Image source: iqbalnuril 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 wonder and the skill target was to write in the genre of magical realism. This community really came through with many amazing stories.
Great work, everyone! Magical realism caught the imagination of Inkwell's writers. 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. This week it was especially hard. There could have been ten honorable mentions. Among the factors we look at is quality of engagement with others in the community.
Here are this week's honorable mentions, all of them written in response to the prompt and skill challenge.
@popurri with the story Soul Mates
- With the days the friendship between Rosa and Eloina grew stronger. They spent many hours together. Rosa would invite her to her house to play. When they were separated they communicated with their minds, helped each other with homework and could read a book at the same time. Sometimes Rosa's mother would hear her laugh or talk alone in the room... but it didn't worry her because her daughter was still the same child as always, her character hadn't changed and she attributed it to her games.
@litguru with the story The Golden Verses
- He closed his eyes and sighed as if he had just received a kiss from heaven. Visions of voluptuous angels and maidens flashed through his mind. He could hear their laughter ringing like little bells in spring. He could feel their touch, their soft kisses upon every inch of him. Their desire hot in the desert night. He experienced everything there was to experience in the sensuous atmosphere.
@abigail04 with the story The Secret of Baba Ojos Wives
- Adeola finds, by all means, to quench their charms by going the extra mile to find out the possible ways to let those charms fade. She was called by a witch who got to know all her ply. The witch told her what she needed to do to terminate their different charms. So, after some days, Adeola did exactly what the watch told her to do by mistakenly pouring palm oil on their feet. She poured on Aderonke's feet first and immediately problems started between Baba Ojo and her.
@kei2 with the story Six Worlds in Ink
- Jupiter rested my head on her body. She held my hand and began to pat me with her other hand. It was almost midnight and the clock was ticking. When the minute hand of the clock struck 12, I looked at Jupiter. “Happy Birthday” I whispered. Jupiter smiled but it didn't reach her eyes. I could see worry in them. Then her hands began to tremble.Like dust through the wind, she began to fade away before my eyes until there was nothing. Where once sat Jupiter was just space.
@chincoculbert with the story My Grandfather's Journal
- As I opened the book, something unexpected happens that making me drop it on the ground in shock. The words in the book start to come to life and one by one, they start to dance out of the book and form in front of me glowing brightly. I couldn't understand what was happening but they all felt like the beautiful rhythms that came out of musical instruments in animation movies.
And the winner of the wonder, magical realism challenge is... @restcity with the story Infinity in a Page
- That’s how it was. The moment you were born, a special pencil is made from a special seasoning to channel the inner magic within you to write out that special story only you can tell. If you spread your hand out on a written page in your notebook, you could go into the world you created, talk with your characters, play with the setting, move things with your mind, kind of like godmode in a video game. The only downside was that once you wrote that first page, you had to finish that story before you could move onto the next one.
Okay, let's review fiction entries from last week's prompt and launch a new one.
Stories From the Previous Week
@diebitch
@kei2
@popurri
@madamnaomi
@dennmarc
@young-boss-karin
@brujita18
@raymondpeter
@khaleesii
@buezor
@idlemind
@inemsweet29
@riverflows
@gi-de-on
@assegai
@gabmr
@wrestlingdesires
@diikaan
@lordtimoty
@bettyhandayani
@kater001
@iyimoga
@amaponian
@restcity
@cool08
@abigail04
@lightpen
@moontrader
@ddn688
@fantom22
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 Tear. The skill challenge will be to provide a resolution to the central conflict in the story. So, in a way, this is a two-part challenge. You must create a conflict, and then you must come up with a satisfactory resolution to that conflict. @jayna explains what conflict is in her essay Adding Conflict. She explains what conflict resolution is in her essay, What is a Story Arc (Step #5). Both essays may be found in the Inkwell's Catalog of Fiction Writing Tips..
Conflict resolution simply means, provide a satisfying ending. Don't leave readers hanging, but tell them how your character solves the central problem/challenge of the story.
As @jayna explains:
Bring the story to conclusion, resolving the conflict and releasing the story’s tension. This is the pay-off for the reader, having taken this time to read your story. Wind down to a conclusion where all is resolved, whether happily or not.
Tear This word is a gift to writers. We can tear things up. We can tear things apart. Or, we can tear up (which means we cry). Conflict and the word tear, no matter how you choose to use it, go naturally together.
Here is an example that might help you to get started:
- She had borrowed the dress from Marni without asking. It was all so simple--until the hem caught on a nail and a long, jagged tear appeared on the back seam. What would Marni say about that?
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
- #74 Lost
- #75 Wonder
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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