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!
What Is The Ink Well All About?
The Ink Well is a creative writing community. Here are answers to some Frequently Asked Questions about The Ink Well.
- No novels, chapter stories or multi-part stories
- No poems
- No introduction posts
- No memes
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.
Important tips!
- Among the factors we look at is quality of engagement with others in the community
- Please make sure your story is clearly inspired by the prompt.
- Remember to link your story to the prompt post.
Weekly Challenge and Prize Announcement
Time for the prize announcement and new challenge!
Last week's prompt was Ambition and the skill challenge was to write character descriptions. This community really came through with surprising, amazing stories!
Many of our writers created original, memorable stories in response to the prompt. Our selections of this week's winners and honorable mentions reflect how well writers dealt with this prompt and skill challenge.
Update! We are excited to share that in addition to our first place winner, we are awarding a second and third place. We also will be selecting honorable mentions. For second and third place we are awarding Hive Basic Income (HBI). The third place winner receives 2 HBI and the second place winner receives 3 HBI.
Here are this week's honorable mentions, all of them writing in response to the prompt and skill challenge.
Honorable Mentions
- @loveah with the story Noah's Musical Ambition
As Noah approached the front steps, he saw a line of students waiting to enter. Some of them wore black gowns and carried their music cases. Others were dressed casually. One boy was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, with a guitar slung over his shoulder. Noah stopped to watch him for a moment. He was short and skinny, with long blond hair and bright blue eyes. He had the look of someone who was completely comfortable in his skin. Noah envied him.
- @george-dee with the story Bruno's Ambition
Bruno broke into tears and decided to sit under a tree to hide from the sun. He was there for a while, his legs were too weak to move the rest of his body. He was about to leave late in the evening when he noticed a woman struggling with her vehicle on the other side of the road.
- @universoperdido with the story Goals to Achieve
I have forgotten my body to feed my brain knowledge. I have given myself over to sloppiness in its entirety to outdo all those scientists who try to achieve much more than me. My area is biology, but I also touch chemistry and biomechanics. I am not allowed to touch other areas, but it matters little to me since I have an obsessive tendency to achieve something great.
- @lightpen with the story Accidental Teacher
Each pupil was given the opportunity to stand in front of the audience to introduce himself with the career choice he made and the reason behind his choice. No single pupil showed preference for farming, primary and secondary school teaching or creative industry such as tailoring, shoemaking and so on. This was expected because these professions earned below the median in the curve.
- @marynn with the story The Unexpected
At that spot she was blank on what to do and which to leave. It was the last day of her days as a M.A student and as one of the best graduating students, she had to go climb that podium, receive her award and give a speech. She has been waiting for such a moment and just when the moment was at their family doorstep, her mother is down.
Third Place: Wins 2 HBI
- @stellageorge with the story Beings
"I am here temporarily, mainly to help the Godfather return back to his throne as he was cast away ages ago, before your lineage began and he has lived out his sentence. It is time for him to return," he said and offered me a hand to help me up.
Second Place: Wins 3 HBI
- @jemima1996 with the story In Her Protective Bubble
Fabian walked to the school, so as not to arouse suspicion and when he was close enough, he filled with courage and began to run with all his strength towards the bus station. There was no turning back, without stopping he handed in his ticket and got on the bus, leaving that town and his beloved grandfather behind.
And the winner of the Ambition/create a vivid character challenge is...@grindan with the story Nothing Is as It Appears. Congratulations, @grindan. You will receive 5 Hive!
She isn't his real wife; Julian does not know what happened to her. This woman was coarse where Cara was tender, her greeting like sandpaper on his yawning mind. Everything from her phrasing, to the lackluster imitation of the beauty Cara had, hammered Julian's ability to continue this charade. As if he had a choice.
Okay, let's review fiction entries from last week's prompt and launch a new one.
Stories From the Previous Week
@marynn
@arduilcelebren
@kebula
@fantom22
@tozill
@wrestlingdesires
@nichebezarius
@mrenglish
@universoperdido
@greatideas
@george-dee
@abigail04
@lightpen
@abdul-qudus
@iyimoga
@fragozar01
@loveah
@balikis95
@amiegeoffrey
@hazmat
@cool08
@pjpavan
@seki1
@humor0404
@merit.ahama
@diikaan
@diebitch
@ricardo993
@bettyhandayani
Thank you to everyone who posted a story for last week's prompt!
This Week’s Prompt
The Ink Well is fortunate to have many members who are eager to write. 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.
Please Note: The Inkwell curators read many creative submissions each week. Ideally, we would comment and curate each piece. However, there are physical limitations, which include time. It may be the case that stories are submitted and are not curated. We do try to curate every piece but that may not happen.
At last, the prompt of the week!
This week's prompt is trust. Our skill challenge will be to work on creating story settings. @jayna has written a great essay about writing story settings: What Is Your Story's Setting? Try to create a setting that not only allows us to see what you imagine, but that also creates an evocative atmosphere.
**When you write for the prompt, you don't have to use the exact word. Derive inspiration from it. Trust is suggestive. It can be a thing, an attitude, or the description of a relationship.
Here are some Trust examples to help you get started on a story. You can probably come up with much more interesting ideas of your own.
- Angela set up a Special Needs Trust for her youngest son. She knew he would never be able to support himself.
- "When trust is gone, the relationship is over," Jonathan shouted as he slammed the door.
- "I'm trusting you with my car," Jonah's father said.
- Agatha placed the small child on the horse's broad back. She would trust no other horse in the stable with her daughter.
- They weren't sure they could trust the rotting slats to hold up on the old mill bridge.
- The child looked at her grandmother with trusting eyes.
- She had been neglected for so many years that she could not place her trust in anyone.
- "I depend on everyone here to stand by me. I trust you," Albert declared as he entered the courtroom.
- Why is In God We Trust printed on money?
- Martin designated the First Bank of Okasu to be the Trustee of his estate.
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
- #76 Tear
- #77 Splash
- #78 Brilliant
- #79 Sinkhole
- #80 Exhaust
- #81 Roll
- #82 Wishbone
- #83 Chatterbox
- #84 Foil
- #85 I can't believe you said that
- #86 Boo
- #87 Midnight
- #88 Hunger
- #89 Light
- #90 Spirit
- #91 Fire
- #92 Tend/Tender
- #93 Cheer
- #94 Appearance
- #95 Ambition
Thank you for being a part of The Ink Well!
@jayna, @agmoore, @gracielaacevedo, @yaziris and @itsostylish
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, @yaziris and @itsostylish.
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.
@jayna, @felt.buzz, @zeurich, @marcybetancourt, @agmoore, @marlyncabrera, @stormcharmer, @generikat, @iamraincrystal, @preparedwombat, @gracielaacevedo, @chocolatescorpi, @seeger, @samsmith1971, @grindan, @itsostylish, @josemalavem, @morey-lezama, @sayury, @evagavilan2 and @popurri.
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