Image source: Rollstein 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
Time for the prize announcement and new challenge!
Last week's prompt was motor and the skill targeted was to plot your story in advance.
Great work, everyone! There were some wonderful stories that were well organized and well plotted. Our selection of this week's winner and honorable mentions reflect how well writers seem to have plotted their stories.
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, all of which had well-plotted stories that featured the prompt 'motor':
@riverflows with the story Motor
You right there, girl?' she says to the rear view mirror, smiling at the green eyes of the cattledog on the back seat. She didn't know who she loved more - the car or the dog, so took them both. Before long they're a few hundred miles down the track, her and Rusty's best girl, wind in whiskers and hair alike.
@bettyhandayani with the story See You in Heaven My Angel
After opening and reading a collection of advice from his mother, with a half-hearted tone and slightly smiling lips Kimy said, "See you again in Heaven, my Angel".
@gabmr with the story Manzanares River
It is precisely this image that can be seen on the mythical rock today. Although many say that these tribes never existed, and that the mark on the rock is natural, there is no denying its intriguing similarity to the members of the fierce fighters of that time.
@samsmith1971 with the story The Space Between
And then it hits me. Despite everything I have done to remain a fugitive, choosing to live my life in the shadows, unseen, unheard, somewhere on the spectrum between wrong and right, the light has still found me in the space between. The choice to surrender was never mine to make. The time had arrived.
@itsostylish with the story Horizon
Fire erupted, a trick of the witch from the stars. His reverence was astounding and that’s when she realized the value of the gift that God had sent into the new world with her and her kind.
She smoothed a section of sand outside their cave and drew the plan’s for aqueducts and pyramids.
The new world exploded into their dreams.
And the winner of the motor/plotting your story challenge is... @kei2 with the story Stranger Things. Sometimes, it is a killer last line that draws the circle and completes the plot. In this case, one line did it very, very well:
I looked at him and began to walk away. “Not today stranger, not today,” I said to myself.
Congratulations to @kei2, 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
@riverflows
@young-boss-karin
@buezor
@davidbright
@raymondpeter
@hopestylist
@merit.ahama
@abigail04
@yhuddee111
@yuki-nee
@popurri
@diikaan
@dwixer
@nurudeen081
@iyimoga
@blackalbino1
@lightpen
@cool08
@madamnaomi
@kingobonnaya
@itsostylish
@assegai
@ddn688
@mrenglish
@fantom22
@radenkusumo666
@lordtimoty
@bettyhandayani
@kei2
@gabmr
@abigail04
@kalkulus001
Thank you to everyone who posted a story for last week's prompt!
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 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 Embarrass. The skill challenge this week is to add conflict to your story. You can read about this in @jayna's article, Adding Conflict to Your Story in the Inkwell's Catalog of Fiction Writing Tips.
What should you do with the prompt, Embarrass? And how do you handle the skill challenge? Here are some additional details:
Embarrass: This word can be used as a verb: to embarrass. Or, it can be used as an adjective: embarrassed. You can try it as a noun: embarrassment. There are many potential applications of this prompt. Surprise us with yours.
Adding conflict: The energy of a story is driven by conflict. Embarrass can be the result of conflict, or the occasion of conflict. This emotion is profoundly motivating in humans. How might your character/characters be motivated to act? As suggested already, you will find a more thorough discussion of this issue in the essay Adding Conflict.
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
- #67 Adventure
- #68 Shadow
- #69 Motor
Thank you for being a part of The Ink Well!
@jayna, @agmoore, @gracielaacevedo, 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 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, @josemalavem, @morey-lezama, @sayury, @evagavilan2 and @deraaa.
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