Image source:Noel_Bauza on Pixabay
Hello and welcome to the The Ink Well weekly fiction prompt and prize announcement! The Ink Well is a Hive blockchain-based social media community of creative writers. If you love to write short stories, we invite you to join us. Or peruse the work of our community members.
Note: We always launch our prompt posts with important information. So be sure to check it out first! Then we invite you to read on and see what we have in store for this week's prompt.
Important FAQs about The Ink Well!
Here are answers to some Frequently Asked Questions about The Ink Well.
What Is The Ink Well All About?
The Ink Well is a short story community. This means we only accept short fiction. (Fiction means stories that came from your imagination, not from real life.)
It also means:
- No novels, chapter stories or multi-part stories
- No poems
- No introduction posts
- No essays or other non-fiction
- No memes
Just fictional short stories!
The Ink Well is all about creativity, quality, community, and engagement. As such, we ask the following:
- Please take the time to get to know the community and read other writers' work. Everyone who posts in The Ink Well is expected to read and comment on at least two other stories for each piece you post.
- See our catalog of fiction writing tips and make use of our resources. (Many of our writers are developing awesome skills, and you can too!)
- Put effort into your posts. Review and edit your content for errors before publishing.
What are the community rules?
You can find our community rules at the top of The Ink Well community (right side of the page).
Please read the rules before posting in The Ink Well, as we outline the "do's and don'ts." If you can't find them, you can read them here.
Our community rules are designed to make our community a safe, welcoming, plagiarism-free space for self-publishing original short stories. We do not allow stories depicting violence, brutality, or abuse of women, children or animals. If you have questions, please read this article explaining our stance on violence.
What does it take to get rewards in The Ink Well??
We refer you to the above description of what The Ink Well is about. If you are not getting great rewards, it is likely for one of the following reasons:
- Your story has many grammatical errors. (This is easily fixed with the tips in our post, Help for the Grammatically Challenged.)
- Your story lacks some important elements of good fiction, such as character development, dialog, scene details or a story arc. (See our catalog of fiction writing tips for information on these important aspects of short stories.)
- Your story lacks originality or does not follow our community rules.
Weekly Challenge and Prize Announcement
As we announced in our February newsletter, we are now running a weekly challenge to generate some fun and excitement while also helping our members to work on the different skills involved in story telling.
Last week's challenge was to focus on a character type, the antagonist, in your story.
You guys are amazing! There were some really good demonstrations of this skill. An antagonist can be the energy around with a story revolves. Because understanding and skillfully using this character type is so important, we'd like to include a few examples of stories in which an antagonist was clearly evident. This week, selection of winner and honorable mentions was strongly influenced by the degree to which an antagonist played a role in a story. (Examples below.)
Selecting honorable mentions and the winner is never an easy choice. A significant factor that influences the decision is quality of engagement with others in the community.
Here are this week's honorable mentions. Pay attention to the role of the antagonist noted in each case.
@mrenglish Worrying on The Brink of Collapse
“Joy had always been a worry wart. She had always had second thoughts and criticism about everything... she never did trust anyone and always had her head held up high whenever she was dealing with issues. “
“How did this happen? I trampled your ego. Tore your spirit. I did everything for you to feel discouraged! How could this happen?!”
"He was Jane's nightmare, who always obstructed her partying habits and took it upon himself to make her study. The most annoying part being that he always seemed to outsmart her in all of her maneuvers."
"All they care about is milking our state dry and storing up the wealth for their children while the people wallow in abject poverty! We will snatch this right from them and make it impossible for them to hoard our God-given resources ever again!"
"And the fact is that, although he got rid of that strange authority in the form of a chip, he could notice «in his escape» how everyone who walked the streets had on his left wrist the same chip that he got rid of."
And the winner of the Feature a Protagonist challenge is... @joalheal with story Farewell to Time.
"It is already impossible for Rubens to support the weight of the old man and he begins to lean more on him. As they get closer to the bus stop, the young man's vision becomes blurred, he feels confused and just wants to finish getting there; Rubens finally falls on the bench of the bus stop totally exhausted...
_ Thanks for give me your time boy.
Rubens just sits there, with the weight of years on him and blind, trying to remember the name of the girl he was waiting for."
Congratulations to @joalheal, who will receive 5 Hive as the winner.
Okay, let's review fiction entries from last week's prompt and launch a new one.
Stories From the Previous Week
@diebitch
@lenaspiritual
@lordtimoty
@popurri
@davidbright
@hopestylist
@iyimoga
@merit.ahama
@daniella619
@repayme4568
@smokyice
@filipz
@joalheal
@kingkenny44
@fragozar01
@dwixer
@buezor
@chidubem26
@raymondpeter
@diikaan
@queenstarr
@abigail04
@ubani1
@katleya
@nurudeen081
@ddn688
@idlemind
@kalkulus001
@zyzymena
@emeka002
@gabmr
@mrenglish
@young-boss-karin
@assegai
@fantom22
@lightpen
@cool08
@ricestrela
@yhuddee111
@blackalbino1
@ghazale64
@juanvegetarian
Thank you to everyone who posted a story for last week's prompt, Worry.
This Week’s Prompt
The inkwell is fortunate to have many members who are eager to write. However, the curation team does not have infinite resources. In order to be fair to all writers, we have decided to ask our members to publish one, only one story per week. If members choose to publish more than that, they may. However, only one story will be curated.
It would be wise to use talent on the best story you can write so you can receive the optimal curation. Remember, Quality over Quantity. Moving forward the Ink Well Team believes this will provide a better experience for writers and curators.
At last, the prompt of the week!
This week's prompt is Adventure. The skill challenge this week is essential for creating an engaging story. We are going to work on establishing the story's setting. The challenge is to establish the story's setting in the first paragraph. As @jayna explains in her excellent essay, What Is Your Story's Setting?, the setting helps readers to "feel immersed in the story through important clues about where the story is taking place, and what that place looks like, feels like, and sounds like". Refer to that essay (in the Inkwell's Catalog of Fiction Writing Tips) and you will learn more about creating an effective setting.
What should you do with the prompt, Adventure? And how do you handle the skill challenge? Here are some additional details:
Adventure: People can have adventurous spirits. They can go on adventures. These may be adventures of the mind, or they may be truly fantastic journeys to new places. As you explore this prompt, remember the skill challenge is to create a vivid, relatable setting. Establishing a setting for an adventure should come easily.
Here are some examples of creating a setting with adventure as the prompt (remember: establish the setting in the first paragraph).
She sipped the aromatic tea and it happened again: before her eyes there opened up the bright, sun-filled room with flowers sprouting from the most improbable places. Yellow ones in the corners. Red ones hanging down low from the ceiling, and from each wall multi-colored bouquets which gave off a scent so strong that she felt as though she might swoon.
The ship cut through the dark night. Waves pounded fiercely as the oarsmen fought to reach the shore. She counted the seconds as the cacophony of screams from below deck filled her ears.
She climbed the stairs until she thought she could climb no more. Darkness enveloped her. The musty odor from the old tower was overpowering but she would not be defeated. She would see this adventure to the end.
Think about your own story, of the adventure you might feature. Create a setting that brings all your readers along on that adventure with you.
If you read @jayna's article, you will get a clearer idea about how to create your setting. Mastering this skill will help you to become a better story writer.
A week from now, we will select a winning story that demonstrates this skill and utilizes the prompt. Of course we will also be looking for overall quality in the winning story. Good luck!
Note: As always, please avoid violent, gory, bloody, brutal, sexist or racist themes and language, erotica and other NSFW (not safe for work) content, and stories featuring abuse of women, children or animals. (We have a complete article about The Ink Well stance on violence and brutality for more information.)
If you don't feel inspired by this prompt or the featured image, feel free to peruse any of our past prompts or our collection of idea-generators:
Weekly Prompt Rules:
- Deadline: You have a week to write for the prompt, until the next one is posted. (Note: You can write for any of the prompts anytime. This is just a guideline to be included in the weekly round-up in the next prompt post.)
- Story link: Post your story in The Ink Well community, and post a link to your story in a comment on this post.
- Hashtags: Please use these hashtags: #fiction #writing #inkwellprompt #theinkwell and #dreemport, if you are also posting your story to the DreemPort site.
- COMMUNITY SUPPORT: Visit the work of at least two other community members and comment on their work.
- Title: The title is up to you. You can come up with any title you wish. You do not need to name it after the prompt or include the prompt word.
- Images: Please only use images from license free and creative commons sites, like Pixabay, Unsplash and Pexels. Images you find on the Internet are copyright protected and cannot be used. Be sure to provide the source link.
- Length: We request that story word counts are a maximum of 1,500 words maximum length (preferably 750-1000 words). This is just a guideline. Longer stories are okay too, but they tend to get fewer readers. Additionally, The Ink Well admins appreciate keeping to that maximum story length for our time management. Thank you!
Reminder: Be sure to also read our community rules. The reason for the repeat reminder is that we see many stories describing brutality of women, children, or animals, or that have excessive gore or violence, and we must mute them. Please do not post these stories in The Ink Well. We want our community to be a safe and comfortable place for all readers.
Here are the past prompts if you would like to use them or refer back to them:
- #1: Heart and Soul
- #2: The moment when...
- #3: Beauty with a twist
- #4: The Way Home
- #5: A Matter of Time
- #6 50 Story Ideas
- #7 The Library
- #8 All the way to tomorrow
- #9 Legend
- #10 Three Words
- #11 World Building
- #12 Childhood Summers
- #13 50 Imagination Ticklers
- #14 Railroad
- #15 Cats - 750 words
- #16 Your Birthday
- #17 Action, Dialog and Narrative
- #18 Change
- #19 Tea Time or Tee Time?
- #20 Summer Camp
- #21 Main Street
- #22 Fireworks
- #23 Picnic
- #24 Run
- #25 A word of advice
- #26 Winding road
- #27 Mirror
- #28 Shipwreck
- #29 School Notes
- #30 Three Words: Scooter, River, Midnight
- #31 Flash Fiction Contest
- #32 A Fork in the Road
- #33 Shadows
- #34 Three Words: Island, Witch, Cake
- #35 Full Moon
- #36 Graveyard
- #37 Jack-o-Lantern
- #38 Family Ties
- #39 Longing
- #40 Feast
- #41 Gift
- #42 Season of Light
- #43 Believe
- #44 Elf
- #45 Holiday
- #46 New Year
- #47 Unlikely Hero
- #48 Inheritance
- #49 Under the Light of the Moon
- #50 Three Words: Shoes, Mood, Adventure
- #51 They're Here
- #52 Artist
- #53 Headlights
- #54 Tomorrow
- #55 Lense
- #56 Perfection
- #57 Making and Breaking Rules
- #58 A Reckoning
- #59 Blossom
- #60 Temptation
- #61 Happiness
- #62 Footprint
- #63 Frequency
- #64 Sailing
- #65 Fortune
- #66 Worry
Thank you for being a part of The Ink Well!
@jayna, @agmoore, @gracielaacevedo, @wrestlingdesires and @yaziris
We would like to invite lovers of creative writing to visit The Ink Well, a Hive community started by @raj808 and @stormlight24 and run by @jayna, @agmoore, @gracielaacevedo, @wrestlingdesires and @yaziris.
We also invite you to follow The Ink Well curation trail on the Hive blockchain, at https://hive.vote/. Simply navigate to the curation trail section and search for theinkwell (all one word with no @ symbol) and our trail will pop up as an option.
Similarly delegations are possible on Hive using the fantastic https://peakd.com/ Hive Blockchain front end. If you wish to delegate to @theinkwell, you can do this from the wallet section of https://peakd.com/
@zeurich, @jayna, @felt.buzz, @marcybetancourt, @marlyncabrera, @stormcharmer, @generikat, @agmoore, @iamraincrystal, @preparedwombat, @gracielaacevedo, @chocolatescorpi, @kirlos, @semarekha, @adncabrera, @josemalavem, @morey-lezama, @sayury, @evagavilan2, @deraaa, and @rayt2.
Click banner to visit our community page
Find us on twitter by clicking the banner above.