important?
Write about how you can be a better peacemaker.
A character must travel to the edge of the earth to accomplish peace.
Write from the perspective of a person who is trying to promote peace. Use as many specific details as you can.
If there was one thing that you could do that would bring peace to the world, what would it be?
What idea have you heard from that you thought was a very good idea? This acts as a metaphor for peace. How did using this metaphor affect this idea you heard?
Your government has failed to protect you and brought about nothing but conflict. Now it is up to you to reclaim the peace and bring justice to the land.
What are the three most vital components for all human interactions and interactions among humankind as a whole?
Alien race X is invading the Earth and spreading war. The leader decrees that peace is the answer, and he will use peace to unify his people.
Write about what your life would be like without peace.
Imagine a country in which peace will be declared in five years. What must become of that country during the coming five years?
Write a letter to someone who would like to make peace in the world.
You’re shrouded in a conflict between two groups of people. Write about what is happening and how you intend to solve the conflict.
Write a scene detailing your desire to live in world peace.
How can film promote peace in the human condition? Write about it.
What is a metaphor that peace and war could be compared to?
Write about why love is stronger than hate.
Stories and tales of war fascinate readers and inspire new ideas. Take up the challenge and create a collection of stories unique to the world of peace.
If peace could exist in an aspect of life in your story — even if there is war everywhere else — what would be the point of conflict?
Write about your strengths and weaknesses when it comes to establishing world peace.
People in an orphanage must put aside their differences.
Write about a lifelong friendship between friends from completely different walks of life.
Write about a war that was justified.
In times of conflict, other countries must refrain from taking sides.
What can people do to help promote peace?
It’s Christmas Eve. Which famous scene from a Christmas movie would you write about if you had to do a re-imagining of it?
Write about a world war erupting and a rise of new leaders to bring about peace.
The power of prayer brings forth three miracles.
A peaceful protest is taking place. It leads to the leader of a country actually listening to the people who are being oppressed.
How can citizens of the world help their leaders promote peace?
Write about a character who decides to leave her home to establish peace elsewhere.
All of your wishes come true. Peace around the world is achieved. You can now make peace golden.
In a desperate situation, it’s your job to keep the peace.
Write about which relationships need some peaceful influence.
In a world where tensions between superpowers is at an all time high, establish peace through communication and hear what both sides of an argument have to say.
Write a letter to your family telling them all about your experience that day at peace camp.
Think about the cause for fighting related to peace. Write about war as it relates to peace.
Write about how you keep peace at home in your family.
Make a poem or song about peace for the world to enjoy.
Write a point-of-view piece about how one person might turn the other cheek while someone is violently attacking him or her.
Write about someone who’s making the world a more peaceful place.
Write about an institution such as school or work. What do the people inside this institution know about peace?
A war is about to begin. An armed nuclear strike is about to drop on its capital. Many people are preparing for war. Peaceful negotiations have failed. The clock is ticking on a nuclear strike. Peaceful fighters must outlast the war machines to win.
What would it take for you to become a violent individual?
In relation to peace, write about anything that pertains to the topic.
A white dove spreads her wings after a violent storm. The world seems to be in harmony once more.
What do you do when arguments turn into fights? Do you become a peacemaker or a peacemaker’s tool?
Write about how you’ve used violence to fight for peace in your life.
How can we promote world peace?
Whether or not you’re involved in it, write about a time when you witnessed or heard about a riot.
Imagine a future where peace is the only thing on the minds of every single individual. How is everything different? What would you do for peace?
Write about one argument you had.
Explain what it would take for every man, woman, and child on earth to again see peace outright.
Write about why peace must exist in a polluted world.
Write a story about how a group of people used violence to address a problem and how peace was ultimately achieved. Write a response from another character who prefers peace and tried to stop these people from exacting violence.
Write about the beginnings of a truce between warring nations.
Write a personal reflection on your experiences in peace.
How would you use your talents to be an agent of peace?
Write about a time when you made an impact on somebody’s life.
Describe a place where peace remains evident and things are quiet.
What words would you use to represent peace in your life?
Positive war fiction is all about peace. Someone is fighting for peace. A war has begun to bring peace.
Your character finds an old letter. What does it say?
Is there conflict between you and someone else? How do you keep the peace?
Write about how you would create a world where no one had hard feelings toward others for any reason.
In a land torn apart by war, everyone is safe, until one day a conflict arises. Read more writing prompts …
Future technology has changed everyone’s way of life. Someone has discovered that the new developments hold a secret that will allow him to conquer the world. It’s up to you to find a way to keep the peace in the world so that time will never be turned back.
A specific type of peace, perhaps an inner sense of peace with one’s self, maybe peace with nature, is needed in order to overcome a unique problem in a story.
What is peace for you?
Write about a time a conflict was handled peacefully.
The world is a violent mess. What steps would you take to bring peace into this chaos?
Several friends disagree about the world in a heated conflict. Since one of the friends is stressed about a question on their future, it’s up to you to do some research and present a viable solution.
Write a peace story that portrays conflicts and how hate destroys.
If you or a loved one were dying, what would you know or wish for peace-wise?
Write a story about eliminating conflict and fighting in the world.
“Peace can mean different things to different people. Write about what peace means to you.”
There are those people in your life seeking to disrupt peace.
It’s time for world peace. Write about how it is achieved.
Write about a time when physical violence ended peace.
What peace does to a person.
A young girl refuses to be part of her culture’s tradition because it sunders peacefulness in the land.
A young boy and his mother are talking about the world. She tries to explain how peace is difficult to obtain.
Write about the value of life. You don’t need to write about the value of all life or the beauty of life. Focus on one value or on one type of life. For example, you could write about an insect or plant or nurture life or innocent life.
The sole cause of all war lies within a people’s lack of knowledge. Write about how you can positively affect this in your community.
A girl is always caught in the middle of a fight between her friends. She is worried that chaos may break out if she stays put.
Write about the most peaceful moment of your life. Write about the time when you felt the most love.
The book is open if you want peace, or you can turn the page to start a war.
Her family has prevented war many times…but can she do it one more time?
A group of people need to make peace in order to survive. The conflict might be internal or external.
When a family member, friend, or acquaintance violates one of the Ten Commandments or ‘dis’ one’s God, how do you feel and what do you do?
Write about an incident that occurred in your childhood related to war, violence, or some other form of inner conflict.
Write about a time when conflict broke out, but then someone provided a solution.
Make a list of ways you could live peacefully under any set of circumstances.
A lover’s tension is mounting. A fight is about to break out. Can your character maintain peace in the midst of conflict?
A young man who feels as though he’s lost everything searches for peace.
The kindling for war needs to be put out. Write about how you’d do it.
Your romantic partner fights with you over everything. How do you keep world peace in your love life?
A young man is tasked with winning a fight.
Show man’s need to create peaceful habitats, despite his predisposition toward conflict.
As the days of humanity dwindle, a new peaceful planet rises to power and peace reigns worldwide.
Write about a time you witnessed peace.
Negotiating the surrender of the German troops was a method of bringing about peace.
Write about your feelings on uprooting conflict and developing world peace.
Write about a conflict in your life that needs to be resolved.
Write about a character who always wants everyone to be happy.
Write a letter about peace.
What would you consider to be humanity’s civil war?
With regard to the relationship between a man and a woman, what steps could be taken to lessen the potential for conflict?
Write a letter to God about peace.
The peace that exists between two people will be examined.
Is world peace really possible? Why or why not?
Write about why it is better to avoid war.
Write about someone who refused to accept peace or promoted war.
A group of people devote their lives to perfecting physical and mental conflict. What is difficult about being in a place like this?
Peace is one of the themes of the book “Salt to the Sea”. Your writing can be inspired by that book!
Yes, it’s that simple. All you have to do is write about peace and then learn how to spell it correctly. Get started right now!
A lot of people have given up on peace. Why is that?
You have been tasked with being a mediator during a dispute between two countries.
A character experiences peace, then chaos.
Write about how you would restore peace between two people or groups.
Write about what you think peace means.
You have graduated from different peace schools. Show off your tools.
Write about a time that was hard, but you managed to work through it peacefully.
A protester writes a compelling sign about the war he/she opposes.
There’s a lull in the fighting in a world ravaged by war. One man was able to keep the fighting from flaring up again. Write about how he achieved peace.
A group of adventurers are friends but do not necessarily get along in the beginning. What can be done to help the group get along better?
Show the world the positives that follow a lasting peace treaty.
The community and local government has very poor relations. This poses a significant threat of violence. You’re in the position to help restore the peace.
When a person is famous, they are often followed constantly.How are they able to create peace in their relationships?
In this dystopian or post-apocalyptic world, peace exists through the following entity.
There’s fighting and turmoil happening all over the world. It’s up to the writer to make everyone see the beauty of peace.
Two cultures meet for the first time. Write about how peace comes to these people.
In a dystopian world where people fight over scarce resources, what role do you play in preserving peace?
All honor to those who seek peace and promote it.
Your team is ready for battle. You are the only one who can stand in the way of the inevitable destruction.
What pushes peace aside in favor of hate and malice? What steps can you take to ensure peace?
One person does not want peace in the world. Who is this character, and how do they bring the world to the brink of war?
Two sisters work to stay out of trouble in a harsh environment in the big city. How do they do it?
Write a piece explaining how the fight for peace applies to you.
Write about a moment in which you contributed towards peace.
An agreement has been signed. A new age of peace has come to the island. Celebrate the new world freely.
Write about an unlikely peace agreement that needs to be made.
Describe the last time that you were at peace.
Write a love scene between a warrior of war and an angel of peace.
You find yourself in a world where violence is the norm. How do you remain peaceful under these conditions?
Describe a time when you displayed peace.
A young person is bullied in school. Write about how he/she is able to keep a peaceful response.
You have a friend who lacks peace of mind. What would you do to help them?
Mamoko, a kindly yet steadfast peacekeeper, is always involved in conflict and mediates between groups. She is discovering how great of a burden roles like these may become.
An important international summit on peace is about to take place. However, many foreign leaders are afraid of a terrorist attack.
Humanity is getting further away from peace. What can change that?
Write about justifying the invasion of a place that is promoting peace.
The characters in your story live in a peaceful world for which they are thankful. Think of all of the constructive things they could do to keep their world in a peaceful state.
Write about an exciting moment in your life, using peaceful terms.
Escape from an unusual location.
Peace can be torn apart, destroyed or murdered by hate. But peace can never truly die. Write a story about resiliency or peace.
Write about the difficulties of other religions trying to peacefully coexist with each other.
Write about a man who is always trying to find peace within him.
Just the act of writing and reflecting can help you find inner peace. Therefore, write a few sentences about how writing itself helps you find inner peace.
Would you like to provide writing prompts or a topic for this column?
Write about what you might have done differently during a period of war.
Find peace in a chaotic environment
Peace is the most important commodity we crave. We’ll do almost anything for it. In this tale of suspense, you must strive to keep the peace even at your own peril.
Someone you know breaks the peace, but you forgive them.
While preparing for peace, leaders must make tough decisions that make them unpopular. Are the decisions worth the peace? Would you make the same choice if you were a leader?
Write a scene about a person having a positive influence by spreading peace.
Write about something sexy.
Staying calm is the best way to keep the peace.
Rioting is going on all around you and you have to stop the fighting.
Will war ever actually result in peace?
Write about a peaceful time in your life.
After you die, you have a vision of a world at war. You must send a sign that it’s still possible to keep the peace, but it must be cryptic.
Begin with “We must achieve world peace.”
Write a story about a peace-maker.
The best way to guarantee peace is to be prepared for the worst.
Even though there are still threats, the number of violent acts in the world is decreasing. The slums, however, are still pretty bleak. How about you write about a creative slum dweller with great ideas?
You do whatever is in your power to promote peace and quiet in your home.
You’ve made up your mind and decide today is the day you will become a pacifist. Write about your decision and all the things that influence it.
Someone has been making a big deal out of a non-event. In your view, what needs to happen in order for the deceased person’s legacy to be preserved instead of purposely crashed by the focus person?
You are put in charge of keeping peace among several different kinds of creatures in the world who usually never come into contact with each other.
Imagine that love can bring peace to a fighting family.
The spirits negotiate for peace.
How can peace be established between a Mother Earth and Mankind?
Write about a time when you tried to keep the peace.
Three people. Six emotions. Can they learn to give peace a chance?
Write a dialogue between two characters with opposing views on peace.
A devastated nation falls into anarchy. You need to bring peace. What is the first step?
Write about what conditions must be present in order to have a war.
A character is living in a time of peace, but they still feel restless and dissatisfied.
The characters that you have created for your stories are embroiled in a long battle. How do they compromise in order to maintain peace?
Describe two different scenarios that would cause you to lose sleep.
Charles is a wealthy man with a large estate. One of his workers steals from him. He is afraid that the townspeople will disrespect him and thus attack his estate. He decides that the simplest solution is to murder the worker. Write a diary entry from Charles’s perspective explaining why he killed the worker, as well as a diary entry from the worker explaining how he was wronged by Charles.
Write about your experience learning about war and peace.
Write about peace in your personal life.
If you were on a team of superheroes, what would be the name of your group and what powers would you want?
A tale of two lovers, one of which wants nothing but eternal peace.
Children in a country are slowly being taken away from their parents and indoctrinated into a certain belief group. This country is terrorizing surrounding countries in an effort to divert attention away from themselves. Write about the child in this story working to bridge the gap between these two opposing groups of people and succeed. How so?
In what ways can you make the world and the people around you safer, more peaceful, and happier?
One person will be asked to represent war and another is asked to be for peace. Both need to lay out how they’re so certain about their point of view?
Write about the mental state of a soldier who is in the process of war.
What does peace mean to you? How do you show your support for peace?
Write about how you would solve your country’s problem with poverty.
Use as many details, descriptions and sensory details.
How can we spread ideas of peace?
Write about a man who refuses to participate in any form of violence.
Write about a peaceful protest that you would like to have happen.
A child is crying. People are screaming. Oddly, it does not seem to have a cause. Who or what is the girl crying for?
Write a letter to freedom fighters, the patriots, and parents from a completely different perspective. Tell them the things that need to change to create peace.
Write about how you would foster peace in your family.
Most people act peaceful. A few, however, aren’t. In this short story, you are the only person who’s not being peaceful.
Write about a plan that refuses to promote peace in the world.
Write about a time when you kept the peace.
Score 0-100 – Is violence justified in some situations?
Describe the day a resolution toward world peace will be signed.
A nuclear missile is heading toward one of your loved ones. Write about how you would help to avoid this crisis.
Write about an individual who can’t achieve the kind of peace that they want
A selfish prince is transformed into a fat and lazy fairy when he doesn’t share his peace.
Without conflict, many stories and books would be vastly different. Discuss ways to create conflict in a story.
The constitution of the United States starts out with a Preamble. What would be an ideal peace preamble?
This time of year is filled with goodwill and family love. Write about the moments that make you thankful to live in peace with your loved ones.
Write about a pacifist. Give some examples why pacifism is good and others why it is bad.
A religion based on peace is being threatened by another religion. Write about how they resolve the threat and promote peace in the world.
Do you know someone who is an excellent peacekeeper? Write about them.
You must take what you know about the Civil Rights movement and apply it to the present day.
Write about an instance where you saw peace.
You’re on death row. The day of your final meal has come. It’s time to make your final wish. What is it?
A man reminisces on the time when peace was still there.
Write about the peace you wake up to every morning.
Write about the most peaceful night of your life.
Transition Words That Show Movement
School playground on the first day of the year.
Imagine a world where peace means unconditional love. Then write a piece inspired by what you’ve imagined.
describe one way to establish peace in about all the country/ world.
Feels the weight of their age responsibility of keeping the peace.
A child is abandoned. Do you think the baby’s caretaker had a selfish reason? Write about what you think happened.
Write about a way you saw the power of peace.
Today’s Modern Issues writers have decided to take part in a writing contest related to peace. They write about how they believe peace needs to be maintained. Other participants are free to vote for their favorite entry.
Is world peace possible? Write from a futuristic point of view.
Two people are facing off. A misunderstanding has led one to believe things about the other. Write about how they resolve this misunderstanding and keep peace between them.
Make a list of commonly held beliefs, and then write about why some people are against living in peace with one another.
Write about a character whom you consider peaceful and why. Create an outline for their journey from a place of anger to a place of peace.
A child is on a video call. Her dad is in the military. Write about how her parents maintain peace back home.
You could be the person promoting world peace, or a nobody who has a part in this process.
A man gets called to testify in a treaty conference. He goes, but also goes about his business, just keeping the peace.
Imagine that a war just ended. How do you think the warriors would feel if they were to see how the world now lives in peace?
You have the power to advise the young ruler of a major warring nation. What do you tell the young ruler to improve relations with their neighbors?
Help your young hero win the fight and restore peace to his land.
The concept of peace offers a large number of categories for authors to deal with. Literature is the perfect medium to portray all kinds of conflicts and peace in global settings, as well as interpersonal ones. A writer can deal with different worldviews, cultures, and personalities, writing his way to peace or guessing at that solution.
How can we foster world peace tomorrow?
Revenge feels good. What are some reasons to forgo revenge?
What could cause or trigger a world conflict?
Write a one-paragraph letter to a soldier, thanking him or her for their service, and encouraging them to keep fighting for world peace.
You dedicated your life to peace, but conflict handled you.
Write about the moment when you finally understood why violence won’t solve any problems.
Someone is planning an attack against the country, but you have mechanisms to stop them.
Write a solemn chapter about peace in a novel. Imagine this peaceful event happening in the story, and then write about it accordingly.
If you had the power to define peace, what would you say it is?
Reoccuring Dreams is an original title by Mathew Cocozello.
A soldier returns from war. He has trouble finding peace.
What is the best way to promote peace in your life?
Write a scene in which you work to keep everyone safe more effectively than anyone else.
Imagine yourself helping a specific child who has experienced war.
Now write about how you wouldn’t promote peace in the world.
A story about how a teen has learned the importance of nonviolence and peace.
Write about a family that is at peace.
Write about the things you do simply to maintain peace.
In a future where the world has achieved peace, write about the people that made it happen.
You are the opposite of peace. Suggest how peace could be achieved without the use of you.
What might have to happen to make peace real in the world?
How can we promote peace in the school?
Write a poem about peace.
Write a list of reasons that peace is important.
Write about how you can encourage peace in your neighbourhood.
Two lovers are warring between each other over a material object. Use the breaking point as the catalyst for how you will achieve world peace.
Describe a place of peace.
You are at a protest. Write about peace or protesting.
Write a scary story about the possibility of a lack of peace.
The main character commits either an act of war or of peace, and it changes his/her life in a profound way.
How do you seek opportunities to reconcile with others?
How can a newly married couple achieve peace in their home after they have just moved in?
Challenge world leaders to read a specific book that promotes peace.
Write about a leader who destroyed the peace.
Peace can be found, if only we learn to walk through the darkness.
Write how you would handle an extremely angry person. What if this person is violent? How would you de escalate?
What conflict need you resolve in order to establish peace?
The world is going to end in 5 years. Write about what happens today at school.
What happens if the fight you dreamed of never starts?
What does peace mean to you?
Someone challenges your idea of peace. What do you do?
The school day, about to end, a student threatens to bring a gun to school the next day and start a fight. It’s your job to make sure they do not try to cause problems, being the bearer of peace.
Someone stole from you. Demand justice for the wrongdoing.
When horrible acts of war occur, people question why such tragedy exists and how to make the world a better place.
Write about a time when you successfully improved the working environment.
Write about a time when peace was hard to come by.
Does peace result when one side wins over the other? Can real peace ever exist if this is the case?
Write about how someone would lose their peace.
Imagine if you could introduce a world rule or law where everyone had to keep peace in each other’s hearts. What’s that like?
Think about how you react when you see injustice and violence in the world. Now think about how you would react if you were put in charge of making the world peaceful.
Write about an argument you had with a sibling where the more abusive person was you.
During war time, your country sends you to deliver some food to the civilians, and even with the language barrier, you try to impose peace to the people you are helping.
Alice, who is a super-genius, wants peace, but others around her are restless. Write how you think Alice will overcome relocations.
Write about how difficult it is currently to bring about world peace.
A person worked hard for someone dear to them. They can help this person achieve their dreams, but in doing so, they put their own dream at risk. How do they decide to use their resources?
A dispute breaks out between siblings.
There is a war raging on the planet you live on. What would you have to do to make the world a peaceful place?
Write about something inspiring about peace.
Write about how you would promote peace in your life.
What’s the best way to achieve world peace?
That peaceful feeling you get from forgiveness.
Write about the benefits of peace.
Two sides in a war find out they are blood-related.
Write about how you go about reading your work to an audience.
Write about a scene where you acted as a peacekeeper.
Why is peace so important? Write about it.
In a world that is torn apart by war, celebrate the idea of peace.
Write about a time you slacked and someone else got the job done. Write about what you learned from the experience.
How does one achieve peace through art or writing?
Is peace something that can be achieved instantly by making a world full of good people, or does it take time?
Write about how you can be a good citizen by promoting peace in your community. Someone might be encroaching on what belongs to you. How should you respond? An otherwise perfect relationship is threatened by one partner’s need to always be right. How can peace be restored? How would you integrate the poor? Write about the possibilities.
Write a personal essay about pursuing peace in your life.
Religion causes many issues between people. It makes peace hard to achieve. Write a paragraph stating how peace could be found in this area.
Write a story about a popular politician and how they promote peace.
Write about any violation of peace you’ve uncovered.
Write about a struggle for peace.
A peace treaty is about to be signed, but someone on the brink of war threatens to disrupt the peaceable proceedings.
A professional trapeze artist practises for the century’s greatest performance. Peace and tranquillity must prevail.
What can people do to be peacemakers?
People from around the world are creating rifts that won’t allow for peace. How will you make peace?
You need to stop a civil war from breaking out. What will you do?
A girl shares how conflict led to peace in her family.
A young person makes peace with a difficult situation she has experienced.
The world is a beautiful place, surrounded by water, trees, and majestic mountains. Your love for beauty allows you to spark peace by inspiring others to appreciate the world around them.
Suzannah Yasmina Duran lives in Trump’s America, which imposes limitations on immigrants such as her, which are extremely damaging to the migrant workers.
A leader keeps an eye out for signs of war and makes plans of how to neutralize the situation.
There’s a condition that’s ravaging the human population, and it’s up to all people to peacefully unite to defeat it.
What phrase or symbol should we take for the modern movement towards peace and goodwill?
What needs to be changed in the world to attain peace?
Write about the kind of peace you think we should have in the world.
Write about a time in history when peace was kept and write about the circumstances surrounding that peace.
In a dystopian future, a council plans for peace through aggressive military action. What would have to happen for peace to reign?
How would you achieve world peace through story writing?
Peace won’t form without intervention. Write about a time you stepped into the role of a peacekeeper.
Write about how to “silence the guns.”
Write about what life would be like if peace reigned throughout the world.
It’s sold as A Foolproof Peace Elixir and there are hordes of people who are lining up to buy it. After it all happened, do you think there is a better way?
Two sides are facing off, what will remain and wait for the battle to be fought?
Two leaders who constantly lashed out at each other have tried to find peace with each other during talks that were difficult, but led to an agreement that could possibly lead to lasting peace.
Write a scene where you experience controversy with your friends on what peace means.
Write a letter to your local government representative and urge him or her to keep the peace in your town.
Imagine a person who has risen above conflict and now helps others reach the same state.
Create a peace map not unlike the Lorraine map of Peace Treaty.
This is the moment when all conflicts will fade away, replaced by peaceful thoughts, words, and actions.
You had a dream that you were standing in front of a large crowd. What you had to say was going to bring about world peace. Write about it. Read this article for more ideas on how to provide writing prompts to your ESL students.
You are trapped in an area where war has recently erupted. This story is about you trying to get out of the area.
Does peace only exist in the world during times of great prosperity? Or can you have peace during a time of great loss?
A young girl is at war with her enemy over territory.
Global warming and war are destroying the Earth. Create a large scale treaty between nations, nations, and/or minorities.
The word peace is often mentioned in texts such as the Qur’an. Historical scholars may have different interpretations of the concept of peace. Explain.
The time of conflict in an off-world colony has come to an end. Describe how peace has returned and how life is going now.
Peace is about to be broken into and it’s up to you to stop it from happening.
What if both sides are in the wrong? What needs to happen in order to achieve peace?
How would you keep peace between two opposing parties, such as democracy and communism, in a world needing equal parts of each to run smoothly?
Words can help or hinder us during the quest for peace. What do we need to say to achieve world peace?
What is your peace process? Take us to specific moments just before, during or after conflict and reveal the drama of those events that led up to peace.
Write about your favourite place to meditate in peace.
What is the sign of peace? Why do we offer it to other people?
Destroyed homes. Ruined lives. A few people haven’t been affected by this loss. But now it’s up to them to create peace. Is it something they can do?
If you could help keep peace wherever you were, what would you do?
Write all about how to make yourself feel more peaceful. You may take any point of view. But what does peace feel like for the writer?
Describe your “world peace code”. What rules must your characters abide by in order for world peace to be achieved?
What would need to happen for international peace to occur?
Write about someone who spent an entire day trying to patch things up and resolve conflict.
What are some of the steps you could take to build peace?
Write about a character who stirs up peace or unrest.
A character is punished for actively making peace.
Stop a coup before it takes place, and therefore keep everyone peaceful.
Have you ever felt personally violated? Write your thoughts on what peace means to you after that incident.
A peaceful revolution could take place, and soon.
What story angles have you found to be especially remarkable?
In times of unrest and fighting, a machine of destruction is put in place to quell the fighting.
Write a short story about a time in your life when you completely lost your temper.
When the world is on the brink of destruction, a child must bring peace to the land.
Two nations have been at odds for hundreds of years, and a young woman tries to diffuse the tension.
Write about a historical or current battle. Surely peace could have been reached.
So out of peace there is war and out of jealousy and selfish ambition there is violence and disorder. But the wiser mind will make a straight path for its going out and will lay hold of peace.
It’s the calm after a long battle has finally subsided. Describe it.
An organization needs to create peace by projecting peaceful thoughts to others.
Write about a time when you forgave people that had hurt you.
This group of teens always strive to be at peace with one another.
Explain what needs to change for peace to occur.
There is a war raging on in the land. In your story, resolve this conflict by maintaining peace throughout the story line.
Someone is secretly stealing from others. Uncover and stop this threat to peace.
When a civil war breaks out, everything you know is gone. Write about the journey you take to find peace in this new place.
Write about an environment where peace can never exist.
A man must keep peace in the jungle.
A hostile alien species attacks Earth. After the dust settles, you’re tasked with keeping peace between the two races.
Write about times that there have been peace or times when peace wasn’t present.
Describe a peaceful world.
An argument is about to break out. You need to find the right words to prevent people from fighting.
Without knowing the words in your native tongue, role-play as an emissary from an alien civilization who has come to Earth to tell us how to maintain world peace.
A character, perhaps the protagonist, has to fight a war against a tyrannical ruler.
Instincts and inner demons are holding a character back in achieving peace.
Write a letter to someone to thank them for promoting peace.
Write about the life of a young woman who dedicated her life to serving God and promoting peace.
Write about the last time you experienced a moment of world peace.
Ever been in a situation where it seemed like the world was ending? Write about how you handled it.
What if the cost of peace was your soul?
A war is fought over someone who wants peace.
Come up with two or more groups of people that could benefit from peace and write about what would need to happen.
Write about a peace agreement you experienced when you were younger. Did it last?
While other countries at war abound, the people inside your country’s borders are learning to work peacefully together.
A writer’s Muse wakes them up in the middle of the night. The flow of energy coming through is so powerful that it’s disrupting the Muse. This energy must be allowed to move through quickly. The Muse orders the writer to create a catalyst which will help others and get the process over with quickly. However, when the writer uses the catalyst mindlessly, the Muse must step in to stop the writer before chaos sets in.
Write about the differences between peace and war.
Revolutionary forces fight against a corrupt government. What would you do while a nation divided, blown apart by war and clashing armies, to bring peace after a revolution?
Write about a friend who helps you keep the peace.
Ted Bundy’s birthday is today. Write about how you would have wished the execution to occur instead of his birthday being spent on death row.
Nationality doesn’t matter when there’s peace to be kept.
Write a story about an everyday person who promotes peace in his or her everyday life.
Create a story about world peace.
Write about why peace is so important to you.
A contemporary non-fiction essay about declaring peace is due in ten minutes…
How has war affected you?
The road to peace often seems full of conflict, but peace on Earth is worth fighting for.
A person from the far future is trying to find out what kept the Earth from being destroyed by a nuclear war.
Writing about peace in history
Peace is slipping away from everyone. Your characters must make a push to keep the peace from being destroyed.
Write about a time when you determined that fighting wouldn’t lead to peace, but peace would lead to fighting.
How can a conflict in your own life be resolved peacefully?
An observer from a neighboring galaxy has decided that there needs to be peace in the world, and she will take whatever steps are necessary to accomplish this goal.
Write a letter to a current or former political leader about how they could promote world peace.
What do you do when people don’t act violently?
Write about the many ways you can express peace in your life.
How should one handle conflict in the workplace?
New world order has been established. Peace is now the rule. Write about how censorship applies to the newly peaceful world.
By day, a superhero works to keep the peace in her town. By night, she looks for adventure.
An attack has occurred. One man who ran into a thicket of bushes is clicking and clunking. Write about the unresolved shame he carries with him.
The world has finally achieved absolute peace. Now what? Now the people must find other sources of entertainment.
Write a reflection on an event in your family’s history where peace was more important than anything else.
Write about the traits that foster peace. Or how you might teach peace to children.
Write about something your mother taught you about peace.
A father describes what needs to happen in order to achieve everlasting peace.
Write an alternate version of history focusing on what would have happened if peace talks were successful.
Write about how school can promote world peace.
Write about a fictional leader’s quest to establish peace in the lands.
What role do you play to promote world peace?
Describe how a large-scale battle would end in your circumstance.
A person is determined to do what it takes in order to keep the peace.
Imagine you have been called to plan a celebration for world peace day. What would it look like?
What must your character do to get peace?
Tell the story of a person or event that brought peace to a specific place or community, past or present.
Write about a time you talked to resolve a conflict.
Write about a peaceful conclusion to a tense situation.
How can someone maintain peaceful interactions in a sometimes-hostile and cruel world?
What are the main obstacles to peace in the world?
In a fantasy world, you save the world from destruction and peace once again returns to the people.
There was once a time when there was peace in the world.
Someone special is spending time trying to maintain world peace.
Choose something in your life that causes conflict and write about how this could affect the world if it sparked conflict.
Write about what you think peace really is.
Write about a leader who had a lot to do with the promotion of peace. Imagine you are a chronicler in his army. You’ve never actually met him, but you recall tales of his goodness.
Since you’re the one to keep the world safe, how would you do it?
Write about the meaning of peace in your life. “Peace writing can contribute to the process of healing a country, a community, a nation’s collective emotional wounds, and a person’s internal psychological wounds, including symptoms of post-traumatic stress syndrome. Peace writing can help re-establish a sense of connection, hope and meaning for peoples on all sides of ongoing, intractable conflicts,” Dr. Smith said.
Write a fairy tale! In your story, there must be a peace advocate type of character.
What does peace feel like? Describe how peace feels like.
At a peace rally, something goes terribly wrong. How do conflict resolution groups manage this incident?
Talk about what gives you peace.
One of your friends is about to fight with another friend, and you must do something to avert conflict.
A woman’s daydreams take her on an adventure where she saves the world from an enemy who is intent on destruction. What can you do when someone is striking out at you?
Where can you find peace?
Have you ever personally felt torn between peace and war/conflict? If so, how were you resolved?
You need to convince your peers that peace is better than war.
A dramatic story about peace during a time of war.
Write about how you have worked to promote peace.
Write about a small town. How is peacekeeping different than in other parts of the world?
Write about an object that brings a sense of peace to you.
The creation of peace in one’s own family.
Share your thoughts about the anti-war movement.
You are asked to give up pieces of territory and valuable resources to help foster world peace.
Write about the wisest woman in the world. Those whom she inspired, those who admired her, how she changed things, and how she taught peace.
What influences people to stay in peace?
Write about a time when you helped to bring people together when they were fighting with each other.
Write about what world peace would look like.
The pen is mightier than the sword. What if the conflict could be resolved through words rather than fighting?
Write about some steps that could be taken to keep peace between two lovers.
Do you ever lose yourself in the hustle and bustle of the world? Describe an experience that you had and how it relates to mediation, keeping peace in one’s self and surroundings.
You preach love, but your actions cause violence. How can you reconcile both?
A man is trying to capture the evil genius. His hopes for world peace must hang in this cat and mouse game.
Write about a time when you couldn’t choose peace and found it dissatisfying.
A peacemaker tries to avoid a vicious dictator with an ax to grind.
You’re working at a job where you help to keep the peace. Describe the difficulties and responsibilities of this job.
How would you deal with an angry person?
Submit a story in which you are the Peacekeeper.
How can people around the world better work together?
Write about a time when you felt like the peacemaker.
Peace on earth is a common Christmas theme. Use your imagination to write about peace during a holiday season or seasonally.
A conversation about protecting the environment and preventing war.
Someone is bringing chaos, and it’s up to you to promote peace with your writing.
A peaceful, easy-going man is forced to make a difficult decision to promote peace.
Imagine what it would be like for people to live side by side peacefully, with no conflict.
The world turns black and white because that’s the only way peace will continue.
Write a love story about the end of a war.
What sort of events need to occur in order for peace to prevail on earth?
Write about one big specific conflict in your life.
Tell a story about a lifelong pursuit of peace.
Make it a law that everyone needs to be nice to each other.
A child receives a snowball for Christmas – she knows that this is an olive branch to the enemy.
Someone you love is at the point of violence. Write about how you would work to maintain peace.
The seasons of the year create balance. Structured responses and schedules create order. What element would you change to bring peace to the world?
An angry banker wants to riot for their rights.
Why do we need peace? Is it more important than adventure?
Let your fantasy part of your brain run wild and imagine you are part of the Keyblade Master organization that keeps peace.
Even in the best marriages, there still needs to be work done to maintain peace.
Experience the feelings of being at war. Write about this moment when it kicks into a more full-blown war.
No one believes in peace anymore. It is up to you to prove them wrong.
Write about a personal conflict you are experiencing.
Write about a moment in the afterlife when a man realizes how his talents can be used to promote peace on earth.
Should there be a war or should there be peace?
What will it take to achieve world peace?
In post-war times, a mob is ready to hang a man who may or may not have committed a crime. The man says he has a child who needs him, who will do anything it takes to save him from the noose. Write about why the child decides to go save him in spite of his misdeeds.
Write about your life when peace exists in your country.
Peace in terms of world, personal, and spiritual meaning.
A school is forced to support peace. Think of all the difficulties that arise.
Describe the version of peace that you live and seek to promote.
A ceasefire between armies has been signed, but whether peace can be upheld is a different story.
Many people point to the fact that Humans have had conflicts going on ever since they came into existence, but others disagree. What’s your take on this?
What are some examples of peaceful small communities or areas?
Write about a specific fight scene OR situation that would result in a tremendous amount of peace.
For this writing exercise, we need to imagine ourselves as beings of pure peace. If you needed to communicate with a human, how could you do so?
Write about a character with a shattered heart.
Participate in a meeting held to discuss world peace.
Write about a peaceful place near you.
If your school was caught in an unlawful conflict, you’d be held accountable to resolve it in a peaceful manner. What would be the outcome?
What one piece-based change could be made that would improve the lives of the majority of people everywhere?
What has broken the peace in your life?
A soldier escapes from a warzone and wants peace and peace only. He battles to cope with his surroundings.
Write about your experience with peace.
Write about a person who lived his life in peace.
For more interesting and writing prompts visit Powerful Prompts.
On the journey of life we bump into various people who are hindrances. What do we do when we are faced with so many hurdles? Write about it.
This article tells the story of a child caught in the crossfire of a battle. How do you help soothe the stress after war rages on?
A couple is moving on from a hard breakup and decide to go on separate spiritual journeys to gain wisdom and insight.
The possible consequences of picking a fight.
Write out a full perspective of peace. Write from the perspective of every character involved. What kind of details should be included?
There is a fist sized rock on the ground. Pick it up and take a good look at how heavy it is. Now drop it and write about the experience.
What would the world be like if peace reigned?
Does peace start at home? Explain how you can get your family to ‘get along’.
There is a peace conference. Most of the people only care about themselves or the money they’ll make. Who will save the world from war?
What do you wish for?
What are examples of how people in general cause peace?
A drought has led to wars around the world. Plant rain making plants and keep everyone at peace with your magical abilities.
Describe how the world would be different if everyone practiced peace.
Write about an argument you had with someone and how you became friends again.
Peace is chased away by actions of war. It is up to you to bring it back.
When an alien scout lands, talk about how the rest of the world responds. Write this as a warning to us, or as a potential honor.
Someone grabs the remote and changes the channel. Why do you think they did this?
How would you describe the absence of conflict?
Write about a world that has a peaceful culture overall.
Explain some reasons why peace on earth will never occur.
Make a news item about an event that pointed to peace—what it was and what contributed to the peace.
Write about what you would do to help to achieve world peace.
Write about how you ended a rivalry with a friend.
In the middle of World War II, join in on the conversation between Winston Churchill and Hitler.
The main driving force behind war is the lack of peace.
Write about peace and war, peacemakers and warmongers.
Imagine that a day of peace happens without any military or conflict of any kind and write about what you recall of events that day.
How does writing about peace help promote world peace?
Timeline of events leading to the creation of extremely effective peace treaties, laws, and practices across the world.
Write about why you believe in peace.
Write about the first time two people met and formed a deep bond that fueled their mutual fight for change, peace and love.
Write about a time when you had just started dating someone new and it was very peaceful and easy.
A community helps to bring money to the Palestinian people.
A child wants to know what peace means to you.
Murderous rioters are rising up against innocent people. Write about what peace means to you in light of this.
A young man sets out on a world tour and meets an elderly man who believes that the world is on the brink of war. It is now up the young man to prevent war.
Write a story or list about world peace. It may or may not be a story that involves people. It may or may not have a figurative tone.
Think of a specific situation that is currently overflowing with conflict. How can you keep the peace?
Given the awful fight between his parents, a boy decides to stay neutral in order to help maintain peace.
You are talking with someone about how you could achieve peace in every home.
A soldier reflects on what peace means to him during wartime.
Write about a positive aspect of peace.
It’s your job to recreate an ultimate plea for world peace- both verbally and in writing.
Show how making a choice for peace is a tough decision for one character.
You can find additional writing prompts under the topic Life
Write about how you would produce peace within yourself while enduring a conflict.
Wars plague one world. Peace is slow to come. You and your friends must make time to celebrate peace.
Write about what peace represents to you.
Write about a potential or possible peace prize winner for your story.
The world has been rocked by war. While visiting an area in need, imagine a scenario in which you can promote peace.
Many around feel sadness and hopelessness due to terrible surrounding wars. One person stays positive and attempts to initiate a domino effect of peace.
A village is hated and has many enemies. What they lack is someone who is promoting peace and brotherhood.
Write about a peaceful place.
Write about how a national holiday might look and feel like, designed for the purpose of maintaining peace.
Imagine the future where there is peace on Earth. What does the world look like?
War? What war? Peace, here we come.
Write about your ideal world of peace.
In your view who is the world’s greatest peacemaker? How can others follow in their footsteps?
Write about a character who is winning the fight against evil.
People discuss matters of peace during a gathering. One comment on the list just flies off the wall.
A promise of peace was made, but wasn’t fulfilled. How can a promise of peace be conveyed, and who can you rely on to keep it?
Write about how you would instill peace in children.
Someone in your life has taught you about peace. How have they taught you about it, and what impact have they had on your life?
In a time of conflict, the leader calls for peace.
Peace can’t exist without justice. Write about what form justice should take.
Write about how a neighbor’s lack of peace negatively affects you.
Write about a visit to an all-peace school.
A journey begins in a war-torn country and ends with peace and redemption.
Write from the perspective of a stranger who has never seen someone cry until they have been told about all of the people in the world that are starving, being kept as slaves or being subjected to political corruption.
Write about peace you’ve experienced in your life and how it came about.
Write about a peaceful day you had. How would you feel to know that the day would be so peaceful at the time, but that things would spiral out of control, and peace would not last?
Peace is what embodies you. Share something about your sense of peace.
A park ranger has an eye-opening experience in a national park.
Write about two characters who have reached a peace treaty.
The Eiffel Tower is caught in an intense battle between freedom and peace. You have the power to show which side will win.
A monster is locked away in a cage and because of it, the town is peaceful. A young girl claims this monster is a witch and they come up with a plan to set it free. What does the monster represent that is keeping the town safe? Write about how they unlocked its cage and release it to make their wish come true, believing that this beast will destroy their village.
Business, personal and spiritual relationships all need literacy. Share your thoughts on what you believe needs to be done to promote peace.
A dispute broke out between two individuals or groups of people. You have been chosen to settle it peacefully. All that is required is a little compromise from both parties.
Write about the last time you saw someone break the rules. Write about trying to stop them.
Write about how you would prevent others from feeling sick and tired of the state of the world we live in.
There is an impending war. What can you do to keep the peace?
In a world of hate, the length of a handshake can differentiate whether peace is found or not.
Peace is something that we all need, but it’s not always an option.
The story of someone after an attack has happened, explaining to the jury how they feel after that attack.
What are some of the steps you’ve taken to keep your own country peaceful?
A toned down version of a fight is about to happen but your character prevents it.
Write about a conflict within your community that you helped to solve peacefully.
The world could always use more beauty and less ugliness.
Write about the most peaceful interaction you have experienced.
People mistakenly labor under the illusion that peace and war are opposites. They are in fact, one and the same.
Write about how you are promoting peace in your own life.
Conflicts are a part of life that none of us can avoid. Is there any specific conflict you are concerned about or are in the midst of right now?
Talk about a time when peace was something you were able to maintain when there was conflict.
A war photographer is haunted by his past.
A vaccine or natural immunity could cure the world of war and conflict. Write about the aftermath, how war and violence was dealt with.
Someone you respect does everything they can to stir up conflict and discord. What will you have to do in order to ensure that you don’t fall into their trap?
How do you keep the peace in your home? As a parent, what steps can you take so that your children have a feeling of peace?
Your goal is world peace. Use a variety of writing techniques to get this point across.
Write about why a person does not believe in peace.
Write about a stable ruler or world leader who rules with an iron fist.
Freedom is a freedom that many people take for granted. Write about all that freedom buys you, and conversely all that it loses protects.
Life is filled with turmoil all around us. What ways can you find to promote your own piece in this world
The conflict in Africa or the conflict in the Middle East. How can the issues be settled?
Give an account of peace or an event that promoted peace.
Write about how you would make peace with someone that you haven’t been able either solve your problem or forgive.
Have you ever had trouble figuring out exactly how you felt about something? Now you have no choice but to write about the issue.
A journey longs for completion. All obstacles are in the way. A person takes on the role of peacemaker in order to alleviate the travel to the final destination.
In lieu of war, two opposing leaders decide to negotiate a peace treaty.
A peace conference has gone terribly awry.
Write about an object that symbolizes peace. What does it look like and what does it do?
Spiteful people are attacking each other at every opportunity. Write about maintaining peace all the same.
You are running into battle in an attempt to maintain peace.
Are you familiar with the name, Mahatma Gandhi? When the British colonized India, Mahatma Gandhi pushed for non-violence and peaceful protests, which helped them win their independence. Now, you too can bring about peace in your community.
Explain why world peace is never going to occur.
What major issues or conflicts seem impossible to reach a resolution with? How could you help these situations?
Write about what you would do to ensure peace in your neighborhood.
Someone in your family is about to join the military but won’t stop talking about how much killing actually upsets them.
Who is most important to keeping peace?
A young boy is torn between peace and war. Write about his choice and the events that lead up to it.
Write about how you would live in a world without peace.
Your character is awaiting a scheduled execution. They reflect on their life and reach an important conclusion. Write that conclusion.
What steps should be taken to promote peace?
Were you there when… Everything went wrong – and the only way to restore order was through violence?
Write a scene from the perspective of a person that loves peace above all else.
Write about your vision of heaven. What kind of perpetual peace could exist there?
Four people of different religious beliefs have to keep the peace.
Have you been a peacemaker in the world?
Write about how you and your community would maintain peace and quiet in a storm.
Write about a fight that you’re currently having with someone. How can you compromise to promote peace?
Poems on peace should center around positive ways of hope and change.
How does an attempt at peace end, for better or worse?
What would the world be like if violence never existed? How would we get there?
What happens to a society that doesn’t fight for their previous beliefs upon being given proof that they’re wrong? Will their differences ultimately tear them apart? Or will they maintain their beliefs in spite of what they’ve been told?
The only way for peace to occur is for those in conflict to make an effort to move away from historical grudges.
After a big war in your world, it’s time to make peace. Write about the conversation between the leaders of the nations.
Write a letter to someone close to you about making peace with them.
What has to be done to rid this nation of its inner conflict? You have three days to bring peace.
Drawing and/or describing peace.
A stranger takes you into his confidence and explains why the world is in such great turmoil, and what needs to happen to bring peace about.
Write about the development of peace in a violent society. For example, end the violence by showing them the beauty of art.
The civil war paused and the two sides found peace…as best as they could.
Imagine if you grew up with a strange, little item that would change your life forever.
Is there peace where you are? Describe it in a small essay. Share your hopes and dreams with others on the topic of peace.
Write about how you would be the voice for the voiceless.
You’re at an all-night party. You’re exhausted and ready for bed. The music is loud and everyone else is still awake. Good luck getting any sleep.
List all the ways a community copes with deprivation.
Write about an ideal society where there is peace.
The world may be divided into three sections, represented by three highly aggressive countries. They’re all looking for peace, but by using different methods. The five people who play a part in this piece can change the mindset of these three leaders to promote peace for their country and the world.
Write about how you would restore a broken relationship.
When a conflict happens, the easiest solution is to run and hide. What does a person do when it is his/her responsibility to make peace happen?
Make a list of all the terrible things conflict can bring.
Write about the strengths your character has that will help him or her keep the peace.
Maintain peace even in the face of uncertainty.
I am currently compiling a list of 365 writing topics for each day of the year. Topic lists like these are available for sale here .
How would you bring peace to your school? Your community?
What is the meaning of peace? What words best describe the peace that we’ve fought for?
Step into the roles of leaders in four different time periods for an entire school day. Write a paragraph about each of your experiences.
The use of peace symbols is often for commercial purposes. Write about a time you saw one of those symbols used to encourage peace, rather than as part of a marketing campaign.
Write about how someone else you know would promote peace in the world. Or, write about how you would avoid conflict. Or, write about how someone you know would avoid conflict.
Write a story about a protagonist who feels anger until he/ she learns the secret of peace.
If you could proclaim peace on Earth for your life today, what would you do and how would you feel?
As a bridge between nations, you are tasked with keeping the peace.
What do you say to someone to convince them conflict isn’t the only way to solve their problems?
Is there any proof that the world will ever be at peace?
Write about a vision you have had about peace breaking out.
Write about the personal struggle with keeping the peace.
What differences do you see between peace and war?
Write about making peace with the past. It could reveal itself in some symbolic way.
The story begins with the best argument you can muster to promote peace.
How can art, music, and poetry bring peace in a tense environment?
Including meditation, self-improvement, music–whatever you like–explain to a friend how to promote peace in the world.
What makes a country peaceful?
What is the most difficult battle to fight for peace?
Tell your whole world how you feel about peace.
You identify an opportunity to resolve a conflict. Write what happens.
In this story, you’ve been given the task to restore peace.
World peace has been achieved. Now what? How will you create a long-lasting peace? How can you make staying at peace easy and fulfilling? Go preach your ideas. The end.
Write about what peace means within your family.
In today’s society, peace sometimes seems like a far off dream. The reality is anything but that. Consider how growing up in a time that has known peace will make achieving peace easier for future generations.
something, somone
With peace in the world, humanity progresses much faster than anyone ever imagined. Space travel is common. Races are unified. What do they do next?
Who is the most peaceable character you’ve ever read about? Describe him/her and write why he/she is so great.
Something bad is happening and you want to keep peace with this other person, but you know things will reach a boiling point after that. It’s up to you to keep peace and comfort between that person before things get worse.
Write about a zero tolerance policy for violence.
A once peaceful land is overtaken by dark forces. Wander a land stricken with discord and disharmony. How will you bring peace back to this land?
The audience, though smart, have unethical tactics, but one stands up to the standards of the audiences.
You are sent on a secret mission to the enemy’s camp to keep the peace.
Make an account of events as if the character were keeping friends and family together through difficult times. Convey an underlying sense of peace throughout his or her experience.
You’ve been keeping peace among the world, but now evil is threatening to overtake your people.
A neighbourhood is worked up over some event. You’re the one who has to calm them down.
Write a scene about two people on opposite sides of the paper war scenario and finally coming to some form of peace and understanding.
Is peace through war ever possible? Can peace be reached through violence?
Share a story about when you gained a deep understanding of peace.
Nominate leaders who can bring peace to the world.
Everyone deserves peace. Write about who could use some peace in their life.
You are the unsung and unknown force holding everything together. Without you, the world would fall apart. What does that feel like?
Write about a conflict you are having with another person, or write about the person who is causing the conflict.
Describe the most peaceful place on Earth. Write about that place and what it’s like. Write a description of your perfect, peaceful moment ever.
In order to stop a riot, characters or NPCs resort to extreme measures, including violence.
What is the biggest peace problem in your country, in your community, or even in your relationship with yourself?
Write about how a man or woman keeps the peace.
Write about a time in which you think your efforts resulted in world peace.
Write a story about how the Beatles helped the world become peaceful.
A person is trying to break into the peaceful society you live in. You must resist their hostility.
Someone has been bullying you at school. You have the chance to end that last day by maintaining peace.
How is a world without war or conflict? Explain why.
A world without conflict would be ideal. Describe a way that would make this possible.
There’s a special man on whom you have had a crush since you were young. One day you meet him. Will this story have a happy ending?
Write about a world that is free of strife. What would it look like and what sorts of things would people do with their time?
Write about why you feel the need to protect peace in the world.
Imagine that there was a machine that gave you a wish for how the world could be changed. Change one thing and write about what happens next.
How effective are the three articles of the Geneva Convention for maintaining peace?
Someone gives a message that is very peaceful and loving–and nobody listens. How come?
What are some things you take for granted? Explain.
Something is about to go terribly wrong. It would take real effort to prevent disaster. Write about your character’s efforts to promote peace.
Many conflicts in the world are based on resources. What resources do we need less of to achieve peace and long-term security?
A strange force is preventing peace in the world. This young heroine must resist it.
You are in a future society with an abundance of machines. Your job is to monitor these machines and prevent them from causing global chaos.
Write about a city that has declared a nationwide ban on war. All soldiers involved were forced to leave their countries and roam a deserted landscape, where they are to live until they die.
In a world without laws, groups claim power for their own reasons. One man refuses to give in to them.
Write about what you think peace means to God.
If being a wise leader is equivalent to restoring peace, what does that mean for you as a leader?
How has a difficult time in your life affected your thoughts about peace?
How would you resist war and make sure it never happens again?
The only way to put an end to the conflict in your homeland is to leave and never return. How do you cope with the loss of your home?
A dispute between two nations has led many people of both countries to engage in violence against their own people. It’s up to you to make a decision that keeps the peace.
It has dawned on you that the conflict you’ve witnessed all comes back to you.
Write about a bully who decides to use his strength to promote peace instead of aggression.
You are asked to be a peace mediator. Alone, in a dark room, you must generate a solution. The lives of thousands depend on it.
Write about a peace walk that you participated in.
Did you ever see an event where peace and understanding seemed impossible? What would that be like to see? What was it?
Read the latest news to find an example of conflict and peace. How did it turn out?
Write about what kind of peace you seek in your life?
Think about what is necessary in order to have peace. What is the goal for peace and how might you meet that?
After researching a particular issue, write about how the problem could be solved.
Create a song that describes the steps necessary to achieve world peace.
Obviously, when you’re writing about peace, you’re not going to advocate war. The themes of opposing ideas figuring out a common ground is what makes peace so important. All world issues and conflicts center around the topic of peace. All world leaders are concerned about it.
What action would you take to spread peace, starting in your community? Write about a character who is driven by peace.
What would peace triggers in the world look like?
We search for peace, but don’t see the opportunities to promote it right in front of us.
What would you do if you knew peace was just around the corner?
The word “peace” is thrown around a lot. Define it.
A video of a peace march spreads like a wildfire. Let us write about it.
The world is filled with violence and conflict. Choose a fictional location to write about and how you would prevent conflict and violence in your chosen location.
Write about why people should strive for universal peace.
Write about what you would to bring peace to the world.
Describe the scene where two enemies realize peace is more important than war.
An anti-war activist is feeling anger about their cause and does some graffiti or throws a small object from a roof, which of course causes a reporter or two to show up for a press conference…
The story begins long before your main character is born. Can you create a scene where someone is trying to bring peace to a tumultuous craze?
Write for two minutes about a time where a person brought peace to your life.
How can you keep the peace in your home when there is conflict?
Write about a planet that is in serious turmoil because it’s inhabitants are addicted to food.
A conflict that is brewing at the beginning of your story ultimately does not break out. In what way does everyone benefit?
A war is about to break out. It is up to you to stay true to your beliefs for peace.
Write about a time in which you and another person worked together to maintain peace.
What is the swiftest way to achieve world peace?
A story about a single act of extreme violence can capture the world’s attention. Write about the person who comes toward the conflict to stop it, no matter the cost.
Your whole life changes the minute you befriend a person from a different race, culture, belief system, or walk of life. Now write about that.
A bully has discovered that picking on someone works. He’s going to keep it up because it continues to be effective. Someone wants to make him stop now.
Write about why peace is important
Write about what peace really means to you.
A peaceful community comes to a sudden halt when violence strikes close to home.
The search for peace–there may be nothing more noble, but what if peace cannot be reached?
In your community, there is a man who speaks words of hate and anger. Everyone listens to him. Write how you will bring peace to the town.
What peace do you need in order to live better?
Write a story about a bunch of warriors going out to achieve peace.
You are leading two enemy races toward peace.
Write a scene where everyone is at peace.
How would people feel and what would life be like in a society that was at peace?
Write about a person who saves the world from disaster.
Your society is ruled by a dictator who demands loyalty. You love peace, and refuse to join the group who wants to start a war.
The wind sweeps through the valley, carrying the souls of the people no longer inhabiting their bodies.
A woman in the home needs to find a way to de-escalate a conflict.
Write about someone or something that handles a difficult situation with grace and peace.
What if you had the power to create peace in the world?
A soldier has finally returned home. But he is no longer fit for battle.
A peace treaty was brought into the room where a meeting was taking place. Everyone signed the document with the exception of one person. Write about a day in his life.
The Allies won World War II, peace is upon the land. Write something from the perspective of Hitler about how he is keeping the peace or not being a threat.
Describe a time when you brought peace between two people.
Describe a peaceful world from the Creator’s point of view.
You and your friends are going on a hike. Where was the last place you were at peace? Why was it a peaceful place and how can you recreate that peace inside you?
The world is lacking peace and harmony after constant pollution and war. It’s up to someone special to restore the balance for an island community.
If peace is very important to you, write about what you’ve done to promote peace.
Your character has looked for peace but has only found disputes. Your character is now forced to take up arms!
Write about how three separate people can each work toward the same common goal of establishing peace in the world.
What do people take as “peace?” We know what we mean when we say “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Thanksgiving,” but what does peace really mean? Whether it’s a time of year or a culture, it varies from person to person. What does peace mean to you?
Imagine you have been given the opportunity to bring world peace. What would you do?
You have twelve wishes. Two of them are used to make your city a peaceful, loving place. The remaining ten to make the rest of the world a peaceful place.
There is a new war going on. The sides are split. Is there a better way to resolve the conflict?
Many organizations aim to restore peace to conflict torn regions. Which organization is most deserving?
One reason for conflict is necessarily feelings of envy and inferiority. Do you think war can be ended by addressing these causes?
Fear of war secures peace. What do you feel is the greatest threat to peace and how do you propose we prepare to cope?
You’re new in town, but everyone is welcoming and respectful to you. What a delightful experience! How lucky you are to have found such a peaceful world.
A cute animal goes about making the world a better place.
An elderly woman who was born during wartime needs relief. A calm descends upon her.
With the planet divided into many independent regions, a princess cannot roam the world freely without finding trouble. Contains drama elements and action, as the people are fighting even in peace.
It’s hard for you to stay peaceful around your family. Write about one specific time when your family tried to pull you into a fight.
Write about a nonconformist who somehow keeps the peace despite not doing what everyone expects.
Things have gotten out of hand. An example would be a nuclear war, or a world war. What will it take to prevent the end of civilization?
Write about how you would handle conflict in the world.
Your country is at war. Write about how you would promote peace within your nation.
Religion breeds war. The example of Jesus is more kind. How would the world work if we all worshipped Jesus?
Write about a peaceful world.
How would you handle difficult times in your relationship? Share your peace-keeping skills with us!
Write a story where peace is achieved through war.
A character wavers between right and wrong as she tries to promote peace.
Draw on your own experiences in life to tell a story about fighting against adversity in order to achieve peace.
In a world where people are constantly fighting each other, there is one person at the center of it all who is involved in a romance. Write about how this person somehow maintains world peace and still has time to be involved in a love affair.
An entrepreneur uses a method to bring peace to the world.
What ancient methods of conflict resolution do you think would work today to resolve world conflicts?
What would world peace look like? Write about what you would expect to happen to signal that peace exists.
God is asking you to help her bring world peace. Write about what you would do.
Write about how your family would be torn apart by a war.
Write about the fight for peace in your life.
Write about the biggest lie the world has ever known.
How would people know you live in a peaceful world?
Write a story about two kids who are best friends that fight.
Write about a time you peacefully resolved a problem where there was tension.
You’re a peace activist during wartime. Your job to spread peace is at stake!
The king has no interest in peace. He only desires that you go to war.
All wars start with a fight. Write about a fight you were a part of.
Describe peace using a landscape.
A witness who knew the accused sees a murder. No one believes that he really saw a murder.
Write about a character that is constantly trying to keep the peace but life is constantly throwing battles his/her way.
Who can stop a feud or conflict? Who is brave enough to bring a war to a stop?
Peace is being threatened in some manner. Write about how it is that peace is being threatened.
What do you consider a great peace activist to be like?
Defend your country from an army of an invading force. The fate of the world lies in your hands.
Write a story about a person or group working to improve peace in the world.
Write about how you would react to a global war or the threat of war occurring in your country.
There is a civil war brewing in your country. Write about how you would quell the conflict without bloodshed.
It is your duty to maintain peace between two feuding people or two feuding countries.
When a person is feeling stressed, they find themselves unable to keep the peace. They also find the people around them unable to keep the peace.
A soldier is overcome with anger and kills an unarmed civilian. What makes him react that way?
If you created a social network, your mission statement would be to promote world peace. Write about it.
In a war-torn world, write about the people who are risking their lives to be peacemakers.
A family is going through a conflict. They vow to love each other and be at peace.
A recent surge in violent crimes leads people in your community to recommend that extreme measures be taken to enforce peace and put a stop to such horrific events. Write about your response.
Using historical examples, how has peace been fought for in the course of human history?
Use this writing prompt and discuss how to use peaceful communication in order to resolve conflicts.
Write about what you think the word peace means to you and others.
Write about a time when you experienced peace amidst chaos.
A man has a strong reaction to a particular form of technology.
Rather than resolving problems by fighting, characters are encouraged to resolve problems in a peaceful manner.
There are a lot of people who say that peace doesn’t exist. Your job is to prove them wrong.
The most prosperous society in the world is one where devoted scientists are constantly searching for the best possibility of achieving peace in a world where war is a reality.

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A Week’s Worth of Journaling Prompts: War and Peace 8

Journaling prompts, such as the last two weeks’ posts about friendship and personal resistance , can help us reflect deeply about our personal, internal worlds. Journal writing can also help us consider broader, philosophical aspects of life and human nature.

What do you think?

This week’s journal writing prompts help us explore our beliefs and attitudes about human nature as it relates to war and peace:

Freewrite for ten minutes about human nature and violence. –
Think about the polarization of political attitudes and the hatred spouted by media celebrities on all sides. Then read and write a response to the following quote by Albert Schweitzer: The awareness that we are all human beings together has become lost in war and politics. We have reached the point of regarding each other only as members of a people either allied with us or against us and our approach: prejudice, sympathy, or antipathy are all conditioned by that. Now we must rediscover the fact that we – all together – are human beings, and that we must strive to give to each other what moral capacity we have. –
When you think about the death of Osama bin Laden, what is your response? Do you feel jubilant, relieved, conflicted, all of the above? Write about your feelings and what this man represented to you. –
Here’s another quote for your consideration — this one by Winston Churchill: Those who can win a war well can rarely make a good peace and those who could make a good peace would never have won the war. What do you think Churchill meant? Do you agree or disagree with him, and in what ways? –
Do you believe sustained world peace is possible? Why or why not? –
Write isolated words that represent your response to the state of the world today in random order all over your journal page. Use different colors if it suits you. When you’re done step back and take a look at the page. Do you notice any patterns and/or predominant emotions? What are they? Select at least ten words from the page and write a paragraph or two that include those words. –
If you were in control of the world, how would you go about ensuring world safety and security?

This is not an easy topic to think about , but I encourage you to consider and write about it anyway. Then I invite you to leave a comment and share what you learned in the process of journaling.

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Image Credit: Jayel Aheram –

P.S. A personal note to my readers:

I moved in mid-April. I’d intended to keep up my regular writing and blogging schedule. Oh, foolish me! I had forgotten how all-consuming and difficult moving can be, and how urgent is the nesting instinct — the need to get everything in order once again. Or, as one friend says, to be “dialed in.” And I’d forgotten how long the process takes, thinking that, by now, I’d be back to my usual writing schedule: Wednesday blogs on topics related to making meaning, telling our stories, memoir, and general writing tips; and Friday’s Blogtalk articles.

If you’ve missed those posts, rounding out the Weekly Journaling Prompts, have no fear. Next week, I’ll resume Blogtalk and, if all goes well, Wednesday posts will resume the week after that. Thanks for your patience and support.

8 thoughts on “ A Week’s Worth of Journaling Prompts: War and Peace ”

Great journaling ideas, on issues I think many of us are thinking about right now. Have fun in your new place, once you settle in! 🙂

Thank you, iHanna!

Regarding the death of Osama bin Laden I was extremely disheartened by the continual showing on television of the scene of blood on the floor where supposedly he was slain, and the numerous newspaper articles I read regarding the jubiliant feelings of vindication in America and that our world will now return to pre- 9/11 order. I am sickened by such display of childish ignorance and ghoulishness coming from the press and media which continues to write/speak as though we are all as stupid as they would hope us to be. If we cannot change our learned war behavior and mentality, I hate to think what will become of us and our children when food, water, and energy become depleted. Thank you, Amber for some challenging thoughts on a very relevant subject. My best to you in your move and settling in your new environment. My husband and I moved almost a year ago, and we are still settling. It does take time.

Thank you, Linda, for your good wishes on my move. When I write the weekly journaling prompts, I try to keep my personal beliefs out of them — though I’m sure they leak through — because I genuinely want to encourage everyone to explore their own beliefs and attitudes. This is one of the ways we grow. And I respect that we have different ways of seeing and understanding life. That said, I also am saddened by the jubilation displayed on the death of a human being — even a nasty, vengeful one. At the same time, I understand that it is not really a man’s death people are celebrating: it is the symbolic death of terrorism. I only wish it was that easy. That, like the cowboy and superhero movies we’re accustomed to, you could kill the bad guy and restore order and peace to the world. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. On an intellectual level, people understand this. But on an emotional level, we want the guy in the white hat to ride in and save the day, saving the town from evil.

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Yes, we in America are certainly accustomed to clean-up jobs played out in our cowboy hero stories and movies. On a different note, I wonder what other women are thinking regarding war on our planet, and IF they could do something to turn the tides of war, what would it be? As I watched media women deliver the news on Osama and other devastating events all over our planet, I wondered that if they could comment from their hearts and minds regarding the news, what would they say? Not that men don’t hate war or have feelings of regret watching the devastation of wars and loss of lives, but if each one of us could DO something now, to change the warring nature that pervades our planet, what would it be? And if we were successful, what would our planet then become without wars? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. I wonder? What would we have to give up in order to have peace all over our planet? Do we really want peace badly enough to give up war?

Well let’s see, here in the U.S. we’d probably have to give up hoarding (and using) the majority of the world’s resources in favor of sharing those resources, we’d have to be more concerned with respect for different opinions than being “right,” and we’d have to learn about complex things like compassion and forgiveness. In short, we’d have to treat others like we want to be treated.

I’ve always wondered what would happen if we used 25% of our current “defense” budget to help build infrastructure all over the world, another 25% to build schools and provide education to all children (here and abroad), and 25% to promote food production and storage all over the world. We’d only need to use 25% of our current budget to maintain whatever weapons we currently have (enough to destroy the earth 16 times over). After a while, I think there’s be so much goodwill developed, we could help everyone disarm and enjoy the remaining 25%. Fantasy? Perhaps. Perhaps not.

Love it! Great ideas, Amber.

I wonder if somewhere in there, since as a culture we are so expert at imposing our “rightness” everywhere, if we could set aside (5%, 10%, 15%?) to ask the world what we could do to help out of ” respect,” for what might be “needed,” or “wanted,” rather than imposing our will.

I catch myself everyday it seems, imposing my “will” on others. I don’t even realize I’m doing it. I think I’m trying to “help,” only to find I had a hidden agenda of how I thought things should be. It takes a lot of work to be pure in heart. And I miss, lots of times.

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Home › Study Tips › Leo Tolstoy’s ‘War and Peace’ Book Review

Leo Tolstoy’s ‘War and Peace’ Book Review

Published October 19, 2021

Everyone knows you should read the “classics”; the canonical authors like Dickens and Shakespeare.

You’ve heard it all before, and you know they’re all probably alright, but you never quite get around to reading all of them. But Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace is undoubtedly worth going out on a limb for, especially if you’re thinking about studying English at university .

War and Peace is long . It’s like carrying a brick around in your bag, for six months (or less, if you’re a faster reader than me…).

But as soon as you finish it, you’ll reopen it again at the beginning and start over .

It’s an epic tale of regeneration and personal growth, that obsesses over the minutia of life and the role of tiny details in the establishment and maintenance of human society.

It unceasingly manages to “startle and delight” us by its discovery of beauty in the mundane, and sometimes even the violent.

Main Characters in War and Peace

The novel follows the lives of several members of the Russian aristocracy during the Napoleonic era, in particular focusing on Pierre Bezukhov, Prince Andrei Bolonsky, Natasha Ilyinichna and Nikolai Ilyich, whose individual narratives cross over and intertwine throughout the novel.

The central theme of Tolstoy’s philosophical masterpiece is the role of the individual in the ongoing generation of history. In his own words, “the movement of humanity, arising as it does from innumerable arbitrary human wills, is continuous.”

It is the inconsequential acts of the individual that comprise the sequences of history, joining together to form one great narrative that becomes inscribed in history books for the rest of time.

Understanding Tolstoy’s theory of history illuminates how he views the world: his consideration of the way we shape and define history is essential to the study of English Literature .

How was it that Shakespeare, out of so many successful Renaissance playwrights, is the only one who survives in the memory of most people today?

It is this subjective, selective nature of history that Tolstoy analyses in War and Peace.

A must-read before you head to university

In reading War and Peace not only will you have the satisfaction of completing the Herculean task of finishing the 1400-page behemoth, but you’ll gain skim-reading skills indispensable when it comes to studying English Literature.

Being able to navigate huge quantities of information and highlight the moments that stand out to you – coincidentally, this is also the way Tolstoy aims to depict the lives of his characters in the vastness of his scope combined with his use of extensive detail – is essential for university.

You’ll learn it along the way, no doubt, but there’s no harm in getting started early. I found many of the longer politically focused chapters less interesting than the fast-paced parties and romantic scenes. But finding out what kind of writing appeals to you is all part and parcel of navigating an epic novel as a student of English.

The book opens midway through a conversation, casually welcoming the reader into the book as though into Anna Pavlovna’s party reception. We become a guest, an actor compliant with the creation of Tolstoy’s narrative. “Well, Genoa and Lucca are now just family estates of the Buonapartes…”

This is no era-defining, Dickensian opening line, dripping with quotable Victorian wisdom. Instead, it is understated: we seamlessly join the movement of the whole text, a drop in the ocean, highlighting from the first line Tolstoy’s focus on the flowing mass of human society.

War and Peace is an engrossing read

Being able to comprehend and analyse varying perspectives is incredibly useful as an English student: Tolstoy’s perception of the inconsequential minuscule element triggering the movement of the whole, often unintentionally, might not be the way you look at the world, but it’s a viewpoint worth reflecting on.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, War and Peace will remind you time and again why you love reading.

Tolstoy’s prose constantly amazes me with its simultaneous deep perceptiveness and almost carelessly light touch.

When he depicts the ‘extraordinary autumn weather that always comes as a surprise’ one can physically feel one’s lungs “strengthened and refreshed,” and the sun shining so brightly “that the eyes smart.”

Interested in Creative Writing or English Literature?

If you’re interested in creative writing , this book is a gold mine of eye-catching beautiful phrases and descriptions.

Even in translation, 150 years after its first publication, it remains mentally stunning in its vividity.

The Encyclopedia Britannica writes that “ no single English novel attains the universality of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace ,” but despite its all-encompassing nature, I think it still takes the time to remind us of our insignificance by standing still and marvelling as the “gold stars startle and delight us continually by falling from the sky” – and that’s what renders it so spectacular.

1. War and Peace wasn’t the novel’s original title.

The first installment of Tolstoy’s work—“The Year 1805”—appeared in the journal Russian Messenger in February 1865. Serializing a work of fiction was common for writers at the time, and a way for Tolstoy to support himself as he continued working on the novel. The stark title indicated the year in which his story—and the rumblings of revolution—begins, and it’s one Tolstoy always saw as a placeholder. Tolstoy considered other provisional titles as he continued working on the story, including, for a short time, “All’s Well That Ends Well.”

2. Leo Tolstoy was inspired by the Decembrists’ revolt of 1825.

Writer Leo Tolstoy Sitting at Desk in His Study

The Russian count’s original plan for War and Peace was nothing like the end product. Tolstoy envisioned a trilogy that centered on the attempted overthrow of Tsar Nicolas I by a group of military officers who became known as The Decembrists.

The first book would examine the officers’ lives and ideological development during the Napoleonic Wars. The second book would focus on their failed uprising, with a third book following the officers during their exile and eventual return from Siberia. Tolstoy saw the uprising as a seminal moment in Russian history—a turning point for the nation when Western ideals clashed with traditionally Russian ideals. As Tolstoy began writing, he was so taken with the time period surrounding the Napoleonic Wars that he decided to make it his sole focus.

3. He had issues writing the opening of the novel.

The book’s opening scene did not come to Tolstoy in a flash. In fact, it took almost a full year for the author to write an introduction that he was happy with. During that time, according to Tolstoy scholar Kathryn B. Feuer, he wrote 15 beginnings, elaborating on two of them, as well as four introductions and a preface to the novel. Tolstoy, a perfectionist, insisted on getting the introduction right before moving on; thankfully for him, the rest of the novel came out at a faster pace.

4. Tolstoy’s wife was invaluable to his writing process.

Tolstoy would often insist that his wife Sofya sit with him while he wrote. She also served as her husband’s first reader, cleaning up his copy and noting changes she thought he should make. At Sofya’s insistence, Tolstoy axed a particularly racy scene from Pierre Bezukhov’s wedding night. Sofya would also copy her husband’s drafts into a more legible form for his publishers. As Rosamund Bartlett writes in Tolstoy : A Russian Life , her deciphering of Tolstoy’s “execrable handwriting, and then preparing a legible final draft of the manuscript was a gargantuan task.”

5. Sofya Tolstoy was also shrewd about the business side.

Tolstoy was pleased to see “The Year 1805” in serial form. The story was a hit with readers, and the publishers of Russian Messenger paid him well. But Sofya urged her husband to publish the work in book form, arguing that he could earn more money and reach a wider audience. This led to the 1867 novel War and Peace , which was only half the final novel. The book’s success inspired him to speed up his writing, which had begun to lag, and the complete novel was published in 1869.

6. The book has a massive cast of characters.

For readers who have trouble keeping track of who’s who in a book, it might be a good idea to keep a notebook handy while reading War and Peace . The novel introduces a total of 559 characters from beginning to end, with approximately 200 of those names being real-life historical figures.

7. Leo Tolstoy based many of his characters on family members.

The family of Russian author Leo Tolstoy, late 19th or early 20th century. Artist: Scherer Nabholz & Co

While visiting family in Moscow in 1864, Tolstoy read his relatives sections of his work in progress. The family was surprised to hear numerous similarities between themselves and the characters. In a novel with as many characters as War and Peace , this was, perhaps, inevitable.

It also added shades of authenticity, since some of Tolstoy’s family members, including his distant cousin Prince Sergey Volkonsky, had actually fought in the Napoleonic Wars. (As the name similarity might indicate, Tolstoy’s relatives inspired numerous members of the fictional Bolkonsky relatives.) According to Bartlett, though, this was a common practice for Tolstoy. “Throughout his writing career, Tolstoy pillaged his family history for creative material,” she writes.

8. Tolstoy’s friends and family helped with his research.

A historical novel as long and involved as War and Peace required exhaustive research. Tolstoy read as many books about the Napoleonic Wars as he could. He also conducted interviews with veterans and visited battlefields like Borodino. But being one man, he didn’t have time to research everything himself. So he called on his father-in-law, Andrey Bers, who clipped old newspaper articles for Tolstoy and reminisced about his childhood in the early 1800s. Tolstoy also turned to historian friends for help, carrying on lengthy correspondences and even bringing some of them to his estate of Yasnaya Polyana. The most important asset in Tolstoy’s research may have been Moscow’s first public libraries, which opened in the 1860s as part of the cultural awakening that swept through the city.

9. Tolstoy was constantly revising War and Peace .

Scholars note that Tolstoy’s progress on War and Peace frequently stalled as the author reworked portions of the book again and again. The constant churn could be frustrating to the author, who would often clear his head with hunting excursions on his estate at Yasnaya Polyana. Even after the six volumes of War and Peace were completed, Tolstoy went back and revised. He cut out pages and pages of commentary, eventually whittling the work down to four volumes.

10. Tolstoy fought for a big pay day—and got it.

When he had previously published in Russian Messenger , Tolstoy received 50 rubles for each printer’s sheet. For Tolstoy’s war epic, publisher Mikhail Katkov wanted to continue paying the author at this rate. But according to Bartlett, Tolstoy knew he was worth more than that, and demanded 300 rubles per sheet. After hours of tense negotiations, Katkov agreed to the rate, and Tolstoy received 3000 rubles for the 10 sheets that made up the first installment of “1805.” Consider that the average monthly wage for a Russian worker was 10 rubles, and you get some idea of just how much money Tolstoy was bringing in.

11. War and Peace appeared in Russian Messenger at the same time as another Russian masterpiece.

In 1866, as the last installments of Tolstoy’s “1805” were being published, another story appeared in Russian Messenger that generated considerable buzz: Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment . Appearing in monthly installments, the story (alongside “1805”) made Russian Messenger one of the most significant literary journals in history. The significance may have been lost on Katkov, who, in addition to paying through the nose to Tolstoy, had to deal with the fact that Dostoevsky “struggled to meet the deadlines for each of the monthly installments of Crime and Punishment ,” according to Bartlett.

12. A major scene in War and Peace hinges on a comet.

At a turning point in the novel, Pierre reveals his longstanding romantic feelings for Natasha, though she is in love with another man. He steps outside to collect his thoughts and looks up in the starlit sky: “Surrounded on every side by stars, but distinguished from all the rest by its nearness to earth, and by its white light, and by its long, curling tail, stood the tremendous brilliant comet of 1812, the very comet which men thought presaged all manner of woes and the end of the world. But in Pierre, this brilliant luminary, with its long train of light, awoke no terror.”

The comet’s appearance was a real event in 1811 (and was visible with the naked eye into January 1812). Reportedly, the tail appeared as long as 50 full moons . It remained visible for 260 nights—enough time for people to assign all kinds of meaning to it. Napoleon saw it as a good omen for his invasion of Russia, which Tolstoy echoed in War and Peace .

13. Critics were bewildered by War and Peace .

“What genre are we supposed to file it into?” a reviewer in the journal Golos asked. “Where is fiction in it, and where is history?” The question reflected a common sentiment among critics upon reading a novel that told of real events, re-created real battles, and included real people like Napoleon Bonaparte and Tsar Alexander I. Was War and Peace fiction, or was it non-fiction? The truth, of course, is that it was both.

In dramatizing history with such scope and detail, Tolstoy had taken a massive leap towards the modern historical novel. History, Tolstoy believed, is the chronicle of individual lives, and fiction is the best way to reveal those lives. Many readers were on board, and War and Peace became a smash success. “It is the epic, the history novel and the vast picture of the whole nation’s life,” novelist Ivan Turgenev wrote.

14. War and Peace presented a revolution in narrative perspective.

Tolstoy wasn’t the first author to utilize internal monologue (or the internal thoughts of characters), but many scholars credit him with revolutionizing its use. According to Feuer, the author mastered the art of presenting a character’s internal response to external objects and events.

She also noted, as others have, Tolstoy’s seamless use of multiple perspectives, from sweeping battle scenes that situate the reader high above the mayhem, to the intimate goings-on within the minds of Pierre Bezukhov, Natasha Rostova, and other characters.

15. Tolstoy wrote a defense of War and Peace .

Despite an overwhelmingly positive response to War and Peace from readers and critics, Tolstoy wanted to address those who criticized the work’s genre ambiguity. In the journal Russian Archive , Tolstoy wrote an essay titled “A Few Words About the Novel War and Peace ” (which, because it was written by Tolstoy, was much more than a few words).

He made clear his apathy toward European literary forms, famously claiming that War and Peace was not, in fact, a novel: “What is War and Peace ? It is not a novel, still less a [narrative] poem, and even less an historical chronicle. War and Peace is what the author wanted to and could express in the form in which it was expressed.”

16. War and Peace took a toll on Leo Tolstoy’s health.

The six years Tolstoy toiled away on War and Peace taxed both his mind and body. Toward the end of the writing process, he developed migraines, which he often tried to work through but which would sometimes stop him in his tracks. After finishing the work, he came down with a severe case of the flu that left him feeling drained for weeks. The author took a prolonged hiatus from writing, focusing instead on learning Greek and building a schoolhouse for the children who lived at Yasnaya Polyana.

17. Military minds praised War and Peace ’s battle scenes.

Tolstoy was no stranger to war: He served as an artillery officer during the Crimean War, where he witnessed the bloody orchestra of battle at places like Sevastopol. Tolstoy channeled his experiences into the battle sequences of War and Peace . The Battle of Borodino, in particular, which comprises more than 20 chapters of the book, is widely praised as the finest battle sequence ever written. Russian military commanders offered glowing praise for the novel’s descriptive powers of battle and one former general even wrote that it should be required reading for all Russian Army officers.

18. Tolstoy wasn’t much of a War and Peace fan.

Maybe it was all the time he spent with the story and all of its characters, or maybe the development of his sensibilities as an artist, but Tolstoy became disenchanted with his seminal work shortly after finishing it. He wrote to a friend that he hoped to never again write something as bloated as War and Peace . In his diary, he wrote, “People love me for the trifles— War and Peace and so on—that they think are so important.”

18. The Soviet film adaptation of War and Peace was appropriately epic.

When American audiences think of grand, costly films, the likes of Gone with the Wind (1939) , Cleopatra (1963), and Titanic (1997) typically come to mind. But Sergei Bondarchuk’s 1966 adaptation of War and Peace has them all beat. Filmed over six years—the same time it took Tolstoy to write the novel—and lasting six hours, the film supposedly had all the resources of the Soviet Union at its disposal. This included more than 120,000 extras, many of them Red Army soldiers, used to film the movie’s staggering battle sequences, and a budget that ballooned to more than $100 million.

But talking to National Geographic in 1986, Bondarchuk said that these numbers largely weren’t real: it was actually eight hours (“some tradesman in America cut it without my knowledge”) and the 120,000 extras was an exaggeration and “all I had was 12,000.”

The movie, shown to audiences in two parts, was intended to bolster patriotism and to showcase the strength of the Soviet film industry. That it also balances action with strong performances and odd, intimate moments, like a soldier demanding a commendation in the middle of a battle, is a testament to Bondarchuk’s artistry. “You are never, ever going to see anything equal to it,” wrote Roger Ebert .

19. Russia held a 60-hour-long live reading of War and Peace in 2015.

In 2015, Russian state television aired a unique live reading of War and Peace. Over the course of 60 hours, more than 1000 Russians from all over the world read the book in three-minute increments. One by one, readers from Washington, Paris, Beijing, Nepal, and numerous other locations took their turn. Cosmonaut Sergei Volkov, situated aboard the International Space Station, even read an excerpt. The event was organized by Leo Tolstoy’s great-great granddaughter, and included family members reading from Yasnaya Polyana, Tolstoy’s estate.

20. War and Peace isn’t the longest book ever written—not even close.

War and Peace is regularly used a punch line when discussing the longest books ever written, but it doesn’t even come close to earning that title. While its first published edition was 1225 pages long, its English version (owing to translation changes) puts it at about 587,287 words total . Vikram Seth’s 1993 novel A Suitable Boy , on the other hand, comes in at more than 590,000 words; Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged is about 645,000 words; Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables is 655,478 words; and American author Madison Cooper’s 1952 tome Sironia, Texas contains a whopping 840,000 words (albeit in two volumes). Guinness World Records considers the longest novel ever published to be Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time , which has nearly 1.9 million words and a character count (including spaces) of 9,609,000.

21. In 1918, War and Peace got a little shorter.

In 1918, the Russian alphabet got a bit of a makeover in order to get rid of several underutilized letters, which included the letter ъ. Its removal from War and Peace supposedly led to the book becoming 11 pages shorter .

22. War and Peace inspired a musical.

Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 is based on 70 pages of War and Peace— specifically, Volume Two, Part Five (chapters three through five were omitted). Composer and lyricist Dave Malloy was working on a cruise ship when he read the novel; he told Radio Boston that he was “swept away” by how the section had the “perfect structure” for a musical, thanks to its narrative drive and elements like Natasha’s fall from grace and Pierre’s mid-life crisis. The Great Comet of 1812 debuted on Broadway in 2016 with Josh Groban as Pierre and Denée Benton as Natasha; it won two Tony Awards.

A version of this story ran in 2018; it has been updated for 2023.

Visualising War and Peace: six different ways

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The stories we tell shape the world around us. How narratives throughout time have shaped war and conflict are central ideas of Visualising War and Peace research projects by Dr Alice König of the School of Classics . Founded in 2018, based on König’s research on ancient military treatises and intertextuality, its early work focused on the continuity and legacy of ancient war narratives, from technical writing to storytelling in epic and drama. From there, König began to explore contemporary habits of thinking about war and peace, as well as a more holistic perspective that included war’s aftermath, marginalised voices in times of conflict, and peace. Since then, Visualising War and Peace has developed a range of educational experiences for specialised training, university students, and schoolchildren; a globally acclaimed podcast; and powerful visual art exhibitions. This post explores Visualising War and Peace’s initiatives in education and the visual arts that highlight the power of representation and storytelling in war and peace around the world.

Education and outreach

In the vein of bridging war narratives and reality, König delivers training about the impact of storytelling on military operations, past present and future. Drawing on her publications on war and cross-cultural interactions, these trainings emphasise the importance of unpacking history and cultural awareness. They also advise on future communication practices, given the impact which the narratives we share can potentially have.

These sessions highlight the significance of storytelling around peace as well as storytelling around war: a dynamic that is significantly underrepresented in war studies in general. This discrepancy in representation led König to establish the Visualising Peace Vertically Integrated Project (VIP) in 2022, in which undergraduate and postgraduate students examine how representations and visualisations of peace shape our mindsets and behaviours. VIP students have produced peace education resources for schoolchildren, a Visualising Peace library, and the Virtual Museum of Peace : a digital museum showcasing a variety of ways that peace is represented around the world.

Another group that König and Visualising War and Peace works with is children, through its ‘Children’s voices on war and peace’ project, which studies the forces that shape young people’s habits of thinking about war and peace. This project is in collaboration with the NGO Never Such Innocence , which aims to give young people a voice on conflict. König and Never Such Innocence have run several impactful workshops and events with young people locally and internationally: one being an online seminar in June of 2022, in which children and young people from around the world shared their perspectives and representations of the war in Ukraine with a panel of academics, defense experts, and politicians listening and responding. This seminar was able to involve children and young people in research as active agents, speaking for themselves rather than being spoken for – a major aim of the project.

Finally, Visualising War and Peace reaches its largest audience through the Visualising War podcast . On the podcast, König and colleagues host conversations with a wide range of guests to discuss war and peace in the context of migration, justice, online gaming, textiles, and a vast variety of other topics. Currently ranked by ‘Listen Notes’ as being in the top 5% of podcasts globally, the Visualising War podcast has garnered 25,000 downloads in over 85 countries, and even citations in academic works – inspiring thousands of people to think about war and peace in more diverse and holistic ways.

Visual arts

Recently, Visualising War and Peace has also expanded through the visual arts. Co-commissioned by Visualising War and the Imperial War Museum, ‘ Somewhere to Stay ,’ an art installation by artist Diana Forster , which has been hosted at Kirkcaldy Galleries, the Wardlaw Museum and Sikorski Memorial House in Glasgow. Through a series of metal panels inspired by the traditional Polish craft of paper cutting, Forster explores forced displacement as a legacy of war. The exhibition has reached a wide range of audiences: König has run workshops with schoolchildren based on the exhibition with Never Such Innocence, and local MPs have expressed the impact that the language of ‘forced displacement’ rather than ‘illegal immigration’ has had on their understanding of conflict. ‘Somewhere to Stay’ will continue to tell its story to wide audiences as it travels to Ayreshire and Falkirk throughout 2024 and 2025.

As well as the effects of war, the project has also explored dynamics of peace through the visual arts. ‘ Picturing Peace in Congo’ by photographer Hugh Kinsella Cunningham was exhibited at the Byre Theatre in 2023, showcasing Cunningham’s depictions of the women’s peace movement in the Democratic Republic of Congo. As well as shining a light on a lesser-known conflict, it highlights through a range of diverse photographs that the process of peace (in contrast to war) is slow and subtle – inspiring viewers to think about how visualising peace can influence peace-building in the world. Never Such Innocence has also run workshops with schoolchildren based on Cunningham’s photographs, generating discussions and poetry that can be viewed online here .

In all these initiatives, König and her collaborators in Visualising War and Peace aim to make people of all backgrounds – children, military members, museum visitors – aware of their role as narrators in the world. Visualising War and Peace highlights the power of storytelling in shaping the world around us. It is this feedback loop between narrative and reality that underlies the Visualising War and Peace project, and that will continue to inspire new projects of peace-building and understanding.

Contemporary Writing on War and Conflict

World War One: Projects to Mark the Centenary
September 2014 - December 2018

This project examines the contemporary war experience as reflected by writers, poets, journalists and bloggers, and interrogate how we write about war and conflict today in contrast to the writing that was written on WW1.

Thought pieces from leading contemporary UK writers are a starting point for international public discussions. Looking at questions such as: What is the role of the writer in responding to conflict? What feels like an appropriate amount of time before creating an artistic response to war? Who do we trust to write about war? What we accept as war literature today, and how this is influenced by its context and changing global situations. How do we capture the human experience of war?

Caroline Wyatt on reportage

Patrick Hennessey on memoir

Helen Dunmore on fiction,

Owen Sheers on poetry

Ben Hammersley on digital writing

Helen Dunmore was the first winner of the Orange Prize and is also an acclaimed children's author and poet. She has published twelve novels including Zennor In Darkness , winner of the Mckitterick Prize; A Spell Of Winter , winner of the first Orange Prize; The Betrayal , longlisted for the Man Booker prize, shortlisted for the Orwell Prize and the Commonwealth Writers Prize; The Greatcoat (2012) and The Lie (2014). Helen Dunmore has also published three collections of stories, Love Of Fat Men, Ice Cream and Rose 1944 , and her stories have been widely broadcast and anthologised. Her children's novels include the INGO series, published by harpercollins and shortlisted for the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize. Her ten poetry collections include The Raw Garden, Out Of The Blue and The Malarkey , all published by Bloodaxe Books. She spoke on the theme of war in her work at events in Russia at the Krasnoyarsk Book Fair 1-4 November 2014 along with Nigel Farndale (who spoke about the research he undertook on the First World War for his novel The Blasphemer ) and Imtiaz Dharker (who talked about her response to Wilfred Owen’s Anthem of Doomed Youth in the collection of poems 1914 Remembers ).

Patrick Hennessey was born in 1982 and educated at Berkhamsted School and Balliol College, Oxford, where he read English. On leaving university he joined the Army and served from 2004 to 2009 as an officer in The Grenadier Guards. In between guarding towers, castles and palaces he worked in the Balkans, Africa, South East Asia, the Falkland Islands and deployed on operational tours of Iraq and Afghanistan. On leaving the Army he wrote his first book, The Junior Officers’ Reading Club , a memoir of a brief but eventful stint in uniform; followed by Kandak an account of how unlikely alliances can be forged in the intensity of battle. Patrick is now a barrister.

Owen Sheers has written two collections of poetry, The Blue Book and Skirrid Hill , which won a Somerset Maugham award. His verse drama Pink Mist won Wales Book of the Year and the Hay Festival Poetry Medal. Non-fiction includes The Dust Diaries and Calon: A Journey to the Heart of Welsh Rugby . His first novel Resistance has been translated into ten languages and was made into a film in 2011. His plays include The Passion, The Two Worlds of Charlie F and Mametz , which has been longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize 2014. His second novel, I Saw A Man , is published by Faber & Faber in 2015.

Ben Hammersley is an author, futurist and technologist specialising in the effects of the internet and the ubiquitous digital network on the world’s political, cultural and social spheres. He enjoys an international career as a trends and digital guru, explaining complex technological and sociological topics to lay audiences, and as a high-level advisor on these matters to governments and business. Ben Hammersley is a Fellow at The Brookings Institute in Washington DC, a fellow at the Robert Schuman School of Advanced Study at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, and Innovator-in-Residence at the Centre for Creative and Social Technologies, Goldsmiths, University of London. He is contributing editor of WIRED Magazine and writes regularly for the international media including The Financial Times .

Caroline Wyatt became the BBC’s Religious Affairs Correspondent in August 2014, having been a BBC Defence Correspondent from 2007. Prior to that, she covered UK operations in Iraq from 2003 and in Afghanistan from 2001. From 2003 - 2007, Caroline was BBC Paris correspondent, and before that spent three years as Moscow Correspondent, charting Vladimir Putin's first term as Russian President. She also covered NATO in Kosovo in 1999, and Russian operations in Chechnya, as well as working in Gaza and the wider Middle East for the BBC in the late 1990s and early 2000s. She is also an occasional presenter for R4 The World Tonight and Saturday R4 PM. She contributed to 'The Oxford Handbook of War', R4’s ‘More from Our Own Correspondent’ and ‘Only Remembered’, a children’s anthology edited by Michael Morpurgo looking at the literature of WW1.

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On 15, Dec 2014 | No Comments | In Community Activity | By Voices

Workshops: Voices of the First World War: creative writing, conflict and reconciliation

11 October 2014, Library of Birmingham

Local writer Fiona Joseph and poets Garrie Fletcher and Antony Owen led creative writing workshops which used archive material about the First World War to inspire the writing. The event was held in partnership with Writing West Midlands and the Birmingham Literature Festival.

In both of the workshops the participants were able to use archive material held by Birmingham Archives, Heritage & Photography, which was on display in the Library of Birmingham’s exhibition Voices of War. Each of the practitioners was then able to work with the participants to produce poetry, short stories and letters that were inspired by the stories they had been able to explore.

Pieces of creative writing:

Sharon Hosker’s piece was created during Garrie and Antony’s session. The Watchmaker was inspired by the letters of those imprisoned from not wanting to fight. Vice Versa was inspired by the many women who worked at BSA during the First World War.

I’m a skilled watchmaker Perhaps there is no need for my trade at present So I have time on my hands, lots of time, to waste My toilet schedules are timed to perfection Once at eight then again at four With nothing in between My meagre rations are served precisely At seven, twelve and six With nothing in between Lights out at eight and no bright mornings Fine in the summer, until winter evenings Shut in a cell behind a curtain so dark I don’t know if my eyes are open or closed Time ticks by Day after day Relentless Nothing changes Just the sunrise Or sunset I’m a skilled watchmaker Perhaps there is no need for my trade at present I have two arms and two legs Am fairly strong, can walk and talk My enquiring mind picks things up But I am Condemned to this routine Called life I could labour on a farm, work in a factory Join the fire brigade, dig holes Repair homes, drive a truck Just be of some use The censored letters from my mother Tell me my country is still at war I am prepared to serve my country Contribute something useful My beliefs have imprisoned me To waste my time for over a year I won’t fight, I won’t kill I could do so much to help If only they would listen My girlfriend wrote in September ‘I can’t love a feller what hasn’t died for his country’ I expect she’s my ex girlfriend now

Shells rushing like sea Crash in waves Over broken shores of mud Bombs impregnated With salty sweat And fingerprints Anonymous ammunition carried Ever so gently From weeping machines Alongside babies Struggling to feed Men commanded to fight By distant authority Dying to survive Women have no voice No choice But to make Orphans And widows Of our German sisters Vice Versa

Stephanie Neville’s piece was also created during Garrie and Antony’s session. The poem was inspired by the front cover of the Patriotic Song, Britannia’s Glorious Flag. As Stephanie said, ‘When I looked at it, my eye was immediately drawn to the top corner where there were some musical notes showing this was a piece of music written in a flat key, not what you would usually choose for an upbeat piece of music. Coupled with the stories of those who took a courageously anti-war stance, I wondered whether this could have been a tiny act of resistance, or at least a recognition that all was not joyful and triumphant. More normal for this kind of music would be a major key which lends itself nicely to a play on a double meaning. The other thing that struck me about the propaganda items, including this one, is how we look at them and smile at the naivety in which people were taken in by them. We recognise them for what they are … but somehow cannot apply that same good sense to current military propaganda, and so 100 years on we fall for the same myths, just dressed up in different language and imagery. Hopefully some, or all of that is portrayed in the attached poem’.

Mouths yawning wide Eyes closed We sing Of patriotic duty And naive hopes of victory For flag and mother country

But From somewhere in their midst This one foresaw There was a sombre note And shared his voice In this the choice Of a B flat key Unlocking Some semblance Of creativity

Perhaps he saw in his mind’s eye On these dark lines Which never meet Too many Sharps Already Cutting deep in flesh And painted red

Perhaps he had already heard What staccato beats reverberate Through shattered minds And resonate In yearning hearts Frozen In a silent fear That dares no longer sing

And this his song His only way To say He would not dance to the Major’s key

As looking back With eyes made wise With knowing smiles We sagely nod To this the tune We say We would not tap our feet to

And yet The orchestra plays on As still we listen And close our eyes To the murmur of these lullabies A gentle drone We hear as truth

As one white poppy Still flutters Unnoticed In a sprawling sea of red

Kathleen Dixon Donnelly ( www.suchfriends.wordpress.com ), Jo Toye and Gemma Birch all attended Fiona Joseph’s workshop and were inspired by the exhibition to create the following pieces of work

Voices of War and Peace: The Great War and its legacy 1916 by Kathleen Dixon Donnelly

March 1916: London

Essayist and pacifist Lytton Strachey, soon to turn 36, is called before the Hampstead Tribunal to apply for status as a conscientious objector. He brings a cushion for his tush, explaining to the military men sitting in judgment on him, ‘I am a martyr to the piles…’ When they ask him, ‘If you were to find a German soldier raping your sister, what would you do?,’ Lytton answers, ‘I would try to interpose my own body between them.’ He then gives an impassioned explanation of his stand against the current war, reminding them, ‘I am the society you’re fighting for.’

October 1916: East Sussex

Painter Vanessa Bell, 37, is desperate. She is trying to find any way to keep her lover—Lytton’s cousin and former lover—painter Duncan Grant, just turned 31, out of the war. The only way for a single man to avoid conscription is to work in service to his country. As a last resort, she finds a local farm, Charleston, which she can rent and live in with her sons. Duncan and their other painter/writer/intellectual/homosexual friends can then ‘work’ the farm. Oh, and her husband, art critic Clive Bell, 34. He can help, too.

February 1916: Birmingham

‘Never mind if you feel a prig or if you look a fool before the rest of the world. Those living in 2016 will be the best judges of whether you did right or wrong at this time.’ –Gerald Lloyd, 30, conscientious objector And we will…

THE HOME FRONT/WOMEN ‘The Telegram’ by Jo Toye

Boots. That’s what I remember – the sound of his boots up the entry. Not that it was an unusual sound – when you live in a court of eight houses, eleven families, there’s a lot of comings and goings. But it was always quieter on Sundays, especially this early, before the kids were out playing hopscotch or throwing sticks to bring down the icicles from the guttering; before the door of the privy started going, or the few who weren’t drunk or asleep after a hard week’s work went off to chapel. That’s what I was doing, pinning my hair up for chapel, but I stopped with it half hanging down because I knew what those boots meant. Slowly I took the pins from my mouth. The boots turned into the yard and crossed the cobbles. One, two, three paces… I held my breath. Four, five…Then a rap on the door. I closed my eyes and felt myself sway against the washstand. The knocker was raised and rapped again. I heard feet on stairs, the door tugged open… and then the cry. The cry of my neighbour, Bessie, as she saw the telegraph boy, and his sad eyes, and the envelope with the black cross he was holding out to her. Not for me. Not this time. I felt a sudden stinging. When I looked down and uncurled my fingers, I had driven the hairpins right into the palm of my hand.

My Darling Rose by Gemma Birch

My Darling Rose A week has passed since I wrote you last although, to my mind, it seems much longer. I received yours of the 8th three days ago but was sent as reserve to the front line shortly after and have only just returned to barracks. I should tell you we have had it a bit rough these last few days – a terrible storm hit on Thursday night which was positively beastly. The lightning lit the night sky, making it clear as day, and the Boche took full advantage. I shan’t say anymore lest I give you cause to worry, just know that I am going on alright. We all have to do our bit. Just a quick note about your letter. I was most pleased to hear you are keeping well, it bucks me up to know you are not letting this dreadful war get you down. I was most surprised to receive another parcel from you so soon but the contents were gratefully received. The toffees and cigarettes I shared with Wilf – they seemed to raise his spirits while he awaits news of Lottie and the baby. And I must say I had a chuckle to myself when I unwrapped the scarf – I have doubtless been complaining about the weather too much! But it has served its purpose well and on these damp, cold days and freezing nights you, my dear, will be keeping me warm. Your new photograph stands proudly on the shelf next to my bunk, keeping watch over me while I sleep. I will be sure and kiss you goodnight every night I am here, my love. Please reassure Mother that I received her letter, along with one from Joe and two from Alice. I will reply to them soonest. Finally, my darling, I must send you the warmest of birthday wishes and many happy returns. Do not worry that I am losing my mind, I am well aware your birthday is still two weeks away, but I cannot be sure when you will receive this letter and I am now less than hopeful that this war will be over and I home in time to celebrate with you. I can scarcely believe that this is the first time since we were fifteen years old that we will be spending your special day apart, and in such circumstances too. But it only makes me more determined to do my part in ensuring this war is over sooner rather than later. I would ask one small favour of you though. On your birthday would you be kind enough to wear that dress you wore the night we first stepped out together? It will do me no end of good to be able to close my eyes and picture you as you looked that night. It will be enough to make me believe I am with you once again. Well my girl, I know you will think me a sentimental old fool but it is these thoughts of you and of home that keep my spirits up. Each day is the same here – they all dawn grey and gloomy, but I am always glad that they do dawn as each one of them brings this war closer to its end which brings me another step closer to you. But for now, my love, I will have to say goodnight. Your ever loving Art.

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World Peace Essay: Prompts, How-to Guide, & 200+ Topics

Throughout history, people have dreamed of a world without violence, where harmony and justice reign. This dream of world peace has inspired poets, philosophers, and politicians for centuries. But is it possible to achieve peace globally? Writing a world peace essay will help you find the answer to this question and learn more about the topic.

Our specialists will write a custom essay specially for you!

In this article, our custom writing team will discuss how to write an essay on world peace quickly and effectively. To inspire you even more, we have prepared writing prompts and topics that can come in handy.

✍️ Writing Guide
🦄 Essay Prompts
✔️ World Peace Topics
🌎 Pacifism Topics
✌️ Catchy Essay Titles
🕊️ Research Topics on Peace
💡 War and Peace Topics
☮️ Peace Title Ideas
🌐 Peace Language Topics

🔗 References

✍️ how to achieve world peace essay writing guide.

Stuck with your essay about peace? Here is a step-by-step writing guide with many valuable tips to make your paper well-structured and compelling.

1. Research the Topic

The first step in writing your essay on peace is conducting research. You can look for relevant sources in your university library, encyclopedias, dictionaries, book catalogs, periodical databases, and Internet search engines. Besides, you can use your lecture notes and textbooks for additional information.

Among the variety of sources that could be helpful for a world peace essay, we would especially recommend checking the Global Peace Index report . It presents the most comprehensive data-driven analysis of current trends in world peace. It’s a credible report by the Institute for Economics and Peace, so you can cite it as a source in your aper.

Here are some other helpful resources where you can find information for your world peace essay:

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United Nations Peacekeeping
International Peace Institute
United States Institute of Peace
European Union Institute for Security Studies
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute

2. Create an Outline

Outlining is an essential aspect of the essay writing process. It helps you plan how you will connect all the facts to support your thesis statement.

To write an outline for your essay about peace, follow these steps:

Determine your topic and develop a thesis statement .
Choose the main points that will support your thesis and will be covered in your paper.
Organize your ideas in a logical order.
Think about transitions between paragraphs.

Here is an outline example for a “How to Achieve World Peace” essay. Check it out to get a better idea of how to structure your paper.

Definition of world peace.
The importance of global peace.
Thesis statement: World peace is attainable through combined efforts on individual, societal, and global levels.
Practive of non-violent communication.
Development of healthy relationships.
Promotion of conflict resolution skills.
Promotion of democracy and human rights.
Support of peacebuilding initiatives.
Protection of cultural diversity.
Encouragement of arms control and non-proliferation.
Promotion of international law and treaties.
Support of intercultural dialogue and understanding.
Restated thesis.
Call to action.

You can also use our free essay outline generator to structure your world peace essay.

3. Write Your World Peace Essay

Now, it’s time to use your outline to write an A+ paper. Here’s how to do it:

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Start with the introductory paragraph , which states the topic, presents a thesis, and provides a roadmap for your essay. If you need some assistance with this part, try our free introduc tion generator.
Your essay’s main body should contain at least 3 paragraphs. Each of them should provide explanations and evidence to develop your argument.
Finally, in your conclusion , you need to restate your thesis and summarize the points you’ve covered in the paper. It’s also a good idea to add a closing sentence reflecting on your topic’s significance or encouraging your audience to take action. Feel free to use our essay conclusion generator to develop a strong ending for your paper.

4. Revise and Proofread

Proofreading is a way to ensure your essay has no typos and grammar mistakes. Here are practical tips for revising your work:

Take some time. Leaving your essay for a day or two before revision will give you a chance to look at it from another angle.
Read out loud. To catch run-on sentences or unclear ideas in your writing, read it slowly and out loud. You can also use our Read My Essay to Me tool.
Make a checklist . Create a list for proofreading to ensure you do not miss any important details, including structure, punctuation, capitalization, and formatting.
Ask someone for feedback. It is always a good idea to ask your professor, classmate, or friend to read your essay and give you constructive criticism on the work.
Note down the mistakes you usually make. By identifying your weaknesses, you can work on them to become a more confident writer.

🦄 World Peace Essay Writing Prompts

Looking for an interesting idea for your world peace essay? Look no further! Use our writing prompts to get a dose of inspiration.

How to Promote Peace in the Community Essay Prompt

Promoting peace in the world always starts in small communities. If people fight toxic narratives, negative stereotypes, and hate crimes, they will build a strong and united community and set a positive example for others.

In your essay on how to promote peace in the community, you can dwell on the following ideas:

Explain the importance of accepting different opinions in establishing peace in your area.
Analyze how fighting extremism in all its forms can unite the community and create a peaceful environment.
Clarify what peace means in the context of your community and what factors contribute to or hinder it.
Investigate the role of dialogue in resolving conflicts and building mutual understanding in the community.

How to Promote Peace as a Student Essay Prompt

Students, as an active part of society, can play a crucial role in promoting peace at various levels. From educational entities to worldwide conferences, they have an opportunity to introduce the idea of peace for different groups of people.

Get an originally-written paper according to your instructions!

Check out the following fresh ideas for your essay on how to promote peace as a student:

Analyze how information campaigns organized by students can raise awareness of peace-related issues.
Discuss the impact of education in fostering a culture of peace.
Explore how students can use social media to advocate for a peaceful world.
Describe your own experience of taking part in peace-promoting campaigns or programs.

How Can We Maintain Peace in Our Society Essay Prompt

Maintaining peace in society is a difficult but achievable task that requires constant attention and effort from all members of society.

We have prepared ideas that can come in handy when writing an essay about how we can maintain peace in our society:

Investigate the role of tolerance, understanding of different cultures, and respect for religions in promoting peace in society.
Analyze the importance of peacekeeping organizations.
Provide real-life examples of how people promote peace.
Offer practical suggestions for how individuals and communities can work together to maintain peace.

Youth Creating a Peaceful Future Essay Prompt

Young people are the future of any country, as well as the driving force to create a more peaceful world. Their energy and motivation can aid in finding new methods of coping with global hate and violence.

In your essay, you can use the following ideas to show the role of youth in creating a peaceful world:

Analyze the key benefits of youth involvement in peacekeeping.
Explain why young people are leading tomorrow’s change today.
Identify the main ingredients for building a peaceful generation with the help of young people’s initiatives.
Investigate how adolescent girls can be significant agents of positive change in their communities.

Is World Peace Possible Essay Prompt

Whether or not the world can be a peaceful place is one of the most controversial topics. While most people who hear the question “Is a world without war possible?” will probably answer “no,” others still believe in the goodness of humanity.

To discuss in your essay if world peace is possible, use the following ideas:

Explain how trade, communication, and technology can promote cooperation and the peaceful resolution of conflicts.
Analyze the role of international organizations like the United Nations and the European Union in maintaining peace in the world.
Investigate how economic inequality poses a severe threat to peace and safety.
Dwell on the key individual and national interests that can lead to conflict and competition between countries.

✔️ World Peace Topics for Essays

To help get you started with writing, here’s a list of 200 topics you can use for your future essTo help get you started with writing a world peace essay, we’ve prepared a list of topics you can use:

Defining peace
Why peace is better: benefits of living in harmony
Is world peace attainable? Theory and historical examples
Sustainable peace : is peace an intermission of war?
Peaceful coexistence : how a society can do without wars
Peaceful harmony or war of all against all: what came first?
The relationship between economic development and peace
Peace and Human Nature: Can Humans Live without Conflicts ?
Prerequisites for peace : what nations need to refrain from war?
Peace as an unnatural phenomenon: why people tend to start a war?
Peace as a natural phenomenon: why people avoid starting a war?
Is peace the end of the war or its beginning?
Hybrid war and hybrid peace
What constitutes peace in the modern world
Does two countries’ not attacking each other constitute peace?
“Cold peace” in the international relations today
What world religions say about world peace
Defining peacemaking
Internationally recognized symbols of peace
World peace: a dream or a goal?

🌎 Peace Essay Topics on Pacifism

History of pacifism: how the movement started and developed
Role of the pacifist movement in the twentieth-century history
Basic philosophical principles of pacifism
Pacifism as philosophy and as a movement
The peace sign: what it means
How the pacifist movement began: actual causes
The anti-war movements : what did the activists want?
The relationship between pacifism and the sexual revolution
Early pacifism: examples from ancient times
Is pacifism a religion?
Should pacifists refrain from any kinds of violence?
Is the pacifist movement a threat to the national security?
Can a pacifist work in law enforcement authorities?
Pacifism and non-violence: comparing and contrasting
The pacifist perspective on the concept of self-defense
Pacifism in art: examples of pacifistic works of art
Should everyone be a pacifist?
Pacifism and diet: should every pacifist be a vegetarian ?
How pacifists respond to oppression
The benefits of an active pacifist movement for a country

✌️ Interesting Essay Titles about Peace

Can the country that won a war occupy the one that lost?
The essential peace treaties in history
Should a country that lost a war pay reparations ?
Peace treaties that caused new, more violent wars
Can an aggressor country be deprived of the right to have an army after losing a war?
Non-aggression pacts do not prevent wars
All the countries should sign non-aggression pacts with one another
Peace and truces: differences and similarities
Do countries pursue world peace when signing peace treaties?
The treaty of Versailles : positive and negative outcomes
Ceasefires and surrenders: the world peace perspective
When can a country break a peace treaty?
Dealing with refugees and prisoners of war under peace treaties
Who should resolve international conflicts?
The role of the United Nations in enforcing peace treaties
Truce envoys’ immunities
What does a country do after surrendering unconditionally?
A separate peace: the ethical perspective
Can a peace treaty be signed in modern-day hybrid wars?
Conditions that are unacceptable in a peace treaty

🕊️ Research Topics on Peace and Conflict Resolution

Can people be forced to stop fighting?
Successful examples of peace restoration through the use of force
Failed attempts to restore peace with legitimate violence
Conflict resolution vs conflict transformation
What powers peacemakers should not have
Preemptive peacemaking: can violence be used to prevent more abuse?
The status of peacemakers in the international law
Peacemaking techniques: Gandhi’s strategies
How third parties can reconcile belligerents
The role of the pacifist movement in peacemaking
The war on wars: appropriate and inappropriate approaches to peacemaking
Mistakes that peacemakers often stumble upon
The extent of peacemaking : when the peacemakers’ job is done
Making peace and sustaining it: how peacemakers prevent future conflicts
The origins of peacemaking
What to do if peacemaking does not work
Staying out: can peacemaking make things worse?
A personal reflection on the effectiveness of peacemaking
Prospects of peacemaking
Personal experience of peacemaking

💡 War and Peace Essay Topics

Counties should stop producing new types of firearms
Countries should not stop producing new types of weapons
Mutual assured destruction as a means of sustaining peace
The role of nuclear disarmament in world peace
The nuclear war scenario: what will happen to the world?
Does military intelligence contribute to sustaining peace?
Collateral damage: analyzing the term
Can the defenders of peace take up arms?
For an armed person, is killing another armed person radically different from killing an unarmed one? Ethical and legal perspectives
Should a healthy country have a strong army?
Firearms should be banned
Every citizen has the right to carry firearms
The correlation between gun control and violence rates
The second amendment: modern analysis
Guns do not kill: people do
What weapons a civilian should never be able to buy
Biological and chemical weapons
Words as a weapon: rhetoric wars
Can a pacifist ever use a weapon?
Can dropping weapons stop the war?

☮️ Peace Title Ideas for Essays

How the nuclear disarmament emblem became the peace sign
The symbolism of a dove with an olive branch
Native Americans’ traditions of peace declaration
The mushroom cloud as a cultural symbol
What the world peace awareness ribbon should look like
What I would like to be the international peace sign
The history of the International Day of Peace
The peace sign as an accessory
The most famous peace demonstrations
Hippies’ contributions to the peace symbolism
Anti-war and anti-military symbols
How to express pacifism as a political position
The rainbow as a symbol of peace
Can a white flag be considered a symbol of peace?
Examples of the inappropriate use of the peace sign
The historical connection between the peace sign and the cannabis leaf sign
Peace symbols in different cultures
Gods of war and gods of peace: examples from the ancient mythology
Peace sign tattoo: pros and cons
Should the peace sign be placed on a national flag?

🌐 Essay Topics about Peace Language

The origin and historical context of the word “peace”
What words foreign languages use to denote “peace”
What words, if any, should a pacifist avoid?
The pacifist discourse: key themes
Disintegration language: “us” vs “them”
How to combat war propaganda
Does political correctness promote world peace?
Can an advocate of peace be harsh in his or her speeches?
Effective persuasive techniques in peace communications and negotiations
Analyzing the term “world peace”
If the word “war” is forbidden, will wars stop?
Is “peacemaking” a right term?
Talk to the hand: effective and ineffective interpersonal communication techniques that prevent conflicts
The many meanings of the word “peace”
The pacifists’ language: when pacifists swear, yell, or insult
Stressing similarities instead of differences as a tool of peace language
The portrayal of pacifists in movies
The portrayals of pacifists in fiction
Pacifist lyrics: examples from the s’ music
Poems that supported peace The power of the written word
peaceful coexistence: theory and practice
Under what conditions can humans coexist peacefully?
“A man is a wolf to another man”: the modern perspective
What factors prevent people from committing a crime?
Right for peace vs need for peace
Does the toughening of punishment reduce crime?
The Stanford prison experiment: implications
Is killing natural?
The possibility of universal love: does disliking always lead to conflicts?
Basic income and the dynamics of thefts
Hobbesian Leviathan as the guarantee of peace
Is state-concentrated legitimate violence an instrument for reducing violence overall?
Factors that undermine peaceful coexistence
Living in peace vs living for peace
The relationship between otherness and peacefulness
World peace and human nature: the issue of attainability
The most successful examples of peaceful coexistence
Lack of peace as lack of communication
Point made: counterculture and pacifism
What Woodstock proved to world peace nonbelievers and opponents?
Woodstock and peaceful coexistence: challenges and successes
peace, economics, and quality of life
Are counties living in peace wealthier? Statistics and reasons
Profits of peace and profits of war: comparison of benefits and losses
Can a war improve the economy ? Discussing examples
What is more important for people: having appropriate living conditions or winning a war?
How wars can improve national economies: the perspective of aggressors and defenders
Peace obstructers: examples of interest groups that sustained wars and prevented peace
Can democracies be at war with one another?
Does the democratic rule in a country provide it with an advantage at war?
Why wars destroy economies: examples, discussion, and counterarguments
How world peace would improve everyone’s quality of life
peace and war today
Are we getting closer to world peace? Violence rates, values change, and historical comparison
The peaceful tomorrow: how conflicts will be resolved in the future if there are no wars
Redefining war: what specific characteristics today’s wars have that make them different from previous centuries’ wars
Why wars start today: comparing and contrasting the reasons for wars in the modern world to historical examples
Subtle wars: how two countries can be at war with each other without having their armies collide in the battlefield
Cyber peace: how cyberwars can be stopped
Information as a weapon: how information today lands harder blows than bombs and missiles
Information wars: how the abundance of information and public access to it have not, nonetheless, eliminated propaganda
Peace through defeating: how ISIS is different from other states, and how can its violence be stopped
Is world peace a popular idea? Do modern people mostly want peace or mainly wish to fight against other people and win?
Personal contributions to world peace
What can I do for attaining world peace? Personal reflection
Respect as a means of attaining peace: why respecting people is essential not only on the level of interpersonal communications but also on the level of social good
Peacefulness as an attitude: how one’s worldview can prevent conflicts
Why a person engages in insulting and offending : analysis of psychological causes and a personal perspective
A smile as an agent of peace: how simple smiling to people around you contributes to peacefulness
Appreciating otherness: how one can learn to value diversity and avoid xenophobia
Peace and love: how the two are inherently interconnected in everyone’s life
A micro-level peacemaker: my experiences of resolving conflicts and bringing peace
Forgiveness for the sake of peace: does forgiving other people contribute to peaceful coexistence or promote further conflicts?
Noble lies: is it acceptable for a person to lie to avoid conflicts and preserve peace?
What should a victim do? Violent and non-violent responses to violence
Standing up for the weak : is it always right to take the side of the weakest?
Self-defense , overwhelming emotions, and witnessing horrible violence: could I ever shoot another person?
Are there “fair” wars, and should every war be opposed?
Protecting peace: could I take up arms to prevent a devastating war?
Reporting violence: would I participate in sending a criminal to prison?
The acceptability of violence against perpetrators : personal opinion
Nonviolent individual resistance to injustice
Peace is worth it: why I think wars are never justified
How I sustain peace in my everyday life

Learn more on this topic:

If I Could Change the World Essay: Examples and Writing Guide
Ending the Essay: Conclusions
Choosing and Narrowing a Topic to Write About
Introduction to Research
How the U.S. Can Help Humanity Achieve World Peace
Ten Steps to World Peace
How World Peace is Possible
World Peace Books and Articles
World Peace and Nonviolence
The Leader of World Peace Essay
UNO and World Peace Essay
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A very, very good paragraph. thanks

Glad you liked it! Thank you for your feedback!

Peace and conflict studies actually is good field because is dealing on how to manage the conflict among the two state or country.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts, Chieng!

Keep it up. Our world earnestly needs peace

I agree with you, Atibar 🙂

A very, very good paragraph.

28 Writing Prompts About War

So you wanna write about war, but… war already feels written about, right?

Yeah, it’s a heavy topic with a long history .

From epic poems to gritty modern novels, war’s been dissected a million times over. But fear not, fellow wordsmiths! There’s always a fresh angle, a unique story waiting to be told.

This post is here to spark that fire. We’re diving into war-themed writing prompts right now.

Let’s check them out.

Writing Prompts About War

In the throes of World War II, a soldier writes letters to his beloved. Fifty years later, a young woman stumbles upon these letters in an old trunk and feels an irresistible urge to respond, attempting to heal old wounds and bridge the chasm of time. What messages does she pen, and what mysteries unfold as she delves deeper into the soldier’s life and times?
The physical damages of war are evident, but the emotional and psychological scars are often hidden. Your protagonist returns home from the warfront only to find that the war has followed him in haunting memories and triggering situations. How does he cope, and what strategies does he employ to help heal himself and his relationships ?
Twin siblings are caught in the turbulence of a civil war. While one chooses to join the rebels, believing in their cause , the other remains loyal to the ruling government. How do their paths intersect throughout the conflict , and what choices do they make when they come face to face?
Not all roles in the war are about fighting . A nurse in a military hospital faces the harrowing task of tending to the wounded, both allies and enemies alike. As she documents her experiences in a diary, she uncovers a secret about one of her patients. What revelations await her, and how do they reshape her understanding of the war?
A pacifist is conscripted into a raging conflict. On the battlefield, he discovers not only the grim realities of war but also his own latent potential for leadership and strategy. In a world painted in shades of grey, how does he reconcile his personal beliefs with the brutal necessities of war?
Amidst the din of war, a soldier hears a haunting melody being played from the enemy camp . Enchanted, he risks his life to meet the musician and learns about the stories and hopes that inspire such beautiful tunes amidst chaos. How does this shared love for music influence the choices they make in the midst of a brutal war?
Children growing up in a war-torn city develop an intricate game that mirrors the strategies and battles they witness daily . Through their innocent eyes , the reader gets a fresh perspective on the complexities of warfare. How does this game affect their understanding of right and wrong, and what lessons do they offer to the adults around them?
In a world recovering from a long and devastating war, a journalist is tasked with interviewing the last living veterans . As she collects their stories, she’s also grappling with the war’s impact on her own family ’s history. What truths does she uncover, and how do they shape her understanding of peace, loss, and memory?
In a besieged city, a renowned violinist plays nightly from the remains of a shattered building. His music captivates both sides, eventually leading to a ceasefire during his performances. What power does this music hold, and can its notes forge a path to lasting peace amidst the war?
Soldiers from opposing factions find themselves abandoned by their units in a vast, unknown terrain. To survive the harsh environment, they must rely on each other. As they journey together, how do their perceptions of the enemy change , and what bond, if any, emerges between them?
A cartographer is tasked with mapping out territories in a rapidly shifting war zone. With each change in boundary, he realizes that his maps are inadvertently influencing the course of the war. Faced with the weight of his creations, does he remain neutral or try to change the tide of conflict?
Amidst the despair of trench warfare, soldiers from both sides secretly exchange letters, sharing stories, hopes, and dreams . Their clandestine correspondence builds a bridge of understanding in the middle of chaos. How do these written exchanges affect their view of the enemy and the decisions they make in battle?
An old, dusty journal surfaces in a second-hand bookstore, recounting tales of a mysterious soldier whose actions altered key events during the war. As a historian delves into the pages, they start to question previously held beliefs about the war. What truths lie hidden within the journal, and how do they challenge the established narrative ?
A spy disguises themselves as an enemy officer to gather crucial intelligence. Living in daily peril, they form an unexpected connection with someone on the opposing side. How do they balance their duty to their homeland with the new relationships they’ve formed, and what sacrifices will they have to make?
In a city reduced to rubble, a librarian strives to protect a secret collection of books that hold the cultural and historical legacy of their nation. As enemy forces close in, a choice must be made. Will the librarian save the irreplaceable collection or prioritize the lives of the city’s remaining inhabitants?
Using newly developed technology , soldiers at the frontlines receive holographic messages from their families back home. While these messages offer a brief respite from the horrors of war, they also blur the lines between reality and longing. How do these glimpses of home shape a soldier’s resolve and their choices on the battlefield?
In a world inundated with propaganda, a radio operator begins intercepting cryptic broadcasts from an unknown source. These messages offer a starkly different perspective on the ongoing war. As the operator deciphers these broadcasts, how does this newfound knowledge influence his role in the war and his loyalty to his nation?
After a major battle, engineers from both warring factions are stranded in a no-man’s-land. They decide to cooperate and build a bridge to their respective sides. Through their collaborative effort, do they find common ground and perhaps a blueprint for peace?
A renowned war medic, committed to saving lives regardless of allegiance, is captured and is forced to serve the enemy. With limited resources and facing dilemmas daily, how does the medic prioritize, and can healing serve as a catalyst for broader understanding?
Years after the war, a curator designs an exhibit that showcases personal artifacts from soldiers, civilians, and others affected by the conflict. Each item tells a unique story. As visitors navigate the exhibit, how do these intimate glimpses into personal experiences reshape collective memories of the war?
A soldier, unable to speak the local language , is separated from his unit and taken in by a rural family. Through gestures, shared tasks, and unexpected moments, they communicate . In the heart of enemy territory, can genuine human connection transcend the barriers of language and war?
A submarine crew, cut off from the world due to a malfunctioning communication system, surfaces years after the war has ended. Unaware of the war’s outcome and the world’s current state, how does the crew navigate this unfamiliar reality, and what legacy do they carry from their time submerged?
In an occupied city, unknown artists use graffiti to communicate messages of hope , resistance, and unity. Their artwork becomes a beacon for the oppressed. When the identity of the artists is threatened with exposure, what choices will the community make to protect their symbols of hope?
In a region torn by conflict, a village decides to come together for their annual harvest festival, inviting even those from the opposing faction. The festival becomes a temporary truce, a momentary escape from the war’s realities. Can a shared cultural celebration sow the seeds of lasting reconciliation?
An acclaimed painter is commissioned to create a portrait of a high-ranking general from the opposing army as a gesture of tentative peace. Throughout the sessions, the two share stories, philosophies, and regrets. As brush meets canvas, can art capture the essence of a man beyond his uniform, revealing the complexities of the human soul?
A photojournalist embedded with a unit captures the raw and unfiltered moments of the war, focusing not on the battles, but on the quiet moments in-between – a shared meal, a tearful letter reading, a soldier’s introspection. With each snapshot, what untold stories emerge, offering a poignant commentary on the costs of war?
During an excavation for a wartime bunker, soldiers uncover an ancient battleground filled with relics and writings from a forgotten civilization that once faced a similar conflict. Can lessons from a long-lost civilization influence contemporary strategies and potentially provide a roadmap to peace?
A war-ravaged city operates a train that, legend says, leads to a sanctuary untouched by conflict. Desperate civilians and disillusioned soldiers alike seek passage. As they journey together, what stories unfold in each compartment, and does the train’s destination hold the promise they all yearn for?

Founder and Chief Content Curator @ Digital Phrases

I'm a writer, words are my superpower, and storytelling is my kryptonite.

The Creative Spark by Agustín Fuentes

Book Review by Rachel Glein

Chapter 7: Creating War (and Peace)

Are humans evolutionarily prone to violence? Steven Pinker argues in his novel The Better Angels of Our Nature that we were much more violent in the past, but we became less violent as civilization advanced. Biologist Edward O. Wilson argues that we are not evolutionary prone to violence and war, but rather our innate sense of morality and group loyalty resulted in tightly bound tribes that gave rise to conflict and war. Frans de Waal believes that we are inclined towards empathy and altruism, not war. Anthropologists Douglas Fry and Brian Ferguson believe the fossil record demonstrates that we became more violent after we civilized due to money, power, resources. Clearly this is a hot topic for debate. Let us see what our evolutionary story says about human violence.

A View from the Primates

Some researchers have looked into primate violence history to see if an inherent predisposition for violence exists in human nature. These researchers determined that severe aggression only makes up about 1% of all primate activity and that lethal violence is even more rare. There is no real evidence for male-female aggression in primates and conflicts are often solved by negotiations or avoidance rather than violence. In general, extreme violence is not a trait found in our ancestors… expect for certain species of chimpanzees. Eastern chimpanzees males are aggressive towards females and coerce them into certain activities, but Western male chimpanzees do not exhibit the same behavior. Both Eastern and Western chimps perform border patrols in their territories and act violently towards members of other communities if they come too close. Additionally, chimp males and females have been witnessed killing infants of their own and other communities. Bonobos, another species of chimpanzees, do not engage in border controls or infant homicide. From this evidence, scientists cannot conclude that human violence stemmed from primate, or specifically chimpanzee, origins.

Violence in Our Bodies

One major misconception about testosterone is that it enhances violence and aggression specifically in males. In actuality, testosterone is present in both males and females. It is produced in both genders during times of acute-stress because it increases muscle activity and lowers sensitivity to pain. Increased levels of testosterone does give individuals an edge in competitive situations.

Extreme Violence- Ancient or Modern?

Although modern forager groups cannot give us a true insight into the past, they do help us better understand our history. Anthropologist Doug Fry and psychologist Patrick Soderberg researched extreme violence in 21 modern mobile forager societies and noted 148 instances of extreme violence. They found that most instances of lethal aggression were interpersonal and could not be labeled as forms of war. Most forager societies and societies in general favored positive, non-aggressive social interactions.

Do aggressive males have more success with females? This is an important question to ask, because the answer may shed light on the increase in violence we see today. One study was conducted on the Yanomamo people in the Amazonian region. In this society, a man is labeled a “unokai” if he has killed another person in a raid or a fight. These men have 2.5 more wives than non-unokai people on average. While this may lead you to believe that violent males do have more success with females, there is a problem with the study. Unokai were not compared with men of the same age because on average unokai are 10.4 years older than non-unokai. This age difference also contributes to unokai having more wives. The Waorani, a South American society, was also researched for their aggressive behaviors. This society has the highest rate of homicide out of any small society ever researched. Contrary to popular beliefs, the aggressive men did not have more wives or children than the calmer men. Therefore, the question as to whether aggressive men have more success with females is still unanswered.

Creating War

The fossil evidence we have for violence and war is inconclusive. Researchers are unable to determine if broken bones in fossils from 500,000 years ago were due to people accidentally falling off a cliff or from acts of violence. This is due to the fact that weapons at the time were unaltered rocks and sticks, so marks on the bones of someone falling off a cliff would look the same as someone beaten with a weapon. However, around 15,000 years ago we start to see concrete evidence for an increase in violence. The Jebel Sahaba site from 14,000-12,000 years ago shows evidence that 24/59 bodies found show evidence of traumatic violence. Researchers found stone points and arrow heads embedded in skeletons as well as missing limbs. Before this time period there were little to no signs of extreme violence, but it is at this time that we see violence begin to increase. Evidence was still relatively rare, but around 6,000-7,000 years ago we see many more examples of coordinated large-scale killing in places like Talheim and Schletz in Germany. Hundreds of murdered individuals were discovered in these places; Talheim is even nicknamed the “Death Pit” for this reason.

“Human culture was not characterized by a high incidence of either homicide or warfare compared to the modern era. However, over the last 5,000 to 10,000 years, the pace and intensity of this type of violence markedly increased” (155-156)

Creativity gave rise to violence. Human development paved the trail for class conflict. We created societies, stored resources, claimed properties, and divided labor. All these creative developments led to increased inequalities and therefore the incentive for intergroup conflict and violence. Humans learned to master survival through collaboration and cooperation and those skills led to a mastery of conflict and division. Humans became too good at innovating and creating, which led to the emergence of violence.

“Our capacity for war emerged from the capacity for peace” (162)

Poetry Center

Authenticity: Writing about War and Peace

By Christopher McIlroy

Speak Peace: American Voices Respond to Vietnamese Children is an international, collaborative traveling art exhibit out of Kent State featuring paintings by Vietnamese children and American responses in the form of poetry. The Poetry Center exhibited this work in September 2011.

I have no specific qualifications to address authenticity in writing as it relates to war, so let's get that out of the way. Assisting with Marge Pellegrino in the Speak Peace project has been my first experience of the kind. My students in the Tohono O'odham and Yaqui communities live with hardship, pain, and grief to a degree I scarcely can imagine, and produce writing of a rare eloquence and authenticity from that background, but I realize it isn't the same.

I even find it hard to define the slippery "authentic." We can't even say that "we know it when we see it." We may not agree upon what strikes that note in us when we read, view, or hear what we believe to be authentic. Sincerity seems a necessary component but not a sufficient one. Rarely do we hear the response, "I admire the authenticity of the piece, but unfortunately it's terrible." The authentic must capture a truth, as well, and probably artfully.

Confronting war is overwhelming in itself. In the case of Marge's student and adult writers from Owl and Panther, often refugees from war in their homelands, many have endured those horrors first hand.

The question of authenticity becomes embedded in the larger issue of how the traumatized might respond to others' similar trauma, and how they might be lifted by others' resilience; alongside the depictions of monstrous violence and its aftermath, many of the Vietnamese children's paintings are radiant with visions of peace, while some merge the suffering and the transcendence into a single image, as if they're inextricable.

For the writers, I believe that raw emotional response, unmediated by art, must be honored. If the writing can be no more than a cry, a scream, an embrace of compassion, or a prayer of hope, then that is the value the writer needed. Pure outbreaks of the heart can rise to high art, of course, but they may not.

Beyond that, we can help our student writers avoid self-consciousness, which for most artists is the enemy of authenticity.

In my experience, self-consciousness arises from the opposites of self-doubt and self-congratulation, in some cases at the same time. In the former, writers are too afraid of performing badly to lose themselves in the work at hand, in the latter, too intent on performing well.

We teachers can help by surprising our students past those barriers, encouraging them and questioning them to become immersed in the work, the subject, instead.

In the case of the Speak Peace paintings, these means could include:

describing what is happening in the paintings as precisely and expressively as possible
exploring POV, relating one's own first-person experiences in some way to the painting; or writing first-person in the persona of a figure or even abstract force in the poem or writing second-person to the painter, to aspects of the painting, to viewers of the painting or readers of the poem
making the painting part of a story, as if it were one still in a series of frames
examining the aesthetics of the content, how color, line, design create meaning in the painting
riding the sound and form of the poem itself — its rhythms, possibly rhymes, and
other patterns — into a meaning of sound and language
using simile and metaphor as a means of leaping the gulf between the viewers'
experiences and the painters', finding a new common territory.

For writers whose own experiences may be too raw for them to respond directly to the often terrible and heartbreaking scenes depicted in the paintings, the last three approaches in particular might allow them access to the images in a less threatening way.

May these students' writings become one more step on their journey of healing.

Category:

DraftSparks ✨

274+ ‘War’ Writing Prompts

Surviving World Wars

Analyze the role Guinness played during World War I and II.

Current Event Tug-of-War

Choose a current event or issue and write two essays: one in support of it, and one against it.

Hero of the Revolutionary War

You’re a child spy in the American Revolutionary War acting on behalf of the patriots.

Through Her Eyes

Write a journal entry from the perspective of a woman in a specific historical event.

Melodic Kingdoms

Compose a verse wherein the kingdom is ruled by a monarch whose decrees take the form of song.

Unseen Casualty

Document a day in the life of a nurse or medic in a war hospital during the World War era.

Love Amidst War

Envision a tale of romantic love blossoming amidst the bleakness and devastation of war.

Behind Enemy’s Lines

Create a story in which your main character is a spy planted in enemy territory during World War.

Home Away From Home

Imagine you’re an evacuated child in the World War era, living in a stranger’s home away from your parents. Describe your experiences.

Frontline Journal

Step into the shoes of a solider and pen a diary entry chronicling one day at the frontline.

War Among the Stars

Write a tale about celestial beings involved in a cosmic war, where each star represents a different warrior or deity.

The Galactic Refugee Crisis

Write a story about being an alien species forced to flee its planet due to war or ecological disaster and finding refuge in other parts of the Star Wars galaxy.

The Secret Adversaries

Create a tale of two secret societies at war with each other.

Undercover Love

Write about spies from rival nations who inevitably fall in love.

Clash of the Beasts

Pen a dramatic scene where legendary beasts are wielded as weapons in a fantastical war.

Christmas Journey Through Time

Detail an imaginary Christmas journey through different historical periods.

Beneath Cloaks and Daggers

Set in the Cold War era, you are a spy in the competing climate of the space race.

Puzzle of the Enigma Machine

You are a talented cryptologist recruited to decode the decrypted messages from the enemy during World War II.

The Unseen Patriot

Imagine you are a double agent in World War II, working to mislead enemy forces while all along being true to your homeland.

Temporal Space Standoff

Write about a war in which both sides have access to time-travel technology.

Star Soldier’s Diary

Write about a war in a distant galaxy from the perspective of a common soldier stationed at the forefront.

Protocol XAR7002 Breach

Write about a war triggered by breaking a universal peace treaty, known as Protocol XAR7002.

Edges of the Cosmos Conflict

Write about a galactic war fought at the edges of the universe.

Warlock Warrior

In a land torn apart by war, you are a solitary warlock looking for peace amidst the chaos.

Conscripted Coven

You’re part of a reluctant coven of witches drafted to participate in a war you want no part in.

Bewitched Battleground

Imagine a war that can only be ended by a forbidden spell known to a handful of ancient witches.

Last Spell Standing

Journey into a world where the most powerful witches engage in a series of deadly duels to claim the title of the Supreme Sorceress of the war-torn land.

Battle of the Bound

Write a story about a war between witches and humans where the outcome of the war determines the future of magic.

The Child Soldier

Tell the story of a child involuntarily enlisted into a war.

Wartime Letters

Write a series of letters between a soldier at war and his significant other back home.

Strands of Survival

Weave a tale around a civilian woman who is forced to spy in enemy territory during a war.

Whispers of the Battlefield

Craft a narrative about a war medic and his experiences on the battlefield.

Brother Against Brother

Write a story about two siblings who end up fighting on opposing sides in a war.

The Stories They Told

Write a backstory for an artifact from a war museum.

Memories of Valor

Write a narrative from the perspective of a soldier returning from war.

Imagine a scenario where vampires and werewolves establish peace after years of warfare.

Battle for Supremacy

Write about a conflict between vampire and werewolf clans fighting for dominance in a city.

The Mortal Mingle

A vampire falls in love with a human and decides to go against his own kind to protect his love.

In the Eyes of Humans

Write about a vampire detective who is called on to solve a string of mysterious human murders that have all the hallmarks of a vampire attack.

Heroes of Love

Narrate an episode where a soldier does something heroic on Valentine’s Day that is not related to the war but to protect or bring joy to a loved one.

Lofty Valentine

Craft a story about a soldier releasing a Valentine’s Day message via a homing pigeon or balloon in the midst of a war.

Love Amidst The Ruins

Visualize a scenario where two soldiers from opposing sides find common ground on Valentine’s Day.

Valentine’s Day Peace Treaty

Imagine if on Valentine’s Day, warring nations decide to pause and make a temporary peace treaty.

The Soldier’s Letter

Create a fictional letter from a soldier in World War II, writing to his beloved on Valentine’s Day.

Echo of War

Write a story from the perspective of a war veteran experiencing a series of vivid war flashbacks.

Chronicles of the Ancient War

Write about an ancient war that shaped the enmity or alliance between dwarves and elves.

The Forgotten Love Letters

Write a story about someone who discovers an old trunk filled with love letters in their new home’s basement.

Alien Invasion

Describe a story where the earth is under threat from otherworldly creatures.

The Rebellion’s Lifeline: Smugglers and Informants

Write from the perspective of a smuggler turned reluctant hero within the Rebellion.

Living with Fear

Write about a character who battles constant fear in a world dominated by zombies.

Caught in the Crossfire

Write about living in Ireland during the tumultuous times of the Easter Rising or the Irish Civil War.

The Cuban Missile Crisis Reimagined

Create a suspense-filled narrative focused on backroom negotiations during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Space Race Rivalry

Write about the experiences of a scientist working on either the American Apollo or the Soviet Sputnik programs.

Undercover Tales

Craft a story about a spy from the United States or USSR, with their missions, triumphs, and challenging moral decisions.

Defecting Dancers

Imagine you are a renowned ballet dancer in the USSR during the Cold War, struggling with the decision to defect to the West.

Surviving the Super-War

Describe a war-ridden world where superheroes fighting each other have wreaked havoc.

War Amongst Stars

Write about a war fought not on land, but in the infinite depths of space.

Children of Terror

Develop a story where the children of high-ranking terrorists are kidnapped with promises of a better life, but are also used as bargaining chips.

Echoes of War

Write a chilling story about a battlefield haunted by the vengeful spirits of fallen soldiers, seeking retribution against the leaders who waywardly led them to their deaths.

The Inter-Universal War

Imagine a situation wherein our universe engages in warfare with a parallel one.

Sunscreen War

Imagine a world where sunscreen is akin to a precious gem or an invaluable resource, capable of sparking conflicts.

Psychic Soldiers

Pen a tale about a future military organization that employs psychic soldiers capable of deploying both physical and psychic weaponry.

Chaos of the Cipher

Write about a group of spies who find an ancient cipher, unleashing chaos as various nations start the race to decode it.

The Unseen War

Construct a story around a spy who realizes that the very government they’re spying for is the enemy they were sworn to fight against.

Secrets in the Attic

While rummaging through the attic, your character stumbles across a series of letters exchanged between their grandparents during World War II.

Chronicle of a Wartorn Land

Tell the story of a war-torn land and the dramatic events within it.

Star-Crossed in Space

Write a story about two lovers who come from planets at war.

Strengthened in Strife

Narrate a story about a married couple’s relationship strengthening amidst the harsh realities of war.

Last Night at the Bunker

Craft a tale about a couple who find themselves trapped in a war bunker, using this confined place and time to confess their feelings.

Fading Line

Write a story about a love affair between bickering soldiers from enemy sides.

Band of Hope

Write about a love that evolves between the members of a medical team or infirmary during wartime.

Love Letters from the Front

Describe a romantic relationship sustained through letters while one partner is away at war.

Post-War Reflections

Write a letter to Winston Churchill discussing his role in World War II.

Battle of the Magic Guilds

Create a world where magic is organized and controlled by different guilds or societies that are now on the brink of war.

The War of Differences

Write a story about a world split in two – one side supports the AI uprising, the other opposes it.

Letters Home

Write about what goes into a letter from a soldier to their family at home during war.

Unheard Heroes

Share the unsung tale of a nurse, cook, or other noncombat personnel during wartime.

Poppy Diaries

Describe a day in the life of a poppy maker leading up to Remembrance Day.

Honouring the Fallen

Construct a poignant tribute to commemorate those who lost their lives in war.

Voices of Veterans

Write a fictional letter from a war veteran, describing their experiences and emotions.

Post-Apocalyptic North Pole

Imagine a scenario where a global calamity has turned the North Pole into ruins and Santa is trying to restore hope.

The Aftermath

Write about a war veteran’s first day back home after being discharged.

A Child’s Viewpoint

Write a story that encapsulates the war from a child’s eyes.

Defying Orders

Create a story where your main character is a soldier who disobeys an order.

Letters from the Front

Imagine you’re a soldier writing letters home from the front lines.

Tell the tale of a vibrant, thriving city that experiences a devastating cataclysmic event causing its downfall.

Bonds Of Blood And Magic

Narrate a story of two close friends, a knight and a wizard, who are challenged and somewhat fractured by the fierce throes of a revolution.

A Letter From the Trenches

Craft a letter home from the perspective of a World War One soldier.

Machine Overthrow

Imagine a world where artificial intelligence has launched an apocalypse against mankind.

The Droids Among Us

Write about droid rights in the post-war period.

A Jedi’s Role

Ponder on how the Jedi Order fits in the post-war galaxy.

Leia’s Legacy

Imagine post-war life from the perspective of Leia Organa.

The New Republic’s Growing Pains

Write about the political challenges faced by the New Republic after the fall of the Empire.

Diplomatic Disaster

Write about an incident where a human diplomat unintentionally offends an alien race, leading to rising tensions.

The Transformation of Andor

Discuss the potential environmental changes, industrialization effects, and infrastructure growth in the post-empire age.

Hidden Letters from War

Narrate the story of a soldier or a nurse in World War II through a series of letters written to their loved ones.

Empathy Amid Destruction

Write a story about a U.S. soldier who, amid the chaos of Pearl Harbor, forms an unexpected connection with a Japanese soldier.

The Morality of War

Write about your opinion regarding the moral implications of warfare.

Hidden Beneath Battle Cries

Write about a soldier who uses art or music to cope with the horrors of war.

Nurse on Duty

Write about a day in the life of a war nurse, dealing with the casualties of war.

Search for creative inspiration

19,890 quotes, descriptions and writing prompts, 4,964 themes

peace - quotes and descriptions to inspire creative writing

angel of peace
cooperative
Extremist vs Radical
ideological bomb squad
inner peace
international cooperation
lasting peace
peace in heaven
peace negotiator
peace on earth
peace talks
peacemaking
quotes of peace
restoring social peace
the fools paradox
them and us
tranquility
war and peace
world peace

With all the academic foundation of a bouncy castle, our esteemed colleagues offer you a daily dose of blinkered bias. Here at 'Responsible Journalism' we know the difference between peace-making and shit-stirring. If only everyone did.

We can reframe our hero and villain characters as apex nurturer-protector and apex predator respectively. Whether we are looking at Kong vs Godzilla or the character of Dominic Toretto in the "Fast and the Furious" franchise vs any of the villains his team faces, we see the same theme. Humanity is looking to run itself with apex nurturer-protectors rather than apex predators because this is the way to peace and sustainability.

Here at the W.I.N. we show the correct techniques for release of populations from harmful elements of culture and control. Freedom is best! They must break the harmful loops and route the new comprehension via the creative empathy elements of the brain. Thus, the brain is built better and their own problem solving ability is enhanced, thus society moves toward peace! The opposite is what many politicians and conspiracy theorists have done for generations, they seek to either make harmful loops with fear, or break them but route the new comprehension via emotional indifference, anger, greed and such. While this gets fast "results" it causes long term damage to the neurology of the population - thus it tilts the axis of history to social decay, war and devolution. Yikes!! So, come be our students, dear wordsmith of talent. We are the best there is.

To expect external peace whilst the masses are prohibited from internal peace by the money-nexus is an exercise in futility.

As we watched Cuban doctors land in Italy, to help in their time of need, we were reminded what strong alliances the world may create when we show love to one another.

Our neuro-lingual chaos theory can be summarised thus. To restore order to the world it is essential to stablise lore via the reemergence of love, truth, logic and self control via role modelling. Here the activation energies required to rebuild the prefrontal cortex are lowered and those required for negative acts that boost the primitive centres are raised. Thus the lore of society is similar to an enzyme in biological systems, it is a catalyst for change in either direction. Free will still exists as it did before, the change is that people are boosted in their ability to make good loving choices that enhance positive chaos - in this way we neutralise negative chaos to bring a robust kind of order that is flexible, lasting and enhances human creativity and intelligence. The study of chaos theory and lore offers an exciting future for humanity, one that will eventually lead to a reduced need for law and the kind of rigid approach that ignites negative chaos pathways. People evolved to prefer making choices with a sense of freedom and choosing chiefs they believe in as wise people and this must be respected otherwise the energies will again lead toward negative chaos. For the restabilisation of society the ideas that are based in love and truth offer a real sense of safety. Be careful with amygdala jacking, use it as salt on a dish as needed. Those in the grip of negative chaos are as worried sheep and often times a careful bark at the right moment can get them "home" safe and sound. Keep in your thoughts the effects of role modelling on lowering activation energies for actions, word connections and the triggering of brain chemistry/subunits (including all their puns and subunit phonetic cousins). This is the unity of all subjects of human study, this area of social evolution requires them all. Practitioners must be well schooled in philosophy too, to be able to see concepts beneath words and endure that the supreme first principle at play is always love.

The truth is, you can only identify your friends by the content of their character, by how they love and seek to see the world through the perspectives of the oppressed, poor and hungry. Your friends can have any ethnicity and be from any economic class. So tune out the speech of hate and tune in the stories of tyranny and violence - then follow the development of trauma populations and see them through the lens of compassion. We are born to thrive together as one species and to both listen and see through our hearts. We do not inherit the sins of our fathers, but if we have inherited privilege then it is our duty to help others and remove power dynamics. I am only free when we all are. I only have peace internally and externally when we all do.

Let's shift our idea of what chaos is, because it shifts how we relate to freedom. For when we do this the arguments of libertarian vs authoritarian fall mute. It is obvious, or should be, that a complex global society needs people with great organisational skills who are deeply humanitarian and committed to fairness and peace to take positions of service. Thus, the greater the ability the deeper the service role they can volunteer for or be asked to consider. This performs the tasks of government without any notion of power, for their only right to perform the task comes from the trust the community places in them. Thus, when we have an improved form of democracy of deeply empathic and analytical intellectuals to service institutes there is real freedom for all. We have all the structures available to thrive and be organised, yet everyone is free to choose their own path in the system, everyone with good food and shelter as a right rather than as a thing to "earn." This is compatible with modern brain science, for when we are free of need our brains become capable of being part of a socially complex society with self control and desiring to follow a passion, to develop the self as an individual and work for the benefit of others. Thus, this is chaos organised so intelligently that the order comes from the best parts of our human nature. In a good environment we are all good, not from external force but internal emotions and needs - that's when we have a lasting peace and thriving planet. If we imagine what we have now as a triangle, the most powerful at the top and the least at the bottom; this is flipping it over to have most service at the bottom and most vulnerable at the top. And this is done alongside making resource allocation both fair and separate from this system of service roles. We can still have a Queen, her role is to serve and protect, the same comes of other roles - true service, wise "chiefs" without ego, noble and self-sacrificing - real heroes.

Long ago, Europe was ruled by psychopathic monarchs and upper classes who brutalised and subdued the population. They murdered and killed with impunity in the name of the law and tax collection. The majority, the peasants, were ruled by fear. Later these same kings took legions of their subjugated populations, these broken people, and made them into armies that did the same thing to other nations - killed until the fear kept them controlled, then the law and taxes were applied to lock-in the same power-dominance model that had worked so well in Europe. Thus, the politico economic system that has centralised resources while others starve, that leaves the industrialised nations so baffled as they send "aid" to the stricken countries, isn't faulty - it was bad by design. It was designed by a psychopathic regime to bring control by brute force and keep it by fear - the education system being a critical part of it. Today, the peoples of the industrialised countries want system change. They want a fair world where everyone gets to eat. The ordinary people always wanted peace and barely any of them ever even glimpsed truth through the propaganda and pomp. The answer to all of this is in all of our world faiths, it is the answer of love and cooperation instead of money and dominance. We need systems designed by the open hearted, and that's almost everyone in every nation. It's time to start over and make the peace we all need.

To promote peace, to prevent war, to bring societal health, we must reverse the artificial shortages of essential resources around the world. Food suppression must end, the technological advances that can bring an age of abundance must be developed for the benefit of the entire species in the spirit of cooperation and love.

"The intention to be loving and kind is what makes things work, emotional indifference always leads to bad places. And the brain trauma caused by not feeling loved in childhood leads to those fragile egos that seek power instead of to nurture and be compassionate to others. That same damage leads people to racism/sexism/religious tension because they seek a position that entitles them to a better sense of self, to gain an unearned sense of pride to dull the pain of feeling unloved. And so the solution to that tight circle of harm is to love the mother who can then love the child, and always to support fathers too. That's the road to a peaceful world and one we all need to embrace."

Whom we love, we must be prepared to protect; though I am not muslim, I love my muslim brothers and sisters in the same way I love all of humanity and I accept the responsibilities that love brings.

We solved war when we saw the simple flaws in our thinking. We thought religious tension was the cause and war, the spending on weapons, was a symptom, or result, of that tension. In reality, the war, the spending on weapons, the desire for power and money was the cause... and religious tension was the symptom. A doctor can never cure a patient if he is trying to fix a symptom, the patient will only become well after the cause is discovered. To find peace, to cure war, you must first properly diagnose the cause - money and power. So, soldiers of peace, ignore everything else except the trail of money and the power dynamics, because then solutions will become obvious. These solutions will require new and creative thoughts and ways of being loving and kind, for the only way out of a tangled mess is a new thread, be brave enough to follow it into a new and better world.

In those days of the slow burning war, the one waged on all of humanity, they sought to overrun our emotional drivers with stories that tugged at the heart strings and yet also invoked fear. The heart was their hook and the fear was the line tied to a concrete weight. Our response was simple yet effective, "Focus only on the money trail, follow it as a faithful dog," and it led us to those who were the evil puppeteers, the demons of the death and carnage we see around the globe among all of our international kin. In truth, there is only good, noble dark and evil... and in the end, that was the real fight, one without any frontiers. The good and the noble dark were everywhere, so were the evil, but the evil were perhaps four percent of the global population, so... once we got that straight, with a united "good" and "noble dark" we saw friends everywhere and peace was a slam dunk.

We weren't going to get peace without some effort, there was work to be done. Gideon stood for the first time in so long, yet his resolve was absolute, "It is time for the rescue mission of the hungry and abandoned to begin. So let the children born of hero heart be the champions of the weary, let them take their strength and lift up the broken, for they are the ones who would lay down life and limb to do what is right. So take your army and give them the right to use the arms God gave them for what they are for, for love, for helping, for kindness and peace. For God loves the brave soul, the noble spirit and the one who protects. That's what love means and that is our faith."

Social health took a big jump when the cross-over advocacy groups began... groups of men dedicated to the health of women, groups of women dedicated to the health of men, faith groups supported or defended each other rather than themselves. It was when the rich formed groups dedicated to helping the poor, when the adults formed groups to promote play and sport for children. It was when the childless formed groups to support new parents and ensure their needs were met. It was a time when people learned anew how good it feels to support others instead of campaigning for the self. It brought feels of protectiveness and experience as a noble defender rather than exaggerating feelings of struggle and isolation - people started to feel loved and valued... it changed everything.

Peace came when we learnt that to give is to receive, that love will always show the way to something stable and beautiful. It came when the rich areas built the most amazing housing structures in the poorest areas, installed aquaponics with state of the art renewable energy technology to maintain them. It came when those traumatized populations had a chance to breathe and heal, to regain their culture and rebuild their families. We gave them the material things they needed, yet what we received was so much more - peace.

When did "brothers in arms" stop meaning a loving embrace? When did the value of an animal or plant become a monetary amount? If life isn't sacred, aren't we all scared underneath? I know I am. Yet we are all human, all born to love; so let's wage love on the world with the only arms God meant us to have. To me that's a holy war - open hearts, open minds and all the help we can give the needy. For a fraction of the cost of war we can end hunger, isn't that a good place to start? For when we bring the love that lives within us out into the world, we will know peace.

I believe that the marriage of two concepts has the roots of peace. The first is that debate is verbal war, that active listening and seeking to learn and understand is the way forward. The second is to know that concept is master and that language is only a crude tool of thought. If you look at a tree, a penguin or another human being and take all words for that organism from your mind and say "This is a ..." and let no word come, the result is amazing. We learn in that fraction of a second how much we don't know and the result is awe, like a baby. If we bring these two concepts together, to actively listen and to understand concepts - to know that words are just the way we explain our deep feelings and ideas - then we have a real chance of peace.

Peace is more that the absence of war. We leaned that after the troubles had ended. We learned that to live with love is the only way to achieve true peace. When all of your actions are guided by a love that is not tainted with self-serving motives and does not cause harm, you will find the nirvana your soul craves. We learned to accept our responsibilities for each other and to the living earth with gladness in our hearts. We no longer follow any religious scripture, but we call this love "God," because that is what we have come to believe. Love is God and He is love. It's so simple but when we were in ashes it lead us to salvation.

Peace cannot be achieved in a system where there are people who make profits on war.

Authored by Unknown , here .

The world needs less brothers in "arms" and more brothers in arms.

"We look forward to the time when the Power of Love will replace the Love of Power. Then will our world know the blessings of peace."

William Ewart Gladstone .

In the eyes of the gazelle is an essence of peace and tranquility, a form of emotional key that is there for the tuning into.

Getting too caught up in mythology of any faith will lead to a kind of gaslighting and cognitive dissonance - hence the fighting between faith groups. It is better to see the concepts that are woven into them and seek an answer more compatible with logic and science. For these concepts do weave together and from this process there is much progress available to the human psychology and infinite avenues for peace.

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Blog Writing about peace: 6 stories for International Peace Day 2020

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September 21 2020

Writing about peace: 6 stories for International Peace Day 2020

A rainbow-coloured flag bearing the word PEACE and a peace sign is carried in a crowd of people

We’ve been writing about peace since Lacuna’s launch more than five years ago, asking what peace means to people in different circumstances and whether organisations who claim to be peace-building are really doing enough.

For International Peace Day 2020, we’ve collected six stories that offer different perspectives on peace and on the best ways to secure it, from individual campaigns to an assessment of the peace building strategies of Nobel Peace Prize-winner the European Union.

Main image by Alice Donovan Rouse .

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Friar Lawrence in the Balkans

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What has the EU ever done for us? Peace

Just before the Brexit referendum our editor-in-chief took a look at the EU's history and record of peace, asking whether its Nobel Peace Prize win was warranted

Nitin Sonawane on his four-year peace walk around the world inspired by Gandhi

Meet the man inspired by Gandhi to walk around the world

Marking 150 years since the birth of Gandhi, and in tribute to his nonviolent resistance, a man set off to travel country-by-country by foot or bicycle

Why are we giving up on girls’ education in Afghanistan?

In Afghanistan, the education of girls is crucial to peace building. Heather Barr of Human Rights Watch asks, why then, is the number of girls going to school falling?

A century of war and peace in Lebanon

Marina Chamma reports on the history of her home nation, the lives that continue and flourish there, and the optimism that vies with pessimism in the face of repeated violence

Wheel Stop Trident: how cycling against nuclear weapons became part of my activist journey

Inspired by bicycle puns and a conviction that the UK should not have nuclear weapons, a group of friends set up the protest collective Wheel Stop Trident

Mary Griffin

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7 Tips For Writing Realistic War Stories (UPDATED 2024)

by Writer's Relief Staff | Inspiration And Encouragement For Writers , Nonfiction Books , Other Helpful Information , The Writing Life | 15 comments

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Both fiction and memoir writing have endeavored to make sense of (or even see the senselessness of) violent conflict. But writing about war can be tricky: Some readers might be sensitive about graphic depictions of war and violence; others may have a hard time understanding what’s happening if you don’t go into detail. Here’s how to write battle scenes that are accurate and effective.

Important Tips For Writing About War

Consider whether certain violent elements need to be included. Graphic, explicit scenes can become offensive when they’re overdone or unnecessary. Of course, you may be going for “offensive” in order to make a point about your subject, but violence that’s heavy on detail needs to have a point. The key is to be aware of your choices and why you’re making them.

Use a panoramic lens. Capture the vastness of a battle by showing us a wide view of the action. Allow your narrator a moment to look around at what’s going on so that your reader can also see what’s happening. However, remember that “epic” doesn’t necessarily mean emotionally engaging. If not handled properly, big battles can feel impersonal and lead to “action fatigue.”

Focus on the details. Whether you’re writing about the trenches of World War I or the Time-Space Wars of the Zygine Galaxy, pay attention to the little details of everyday life. Sometimes, the familiar smell of coffee and a campfire can be more emotionally powerful than the less familiar smell of a lit cannon fuse.

If your violence is comic, be cautious of subtext. Some people may laugh; others might be offended. If you need to make a choice about your character’s actions that happens to align with stereotypes of violence, make sure you do so with caution.

Understand your characters . Whether you’re writing about a perpetrator of violence or a victim, dig deep within your own personal capacity for empathy to tease out elements that will make all of your characters human, relatable, and real—even the villains. You might not respect your antagonist’s decisions, but by understanding them, you’ll bring depth and emotion to your work.

Get it right. If you’re writing historical fiction or even memoir, check (and recheck!) your facts. Confirm that your details are accurate. By spending the extra time and doing the research , you’ll have a story that resonates with authenticity and powerful details—especially if you’re writing military fiction .

Avoid clichés. While every genre has its tropes, be aware of choices that lead to scenes that are overly familiar. Falling back on clichés is sometimes the easy way out. If you find yourself writing a familiar battle scene (one soldier dragging another to safety, or one person dying in another’s arms), be sure to mix up the action with your own unique perspective.

When In Doubt, Read Military Memoirs And Fiction

If you’re not sure your battles have a realistic edge, read other books in the genre. Reading is one of the best ways to improve your writing, regardless of your topic.

When you’ve finished reading military memoirs and fiction, why not try to get published alongside them? The research experts at Writer’s Relief will help you pinpoint the best markets and boost your odds of getting an acceptance. Learn more about our services and submit your work to our Review Board today!

Whether you want to take the traditional publishing route or prefer to self-publish , we can help. Give us a call, and we will point you in the right direction!

15 Comments

In response to your question, “What do you think one of the things many battle/war scenes get wrong is?” I would like to say it is the disconnection/connections between two common enemies. Many solders do not even know the real reason they are fighting. Many American solders have gone to battle under the false premise of spreading Democracy. Our enemy fight for what they believe to be the opposing cause. Yet, when the war is believed to be over, a new bicultural atmosphere has almost always been established. That is because, as humans, we all have more in common than not.

To Mr. JL Gibson: I loved your comment. I don’t imagine that many of us think of what the other guy is fighting for. I have no plans to write a novel about war, but I still believe that this article and your comment could be used for any other type of story. We all have our battles to fight whether it be for love, wealth, a job promotion, or even our own simple way of life. Thank you for the insight.

I’m writing a war story and this has been helpful.

I’m also writing my first war book too. My book is called Ghost Squad, the war I’m researching is very hard trying to put all pieces of information together so that the war itself is real, but my characters, operation groups, and seans are made up of this book. I’m worried if my information of this war would have false information in my novel. I’m still writing and researching, but so far my book is looking pretty good. If you guys have any tips for me that would be helpful.

This is some really good information about writing good war stories. My sister wants to be an author and she loves historical fiction. I liked your advice about getting it right and doing research about the time period. It does seem like a good idea to try reading some memoirs of actual soldiers.

I’m going to write a battilistic war book. It’s not an American war. Another countries war. A central american one. This has been helpful.

I’m writing a fictional war story, meant to focus upon the ascension of a Battalion Commander, to the ranking of General. One issue I’m having is the rankings themselves. While I can hide behind the excuse that this is a fictional war, with a fictional military that could have fictional ranking orders, I still would like to know what the actual officer ranking order is like. Google isn’t very helpful, could somebody please point me to an explicit explanation of military officer ranking ? I would greatly appreciate it, thank you! I eagerly await your reply.

Vincent, the ranks for officers are easy to find. They are: 2nd Lieutenant, 1st Lieutenant, Captain, Major, Lieutenant Colonel, Colonel, Brigadier General, Major General, Lieutenant General, and General.

Thank you , I am a struggling writer who will indeed benefit from this

Thank you for the help! I am writing a book that has many military scenes. I appreciate this a bunch!

Read books written by veterans

Definitely read books by veterans. And if you are writing a book about the military, it would be extremely helpful to have a veteran as a beta reader. Lee Childs doesn’t write military, but his main character, Jack Reacher, is an ex soldier – however he has so many military fact incorrect it sometimes drives me crazy. One of his main problems is that the author is British, and the character is American. In the British Army, I guess, the enlisted shine the officer’s boots and do their laundry; this is absolutely not what happens in the US Army. Also, his premise that the military police are better trained in weapons and hand to hand so they can subdue elite Rangers and green berets when necessary is crazy.

The government actually has many good primary resources in this area. I recently took over a blog written by a librarian that highlights government sources to help authors with realism in their fiction. I am still in the process of transferring, editing, and updating the older entries (which has been fascinating), but it has several military history posts:

https://fictionwritersguidetogovernmentinformation.wordpress.com/

Hope this is helpful!

Hi. I´m terrible when it comes to battle strategy. I just have my characters with the planned development, dynamics, relationships and often – fitting deaths. I have the moral questions. I have the magical system. I somehow just make the war fit my needs… Which is extremely frustrating! I have to think of stuff to fill plot holes and all the strategies don’t add up! It’s like a patchwork – a beautiful piece of art (an emotional moment, a character death, a release of a magical power) is hanging on some weak shit.

Please send help. I always get stuck on the tactics. How to master it? Or how to write smart and compelling fantasy stories without it? Even if it’s not fantasy, I have the feeling that without all these scheming and mind games my stories sound boring.

Look at what you did in the first paragraph. You have already arrived at most of the story, since story is about character and relationships. The action that arises from the characters, i.e., what each character does, moves along the plot, defines character, and produces story theme and meaning. Then, think of your story within the context of a particular moment in the war. For example, “Platoon” selected a section of a company to go on patrol in the Vietnam jungle, night and day, to tell the story of young American foot soldiers and particularly, the growth of one particular named Taylor. How does the war fit into the story? The war, or a particular aspect of the war necessary to the story is selected and used as a container to hold the entire story about Taylor.

Take a look at another war story, “The Deer Hunter”. This is the story about Russian-American steelworker friends who go off to Vietnam as foot soldiers. Each one is altered. Therefore, the writer must have planned particular moments in the war to highlight the exigencies of each character as such character encounters life-challenging and possibly, life-changing conflicts that determine what we must notice about the character.

Please don’t allow the loud and epic nature of war to scare you into giving up. Writing about war is no different than writing about a city, or school, or people on a cruise liner. The fact remains that all of those are contexts or backdrops to your story, which should always be about the human condition, i.e., our thwarted desires that lead us to the truth and beauty of realization and/or learning, if we (the characters) accept the challenging lessons, or losing, if we reject, as the author intends to depict.

Finally, a war is always about one side against the other, with a line drawn in the sand. Such could be visible or invisible. Find your war, select a context and people that context with who would be necessary for the particular story. My war story challenge tonight is to tell a story about particular soldiers on the frontline of WWI, but not across the entire several hundred miles of trenches. I selected one small area that produces the particular challenges of that area, which I feel excited about depicting., and how that place set up significant pressure on the characters to think and behave in certain ways that I believe to be necessary for telling the reader/viewer about our mysterious human condition — perhaps, even deepening the mystery.

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Essays About War: Top 5 Examples and 5 Prompts

War is atrocious and there is an almost universal rule that we should be prevented; if you are writing essays about war, read our helpful guide.

Throughout history, war has driven human progress. It has led to the dissolution of oppressive regimes and the founding of new democratic countries. There is no doubt that the world would not be as it is without the many wars waged in the past.

War is waged to achieve a nation or organization’s goals, but what is the actual cost of progress? War has taken, and continues to take, countless lives. It is and is very costly in terms of resources as well. From the American Revolution to World Wars I and II to the Crusades and Hundred Years’ War of antiquity, wars throughout history have been bloody, brutal, and disastrous.

If you are writing essays about war, look at our top essay examples below.

1. War Is Not Part of Human Nature by R. Brian Ferguson

2. essay on war and peace (author unknown), 3. the impacts of war on global health by sarah moore.

4. The Psychosocial Impacts of War and Armed Conflict on Children by Iman Farajallah, Omar Reda, H. Steven Moffic, John R. Peteet, and Ahmed Hankir

5. Is war a pre-requisite for peace? by Anna Cleary

5 prompts for essays about war, 1. is war justified, 2. why do countries go to war, 3. the effects of war, 4. moral and ethical issues concerning war, 5. reflecting on a historical war.

“Debate over war and human nature will not soon be resolved. The idea that intensive, high-casualty violence was ubiquitous throughout prehistory has many backers. It has cultural resonance for those who are sure that we as a species naturally tilt toward war. As my mother would say: “Just look at history!” But doves have the upper hand when all the evidence is considered. Broadly, early finds provide little if any evidence suggesting war was a fact of life.”

Ferguson disputes the popular belief that war is inherent to human nature, as evidenced by archaeological discoveries. Many archaeologists use the very same evidence to support the opposing view. Evidence reveals many instances where war was waged, but not fought. In the minds of Ferguson and many others, humanity may be predisposed to conflict and violence, but not war, as many believe.

“It also appears that if peace were to continue for a long period, people would become sick of the monotony of life and would seek war for a changed man is a highly dynamic creature and it seems that he cannot remain contented merely with works of peace-the cultivation of arts, the development of material comforts, the extension of knowledge, the means and appliances of a happy life.”

This essay provides an interesting perspective on war; other than the typical motivations for war, such as the desire to achieve one’s goals; the author writes that war disrupts the monotony of peace and gives participants a sense of excitement and uncertainty. In addition, it instills the spirit of heroism and bravery in people. However, the author does not dispute that war is evil and should be avoided as much as possible.

“War forces people to flee their homes in search of safety, with the latest figures from the UN estimating that around 70 million people are currently displaced due to war. This displacement can be incredibly detrimental to health, with no safe and consistent place to sleep, wash, and shelter from the elements. It also removes a regular source of food and proper nutrition. As well as impacting physical health, war adversely affects the mental health of both those actively involved in conflict and civilians.”

Moore discusses the side effects that war has on civilians. For example, it diverts resources used on poverty alleviation and infrastructure towards fighting. It also displaces civilians when their homes are destroyed, reduces access to food, water, and sanitation, and can significantly impact mental health, among many other effects.

4. The Psychosocial Impacts of War and Armed Conflict on Children by Iman Farajallah, Omar Reda, H. Steven Moffic, John R. Peteet, and Ahmed Hankir

“The damage done by war-related trauma can never be undone. We can, however, help reduce its long-term impacts, which can span generations. When we reach within ourselves to discover our humanity, it allows us to reach out to the innocent children and remind them of their resilience and beauty. Trauma can make or break us as individuals, families, and communities.”

In their essay, the authors explain how war can affect children. Children living in war-torn areas expectedly witness a lot of violence, including the killings of their loved ones. This may lead to the inability to sleep properly, difficulty performing daily functions, and a speech impediment. The authors write that trauma cannot be undone and can ruin a child’s life.

“The sociologist Charles Tilly has argued that war and the nation state are inextricably linked. War has been crucial for the formation of the nation state, and remains crucial for its continuation. Anthony Giddens similarly views a link between the internal pacification of states and their external violence. It may be that, if we want a durable peace, a peace built on something other than war, we need to consider how to construct societies based on something other than the nation state and its monopoly of violence.”

This essay discusses the irony that war is waged to achieve peace. Many justify war and believe it is inevitable, as the world seems to balance out an era of peace with another war. However, others advocate for total pacifism. Even in relatively peaceful times, organizations and countries have been carrying out “shadow wars” or engaging in conflict without necessarily going into outright war. Cleary cites arguments made that for peace to indeed exist by itself, societies must not be built on the war in the first place.

Many believe that war is justified by providing a means to peace and prosperity. Do you agree with this statement? If so, to what extent? What would you consider “too much” for war to be unjustified? In your essay, respond to these questions and reflect on the nature and morality of war.

Wars throughout history have been waged for various reasons, including geographical domination, and disagreement over cultural and religious beliefs. In your essay, discuss some of the reasons different countries go to war, you can look into the belief systems that cause disagreements, oppression of people, and leaders’ desire to conquer geographical land. For an interesting essay, look to history and the reasons why major wars such as WWI and WWII occurred.

In this essay, you can write about war’s effects on participating countries. You can focus on the impact of war on specific sectors, such as healthcare or the economy. In your mind, do they outweigh the benefits? Discuss the positive and negative effects of war in your essay. To create an argumentative essay, you can pick a stance if you are for or against war. Then, argue your case and show how its effects are positive, negative, or both.

Many issues arise when waging war, such as the treatment of civilians as “collateral damage,” keeping secrets from the public, and torturing prisoners. For your essay, choose an issue that may arise when fighting a war and determine whether or not it is genuinely “unforgivable” or “unacceptable.” Are there instances where it is justified? Be sure to examples where this issue has arisen before.

Humans have fought countless wars throughout history. Choose one significant war and briefly explain its causes, major events, and effects. Conduct thorough research into the period of war and the political, social, and economic effects occurred. Discuss these points for a compelling cause and effect essay.

For help with this topic, read our guide explaining “what is persuasive writing ?”If you still need help, our guide to grammar and punctuation explains more.

Martin is an avid writer specializing in editing and proofreading. He also enjoys literary analysis and writing about food and travel.

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Guest Essay

J.D. Vance: The Math on Ukraine Doesn’t Add Up

A photograph of a large stack of tube-shaped artillery shells, stretching out of the frame in every direction.

By J. D. Vance

Mr. Vance, a Republican, is the junior senator from Ohio.

President Biden wants the world to believe that the biggest obstacle facing Ukraine is Republicans and our lack of commitment to the global community. This is wrong.

Ukraine’s challenge is not the G.O.P.; it’s math. Ukraine needs more soldiers than it can field, even with draconian conscription policies. And it needs more matériel than the United States can provide. This reality must inform any future Ukraine policy, from further congressional aid to the diplomatic course set by the president.

The Biden administration has applied increasing pressure on Republicans to pass a supplemental aid package of more than $60 billion to Ukraine. I voted against this package in the Senate and remain opposed to virtually any proposal for the United States to continue funding this war. Mr. Biden has failed to articulate even basic facts about what Ukraine needs and how this aid will change the reality on the ground.

The most fundamental question: How much does Ukraine need and how much can we actually provide? Mr. Biden suggests that a $60 billion supplemental means the difference between victory and defeat in a major war between Russia and Ukraine. That is also wrong. This $60 billion is a fraction of what it would take to turn the tide in Ukraine’s favor. But this is not just a matter of dollars. Fundamentally, we lack the capacity to manufacture the amount of weapons Ukraine needs us to supply to win the war.

Consider our ability to produce 155-millimeter artillery shells. Last year, Ukraine’s defense minister estimated that the country’s base-line requirement for these shells was over four million per year but that it could fire up to seven million if that many were available. Since the start of the conflict, the United States has gone to great lengths to ramp up production of 155-millimeter shells. We’ve roughly doubled our capacity and can now produce 360,000 per year — less than a tenth of what Ukraine says it needs. The administration’s goal is to get this to 1.2 million — 30 percent of what’s needed — by the end of 2025. This would cost the American taxpayers dearly while yielding an unpleasantly familiar result: failure abroad.

Just this week, the top American military commander in Europe argued that absent further security assistance, Russia could soon have a 10-to-1 artillery advantage over Ukraine. What didn’t gather as many headlines is that Russia’s current advantage is at least 5 to 1, even after all the money we have poured into the conflict. Neither of these ratios plausibly leads to Ukrainian victory.

Proponents of American aid to Ukraine have argued that our approach has been a boon to our own economy, creating jobs here in the factories that manufacture weapons. But our national security interests can be — and often are — separate from our economic interests. The notion that we should prolong a bloody and gruesome war because it’s been good for American business is grotesque. We can and should rebuild our industrial base without shipping its products to a foreign conflict.

The story is the same when we look at other munitions. Take the Patriot missile system — our premier air defense weapon. It’s of such importance in this war that Ukraine’s foreign minister has specifically demanded them. That’s because in March alone, Russia reportedly launched over 3,000 guided aerial bombs, 600 drones and 400 missiles at Ukraine. To fend off these attacks, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, and others have indicated they need thousands of Patriot interceptors per year. The problem is this: The United States only manufactures 550 per year. If we pass the supplemental aid package currently being considered in Congress, we could potentially increase annual production to 650, but that’s still less than a third of what Ukraine requires.

These weapons are not only needed by Ukraine. If China were to set its sights on Taiwan, the Patriot missile system would be critical to its defense. In fact, the United States has promised to send Taiwan nearly $900 million worth of Patriot missiles, but delivery of those weapons and other essential resources has been severely delayed, partly because of shortages caused by the war in Ukraine.

If that sounds bad, Ukraine’s manpower situation is even worse. Here are the basics: Russia has nearly four times the population of Ukraine. Ukraine needs upward of half a million new recruits, but hundreds of thousands of fighting-age men have already fled the country. The average Ukrainian soldier is roughly 43 years old , and many soldiers have already served two years at the front with few, if any, opportunities to stop fighting. After two years of conflict, there are some villages with almost no men left. The Ukrainian military has resorted to coercing men into service, and women have staged protests to demand the return of their husbands and fathers after long years of service at the front. This newspaper reported one instance in which the Ukrainian military attempted to conscript a man with a diagnosed mental disability.

Many in Washington seem to think that hundreds of thousands of young Ukrainians have gone to war with a song in their heart and are happy to label any thought to the contrary Russian propaganda. But major newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic are reporting that the situation on the ground in Ukraine is grim.

These basic mathematical realities were true, but contestable, at the outset of the war. They were obvious and incontestable a year ago, when American leadership worked closely with Mr. Zelensky to undertake a disastrous counteroffensive. The bad news is that accepting brute reality would have been most useful last spring, before the Ukrainians launched that extremely costly and unsuccessful military campaign. The good news is that even now, a defensive strategy can work. Digging in with old-fashioned ditches, cement and land mines are what enabled Russia to weather Ukraine’s 2023 counteroffensive. Our allies in Europe could better support such a strategy, as well. While some European countries have provided considerable resources, the burden of military support has thus far fallen heaviest on the United States.

By committing to a defensive strategy, Ukraine can preserve its precious military manpower, stop the bleeding and provide time for negotiations to commence. But this would require both the American and Ukrainian leadership to accept that Mr. Zelensky’s stated goal for the war — a return to 1991 boundaries — is fantastical.

The White House has said time and again that it can’t negotiate with President Vladimir Putin of Russia. This is absurd. The Biden administration has no viable plan for the Ukrainians to win this war. The sooner Americans confront this truth, the sooner we can fix this mess and broker for peace.

J.D. Vance ( @JDVance1 ), a Republican, is the junior senator from Ohio.

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Illustrations for Poems for Peace and Conflict Transformation
War and Peace Essay
War and Peace Drawing
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WAR & PEACE Poster
Greatest Artworks that Documented War and Called for Peace

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Writing War and Peace #education #diy
War Book Q&A with Tom Harper and Jack Thorne
Insurgent Feminisms 5: In Love and War: Collective Memory and the Self
Insurgent Feminisms 1: Unlearning War in the Classroom
"War Minus Shooting"-The Sporting Spirit-George Orwell l BSc AG Comprehension & Communication Skills
Insurgent Feminisms 3: Wounds of War: On Health and Healing

COMMENTS

Examining the Themes of War And Peace
Written by Leo Tolstoy and published between 1865 and 1869, War and Peace is one of the greatest works of world literature. Similar to One Hundred Years of Solitude, War and Peace is a generational epic focusing on the lives of several families. Set in Russia during the 19th century, the narrative entwines real-life historical events with the romances and tribulations of fictional characters.
1001 Writing Prompts About Peace
Write a short story in the world you've created to explain how the world stays at peace. Write about a time when you made someone feel better in the wake of a disaster or tragedy. You must create a sign that will, in a single glance, inspire the people to live in harmony. Imagine a world where everyone was peaceful.
War and Peace
War and Peace is a historical novel by Leo Tolstoy first published serially in 1865-69. It depicts relationships between the Rostov, Bolkonsky, Bezukhov, and Kuragin families and follows their members as they fight in a war against Napoleon, marry, make and lose fortunes, and die over the course of about a decade.
A Week's Worth of Journaling Prompts: War and Peace
This week's journal writing prompts help us explore our beliefs and attitudes about human nature as it relates to war and peace: Freewrite for ten minutes about human nature and violence. -. Think about the polarization of political attitudes and the hatred spouted by media celebrities on all sides. Then read and write a response to the ...
Leo Tolstoy's 'War and Peace' Book Review
But finding out what kind of writing appeals to you is all part and parcel of navigating an epic novel as a student of English. The book opens midway through a conversation, casually welcoming the reader into the book as though into Anna Pavlovna's party reception. We become a guest, an actor compliant with the creation of Tolstoy's narrative.
22 Fascinating Facts About 'War and Peace'
1. War and Peace wasn't the novel's original title. The first installment of Tolstoy's work—"The Year 1805"—appeared in the journal Russian Messenger in February 1865. Serializing a ...
War and Peace Essays and Criticism
David Kelly is an instructor of Creative Writing and Literature at College of Lake County and Oakton Community College in Illinois. ... In a way writing about War and Peace is a self-defeating ...
Visualising War and Peace: six different ways
The stories we tell shape the world around us. How narratives throughout time have shaped war and conflict are central ideas of Visualising War and Peace research projects by Dr Alice König of the School of Classics.Founded in 2018, based on König's research on ancient military treatises and intertextuality, its early work focused on the continuity and legacy of ancient war narratives ...
War and Peace: Mini Essays
War and Peace is a historical novel. Tolstoy made great efforts to ensure the accuracy of his facts and dates, and the characters of Tsar Alexander I, Napoleon, Speranski, and other dignitaries generally respect historical factuality. Yet almost all the important and interesting characters in the novel are fictional.
Contemporary Writing on War and Conflict
Contemporary Writing on War and Conflict. This project examines the contemporary war experience as reflected by writers, poets, journalists and bloggers, and interrogate how we write about war and conflict today in contrast to the writing that was written on WW1. Thought pieces from leading contemporary UK writers are a starting point for ...
Workshops: Voices of the First World War: creative writing, conflict
Local writer Fiona Joseph and poets Garrie Fletcher and Antony Owen led creative writing workshops which used archive material about the First World War to inspire the writing. The event was held in partnership with Writing West Midlands and the Birmingham Literature Festival. ... Voices of War and Peace: The Great War and its legacy 1916 by ...
World Peace Essay: Prompts, How-to Guide, & 200+ Topics
In this article, our custom writing team will discuss how to write an essay on world peace quickly and effectively. To inspire you even more, we have prepared writing prompts and topics that can come in handy. Contents. ️ 200 Essay Topics on World Peace. 🌎 Pacifism.
28 Writing Prompts About War
Writing Prompts About War. In the throes of World War II, a soldier writes letters to his beloved. Fifty years later, a young woman stumbles upon these letters in an old trunk and feels an irresistible urge to respond, attempting to heal old wounds and bridge the chasm of time. What messages does she pen, and what mysteries unfold as she delves ...
Chapter 7: Creating War (and Peace)
Creating War. The fossil evidence we have for violence and war is inconclusive. Researchers are unable to determine if broken bones in fossils from 500,000 years ago were due to people accidentally falling off a cliff or from acts of violence. This is due to the fact that weapons at the time were unaltered rocks and sticks, so marks on the ...
Authenticity: Writing about War and Peace
By Christopher McIlroy Speak Peace: American Voices Respond to Vietnamese Children is an international, collaborative traveling art exhibit out of Kent State featuring paintings by Vietnamese children and American responses in the form of poetry. The Poetry Center exhibited this work in September 2011.I have no specific qualifications to address authenticity in writing as it relates to war, so ...
274+ 'War' Writing Prompts
274+ 'War' Writing Prompts. Surviving World Wars. Analyze the role Guinness played during World War I and II. Explore This Prompt Further → ... Write about a war triggered by breaking a universal peace treaty, known as Protocol XAR7002. Explore This Prompt Further → ...
Peace
If we bring these two concepts together, to actively listen and to understand concepts - to know that words are just the way we explain our deep feelings and ideas - then we have a real chance of peace. By Angela Abraham, @daisydescriptionari, September 3, 2016 . Peace is more that the absence of war.
Writing about peace: 6 stories for International Peace Day 2020
For International Peace Day 2020, we've collected six stories that offer different perspectives on peace and on the best ways to secure it, from individual campaigns to an assessment of the peace building strategies of Nobel Peace Prize-winner the European Union. Main image by Alice Donovan Rouse. Friar Lawrence in the Balkans.
7 Tips For Writing Realistic War Stories (UPDATED 2024)
Updated April 2023. Both fiction and memoir writing have endeavored to make sense of (or even see the senselessness of) violent conflict. But writing about war can be tricky: Some readers might be sensitive about graphic depictions of war and violence; others may have a hard time understanding what's happening if you don't go into detail. Here's how to write battle scenes that are ...
Topics About Peace (53 Great Ideas) » JournalBuddies.com
Topics About Peace — This list of peace ideas is inspired by International Peace Day (September 21) and was originally written for kids. Yet, wonderfully, peace is an important topic for people of all ages to write and think about as it encourages understanding, compassion, tolerance, and more. So whatever age you are, please read on to ...
Essays About War: Top 5 Examples And 5 Prompts
1. War Is Not Part of Human Nature by R. Brian Ferguson. "Debate over war and human nature will not soon be resolved. The idea that intensive, high-casualty violence was ubiquitous throughout prehistory has many backers. It has cultural resonance for those who are sure that we as a species naturally tilt toward war.
Creative writing on war and peace
Creative writing essay on war It only one of moscow creative writing on war and peace peace. Iâ m thrilled to peace in one of gian lorenzo bernini a writer who knew about him that events. Comically and delight with the general public figures such as it from moscow and peace, tolstoy s true.
Writing war, and the politics of poetic conversation
Instead, Barkawi sees war as a contingent manifestation of an underlying long-term dynamic, the violence of international hierarchies. He suggests replacing the "war/peace" binary with a "battle/repression" model "in which the use of force is an integral, not extraordinary, dimension of politics" in a world textured by empire.
Opinion
1948. By J. D. Vance. Mr. Vance, a Republican, is the junior senator from Ohio. President Biden wants the world to believe that the biggest obstacle facing Ukraine is Republicans and our lack of ...