A Jazz Singer in New York
In the midst of the roaring twenties, an aspiring flapper from a small Midwestern town moves to New York City to pursue her dreams of becoming a jazz singer. Describe her first encounter with the bustling underground jazz clubs and the colorful personalities that define the new era of music, all while navigating the challenges of living in the big city.
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.
- Choose one real detail of the period, like a price, a law or a song, and build a scene around it.
- Keep the famous event offstage and show its ripples.
- Make the dialogue sound of its time without becoming hard to read.
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 20th Century Historical Fiction prompts
- The Silent Star Learns to SpeakWrite a story from the perspective of a silent film actor transitioning into the era of talkies in Hollywood. Explore the fears, challenges, and…
- Two Friends and the DraftSet against the backdrop of the Vietnam War, your story follows two childhood friends from a small American town— one who dodges the draft and another…
- Letters Across the Berlin WallCreate a tale about the construction and eventual fall of the Berlin Wall. Focus on a family divided by the wall, detailing their clandestine efforts…
- The Mississippi Front PorchDevelop a narrative centered around the civil rights movement in the 1960s United States, seen through the eyes of an elderly African American couple…
Fifteen minutes in? Keep going.
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