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.
Special Reminder: In addition to the weekly fiction challenge we offer a monthly challenge. Check out our March fiction contest ending March 31! 10 Hive to the winner!
Important FAQs about The Ink Well!
What Is The Ink Well All About?
The Ink Well is a creative writing community. We only accept fictional short stories and creative nonfiction stories. This means:
- No novels, chapter stories or multi-part stories
- No poems
- No introduction posts
- No memes
- No photography posts
- No advice columns or self-improvement articles
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 suitable for all ages. We do not allow stories depicting violence, rape, brutality, or gore. 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, dialogue, 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!
- Only post 100% original content that does not appear elsewhere in any form.
- Engage with others in the community by reading and commenting on their work.
- 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: "footsteps" and the skill challenge was "avoid the info dump."
Stories From the Previous Week
Thank you to everyone who posted a story for last week's prompt!
- @universoperdido
- @amiableamara
- @lightpen
- @timix648
- @arduilcelebren
- @marriot5464
- @balikis95
- @minhajulmredol
- @dianelson
- @radenkusumo666
- @janaveda
- @atomz
- @amiegeoffrey
- @jjmusa2004
- @madamnaomi
- @marilour
- @popurri
- @cool08
- @abigail04
- @kingsleyy
- @lrscarmen
- @balikis95
- @mrenglish
- @george-dee
- @pearlsuddy
- @idlemind
- @kinganny
- @ebukaeliezer19
- @kemmyb
- @marynn
- @jadams2k18
Honorable Mentions
Our honorable mentions of the week are:
- @dianelson: Why We Don't See Giants Anymore
- @mrenglish: That Cracked Wall
- @universoperdido: Blows in the Night
- @madamnaomi: Hide and Seek
- @arduilcelebren: Heroes of the Neighborhood
- @lenaspiritual: An Unforgettable Bond
Third Place: Wins 2 Hive
- @kemmyb, with her story Perception Beyond Sight
By supper time, I was beyond anxious. I'd not heard from Sergeant Burke or my mother. I sat with other blind students in the dining hall. As noisy chatter and the clatter of cutlery echoed in the hall, the aroma of dinner: roasted pork, vegetables, Yorkshire pudding and gravy wafted around me. Then I caught a whiff of my mom's powdery and sweet scent as though she was present in the room.
Second Place: Wins 3 Hive
- @popurri, with her story Through Colors
It was early Saturday morning, the main street of the town was lonely, just one or two late-night people sitting on the sidewalks. Five friends walk towards the mountain, Marcia, Eduardo, Juan, Mercedes and Miguel. They go slowly, they are not in a hurry, they just hope to find something different, something that will amaze them.
First Place: Wins 5 Hive
The five-year-old boy scanned the room with downcast eyes. The cobwebs in every corner made him frown.
“My old room didn’t look like this,” he said as he grimaced at the sight of the crevices on the old concrete walls. Its faded blue paint was dusted with the sadness of being abandoned, for he didn’t know how long. “Dave hasn’t been here for a while?”
Congratulations to @kemmyb, @popurri, and @idlemind!
Okay, let's launch the new prompt!
This Week’s Prompt
The Ink Well is fortunate to have many members who are rising talents! We would like everyone to think of these weekly prizes as a showcase of just a few of the very best stories, as well as an opportunity for our members to be inspired by reading some polished stories that demonstrate excellent storytelling skills.
Please Note: We try to curate as many stories as possible, but do not curate every story published in The Ink Well, due to the volume of posts.
Prompt of the week!
This week's prompt is "mess." Our skill challenge is action, dialogue and narrative.
The challenge is to integrate dialogue with action and storytelling. It's a fun challenge that many writers in our community are mastering, and it's wonderful to see!
To learn about these fiction concepts, be sure to have a look at the article about action, dialogue and narrative: the dynamic trio in our Catalog of Fiction Writing Tips.
What to do with this prompt?
As always, there are plenty of options. You could write about a child who really wants something important but cannot have it until he cleans his messy room. You could write a story about a messy situation that your character doesn't know how to get out of. Or write about a character who wants to do the right thing but somehow always ends up making a mess of things. Have fun!
A week from now, we will select winning stories that demonstrate the skills and utilize the prompt. Of course, we will also be looking for overall quality in the winning stories. Good luck! Be sure to read the contest rules below.
Note: As always, please avoid violent, gory, bloody, brutal, sexist or racist themes and language, erotica and other NSFW (not safe for work) content, stories with a political or religious agenda, and stories featuring abuse of any kind. (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: NEW: You have SIX DAYS to write for the prompt. We are now adding countdown timers to our contest posts so the contest ends one day before the new one is posted. This will give us more time to read all contest stories. (In most cases, we will not be able to read stories that come in after the countdown.)
- 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(s).
- 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 all image source links.
- Length: We request that story word counts are a maximum of 1,500 words in 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
- #96 Trust
- #97 Fly
- #98 Comfort
- #99 Fate
- #100 To Create
- #101 Vision
- #102 Sympathy
- #103 A Special Time
- #104 Suspense
- #105 Bride, stairs, illusion
- #106 Reality TV
- #107 Things the Go Bump in the Night
- #108 First line: Two strange things happened that day
- #109 What if that loose floorboard was actually a hidden passageway?
- #110 Footsteps
Thank you for being a part of The Ink Well!
@jayna, @gracielaacevedo, @yaziris, @itsostylish, @millycf1976 and @grindan
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, @gracielaacevedo, @yaziris, @itsostylish, @millycf1976 and @grindan.
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, @samsmith1971, @grindan, @jackdeathblack, @josemalavem, @riverflows, @itsostylish, @stuartcturnbull, @morey-lezama, @evagavilan2, @popurri, and @mrenglish.
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