Siblings Across the Atlantic
Construct a narrative around two siblings separated during childhood due to the transatlantic slave trade. One grows up on a plantation in the West Indies, while the other becomes a merchant's apprentice in London. Describe their different lives and how they eventually seek each other out.
Suggested length: A short story: 1,500 to 5,000 words, or flash fiction under 1,000
Start the clock
Pick a sprint, press start and keep going until it stops. Momentum beats polish on a first draft.
Make it yours
Three ways to take this prompt somewhere nobody else will.
- Let your character believe something about their world that turned out to be wrong.
- Give the hero a rule of the era they have to break.
- Choose one real detail of the period, like a price, a law or a song, and build a scene around it.
Writing historical fiction
Step into another time and feel what it was like.
Historical fiction is set in the past, usually at least 50 years before it was written. Real events and people often appear, but the story belongs to its characters. Readers come for the immersion: the smells, the rules, the dangers of a world that's gone.
What readers expect
- A vivid, well-researched setting
- Real events as backdrop or engine
- Characters shaped by their era
- Details that feel lived, not looked up
A tip before you start
Research deeply, show lightly. One telling detail in a scene beats a paragraph of facts.
More 18th Century Historical Fiction prompts
- The Sugar Plantation MapCreate a story about a slave on a sugar plantation in the Caribbean who discovers an ancient map that hints at the location of a significant religious…
- The Mapmaker’s Secret CipherWrite a story set during the height of the French Revolution, where a Parisian mapmaker is unwittingly thrust into espionage. After crafting a map for…
- The Samurai's Last DaysChannel the voice of an aging samurai in 18th-century Japan, providing a first-person narrative of his final days. As he reflects on his life, battles…
- The Astrolabe Maker of IstanbulSet in the 18th-century Ottoman Empire, a young artisan from a small Anatolian village moves to Istanbul to seek work. There, he becomes a craftsman…
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