Image source: Pexels 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 impression and the skill target was to create a character that transforms.
Great work, everyone! There were some very interesting character portraits in the stories submitted. Our selections of this week's winner and honorable mentions reflect how well writers dealt with this prompt and skill challenge.
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 provided strong character transformations in response to the prompt.
@radenkusumo666 with the story Punk Group and Andre
How surprised Andre was to see a group of punks who had helped him this morning, are now helping the community get rid of a large fallen tree in the middle of the road. Andre immediately ran to them and helped the punk group. "Hey everyone, let's help them so that the traffic jam doesn't get longer" Andre shouted inviting the others to help. One by one the community worked together to get rid of the big tree. Now, thanks to the cooperation of punk and society, the public roads that are passed are running smoothly again.
@bettyhandayani with the story Momentary Meeting
I'm not used to chatting with the opposite sex, I feel confused about what to do. Arghh, in my mind, "If I was confident, this young woman might be fun to talk to." But, as if being interrogated, this beautiful and friendly woman kept asking me questions. Asking me where I'm from, what my job is. How old am I, and so on. I got used to it and followed the direction of the chat. Until finally he offered to listen to the song he used to listen to while traveling. We were both engrossed in listening to music by sharing headsets.
@itsostylish with the story A Better Bet
When the night was dim, Danny could shoot the light like the Star Spangled Banner. When the day was dreary, he had a risqué adventure up his sleeve. Danny, had soul in his shoes and spunk on his tongue, he could conjure a party on a sidewalk and carry the moon on his shoulders like the universal light.
@mrenglish with the story In Whom I Am Well Pleased
The next morning, Izu woke up earlier than ever and washed in the bathing room made with bamboo. This is probably the last time he would be taking his bath in this kind of bathing room. As he poured a bailer of water on his head, the thoughts of how his father, Mazi Okonkwo had exchanged the only family land for his school fees. Again, the double thought of joy and pain flashed through his mind as he rushed out of the bath.
@popurri with the story The Meaning of My Life
“I am so sorry Luisa, I wanted to get away from everything that reminded me of that moment, I felt I needed to reflect on what happened. God gave us another chance to continue living, but life has to have a meaning and I have understood it that way. The book I wrote is my reflections and an instrument to do other things. With the proceeds I have created a foundation to help children who have no family, for their education. And I would like you to help me... to work together. What do you think of the idea?
And the winner of the impression, character transformation challenge is... @wrestlingdesires with the story The Mystery of the Scratches
Julie sat in the parlor, sun streaming into the big bay window. She concentrated on the door and it closed, then with a small click, locked.
Then she looked at the book which was on a small end table nearby. The big white whale was visible despite the awkward angle. She smiled, and soon the book was in her lap, open.
Congratulations to @wrestlingdesires, 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
@samdove
@gabmr
@jadams2k18
@abdul-qudus
@restcity
@fantom22
@lordtimoty
@madamnaomi
@mrenglish
@lightpen
@bettyhandayani
@abigail04
@kingobonnaya
@fragozar01
@gi-de-on
@cool08
@mjvdc
@iyimoga
@katleya
@smokyice
@radenkusumo666
@popurri
@assegai
@jadams2k18
@stellageorge
@nurudeen081
@merit.ahama
@peazy001
@giftjames
@buezor
@diikaan
@dennmarc
@cli4d
@itsostylish
@wrestlingdesires
@young-boss-karin
@diebitch
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 lost. In her essay, What is Your Story's Setting, Jayna discusses setting, the place and time of a story. As @jayna explains, story settings "help us 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". You can read @jayna's essay in Inkwell's Catalog of Fiction Writing Tips.
What should you do with the prompt, lost? And how do you handle the skill challenge? Here are some additional details:
Lost: This word is an invitation to create a memorable setting. People can feel lost, can be lost. Why? How did this happen? What is the scene? Place us there and help us to feel the character's sense of displacement.
We have all felt lost at some time. Maybe we were in class, and could not follow the lesson. Maybe we were on a trip and couldn't find our way. Maybe we were in a relationship and lost our sense of where the relationship was going.
There are many ways to be lost. Use your imagination, set the scene, and let us feel the experience with your character.
Here are some ideas, or examples that might help you to get started:
- Henry watched his sister scour the snow-covered lawn. She walked slowly and pensively as the last bits of daylight lingered on the horizon. She had thrown her engagement ring away in burst of anger, and now it was lost.
- The carnival lights reflected with sinister brilliance in the muddy puddles. The child's feet were drenched, but she plodded on. The wind picked up and cut through her jacket. She was lost. Where, oh where was her mother?
- Angela regarded the young man through a fog of rose-tinted cafe lights. Coffee--it was all around her, and yet her own cup remained untouched. The words she had just spoken hung in the air: "I am lost in this relationship. It's over".
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
- #70 Embarrass
- #71 Proud
- #72 Guide
- #73 Impression
Thank you for being a part of The Ink Well!
@jayna, @agmoore, @gracielaacevedo and @yaziris
Interested in joining our community? Start by joining Hive!
We 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.
You can follow our curation trail by going to our hive.vote curation trail page and clicking the follow button.
We welcome delegations! These support our community in many ways, including helping us to provide support to quality content creators through curation and contests.
@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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