Jazz Age New Orleans
Write a story about a family living in New Orleans during the jazz age. Explore their daily lives, the cultural upheaval due to the emerging jazz scene, and how they navigate the complexities of society’s changing norms.
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.
- Keep the famous event offstage and show its ripples.
- Make the dialogue sound of its time without becoming hard to read.
- Tell it from someone the history books ignored.
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 American Historical Fiction prompts
- An Italian Family in New YorkIn the early 1900s, amidst the bustling growth of New York City, an immigrant family arrives from Italy, clutching their few belongings and dreams of…
- The Broadway Stagehand's DiaryIn 1950s New York, you discover a hidden diary from a distant relative who worked as a stagehand at a famous Broadway theatre. Write about the secrets…
- Diaries from the Triangle FireImagine you are a seamstress in New York City during the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. Detail the events leading up to the fire, your…
- The Tracker's Secret MissionWrite a tale about an indigenous tracker in the late 1800s who is hired by the U.S. government to navigate the tricky terrains of the American West…
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