Come on over guys! It's that time of the week when Cinnamon Cup Coffee pours out the weekly prompt, giving you the chance to #SPILLTHEBEANS for our Creative Writing Challenge.
If you are reading this, you are invited to join this week's challenge.
See this week's topic below, with a countdown timer that needs to be observed. The entry deadline for posts ends on Tuesday at 22:30 UTC, with the countdown timer at the top and the bottom of this post, guiding you to the cut-off time.
Thank you all for being involved so far, and for raising the bar. We hope that you'll have fun creating the stories that you continue to produce week after week. You all have been amazing, so keep shining ;-)
GUIDELINES:
⚠️ Post to Cinnamon Cup Coffee Community
⚠️ Use #spillthebeans as the first tag
⚠️ No less than 250 words and no more than 1000 words MAX!
⚠️ Post in English ONLY
⚠️ Post within the Countdown Timer. (No late entries)
One entry per person.
Drop a link to your entry in the comments section of this post.
Adhere to general community rules.
Late entries will be muted!
Please see an important message from Leaky in the comments section of this post.
So, without further ado, here's the prompt for the week.
Create your unique story title in English ONLY
Option 2.
You buy some coffee seeds at a local greenhouse and take them home to plant. After caring for them for some time you begin to notice something strange about the plant...
Tell us a story.
Remember, it's a "Creative Writing Challenge" - Be imaginative and original. Cover all the elements that make a good story.
Have Fun!
👇
Here is a link with some Creative Writing Tips and #Spillthebeans Writing Tips.
⚠️ #spillthebeans MUST be your first tag, and if your story does not cover any of the relevant scenarios presented, your post will be muted for fairness to other competitors.
C'mon, put your creative caps on!
And ...
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Delegations to the Cinnamon Cup Coffee community is welcome, by sending it to @cinnccf or @hive-152524, our community's account.
Good luck this week everyone.
I want to add in a couple of thoughts, hints and tips for people who are interested. They are meant to help people improve their stories but not meant to stop people from writing or anything like that. Its more of a reminder that Milly and I actually read each and every post that falls within the STB criteria so ideally, we want everyone to write good stories to keep us interested. You are still free to write your story however you'd like.
Tips and hints:
Firstly, make sure that you adhere to the 1000 word max for the entire post. I can't emphasize this enough. If you use PeakD then it tells you at the top how many words are in your post. Counts greater than 1000 words are generally ignored outright and we aren't always going to give people warnings or reminders about it, we will just pass on the story.
Next, try to be intentional about what you add to your story. There should be a purpose as to why something is being written about, beyond simply adding more words to the post. Sometimes things come out of left field that don't make any sense to the reader or have no purpose to the overall story, so try and write with intention and think to yourself "why am I adding this," "what does it solve." Does it aid in character development, add conflict or resolve a conflict, theme, tone...etc?
Next, try to spend less time explaining the prompt and more time on what comes after. Often times people tell us a very elaborate story of what was already said in the prompt idea and then quickly glaze over the aftermath. The problem with this is that many stories for the week sound exactly the same and very few tend to stand out among the rest. It can be very repetitive for us if 20 stories are all the same in the begining 3/4, with only minor differences to the endings. For example using this week's prompt: I already know that you went to a nursery and bought what you thought were coffee beans, so I don't need 600 words explaining that. What I don't know is what happened after you planted the beans, what grew or what didn't grow...etc. That's what I'm actually interested in though and that is how you can create a unique and interesting story that is different than anyone else's.
Lastly, these stories often have a magical element to them, so "make belief" fantasy stories are definitely welcome. However, please consider using magic intentionally and sparingly. In good Fantasy stories the magic always has rules and magic should always make sense to the reader. It can be very boring when magic is used to solve any conflic. An example would be:
"a tidal wave of coffee was headed toward me and I was terrified. But then I ate a magic coffee bean that gave me super powers and I snapped my finger and made the tidal wave disappear... the end."
Here, you can see that magic solving the problem makes the story pretty boring in the end because there was no real danger to the protagonist, there was no lesson or moral for the reader either, and it wasn't even very interesting or entertaining. Now imagine that story being told using 1000 words... At the end you would be asking yourself why you wasted your time reading my story. Lol
Okay that's all I have to say. Goodbye
Well said @leaky20 🙌 and your magical disappearance in that gif is totally believable ‼️
With what you've explained here, there's gonna be some EPIC stories
These are very good tips, I will not let them slip away!
Thanks for your support and feedback.
Yes, some stories make absolutely no sense, while the creativity and thought that goes into some of the others is an absolute delight to read and very refreshing to see the material produced.
We do hope that people will take those tips and hints on board:)
Excellent tips my friend, I hope this will help the participants to create interesting stories. I love the stories in this challenge, I think the writers are very creative, but there are some that really don't hook me and I don't see much sense in them, even if they use magic as a resource, there has to be a why, a motive and an end.
I try to learn from my own and others' mistakes when I read, to create stories with different sequences that don't seem repetitive and monotonous. I like variety in literature and enjoy all genres of it, as I do in series and movies, however, when I see something I feel I've already seen, even if it's good, it doesn't impact me as much.
I'm going to take these tips into consideration and keep the quality in my stories. I hope to find things this week that cause me various emotions, maybe even cry like a cupcake ha ha! Best vibes to everyone, I'm also fizzling out.
I'm glad that you found it helpful. We do love the creativity that people bring each week overall.
Hello, dear friend, these are certainly very good tips to take into account because they explain to us a little more what they are looking for in the contestant publications, that is very good because it will guide the way to create great stories. I am going to write my entry taking into account these suggestions I hope you like it. Best regards.
No pressure!
We'll look out for your entry:)
I'm glad that you found it helpful. The goal here isn't to control or limit people on how they write their stories, its about improving writing and creating a quality product that people will enjoy reading. Magic in stories is great, but it still needs to make sense and it still needs to be believable. Plot is great, but it needs to have purpose. Stories and any post on Hive for that matter, should always be well written, proof read and edited. I didn't mention this above but last week we had some entries that actually used the wrong words than the prompt words that we provided. My guess is that the online translator switched them to what it thought was more appropriate, but that is not an excuse, because it means that the author did not go back and proof read and edit their story after it was translated. Hive isn't only about slapping together a post in order to make a quick buck, its about creating something that the Hive community and greater internet, actually wants to read.
Anyway, that is all that I have to say on the matter. I think that you already understand all of this.
Good luck in your writing.
Hey you are right in saying that the story does not develop, it's like when you eat something tasty and you can't get it out of your mouth but you are left chewing it like a chewing gum forever haha, by the way excellent rabbits helped me a lot to see things more clearly, thank you very much.
I'm glad that you found it helpful.
Nice analogy with the chewing gum 😆
It's really fun to see how you come up with new ideas for spillthebeans, I love it, a natural disaster related to coffee, I went to work on it and this is what came out 💃.
https://ecency.com/hive-152524/@valeriavalentina/the-coffee-volcano
Thanks for your feedback and for your entry this week!
Blessed is he who enjoys a good cup of coffee with his friends. Blessings to all the users of this caffeine-filled community, 😀… Interesting stories I have read from everyone who has posted. Well, here I leave my participation. Good luck to everyone.
Thanks for your entry!
Thanks.
Fun as usual. We can’t take ourselves too seriously. Haha. Hope to see some interesting stories (always good). Here’s my story https://ecency.com/hive-152524/@itsostylish/snow
Thank you for your entry. Yes, it's good when people combine good effort and having fun with what they present:)
Here you go. It's evening here so I'll make sure I engage tomorrow!
https://peakd.com/hive-152524/@riverflows/the-world-shall-know-us-by-our-caffeinated-dead
Thanks for your entry.
We appreciate your thoughtful engagement:)
Hoooola great team @cinnccf, great idea that we have proposed in this opportunity and more for the ravages that are leaving the rains here I share my entry.
https://peakd.com/hive-152524/@sidalim88/the-prediction-of-my-ancestors
Greetings
Thanks for your entry!
The rewards earned on this comment will go directly to the people( @millycf1976 ) sharing the post on Twitter as long as they are registered with @poshtoken. Sign up at https://hiveposh.com.
Happy sunday, this is my early entry.
https://ecency.com/hive-152524/@wendyth16/love-with-coffee-to-activate
Thanks for your entry!
Greetings dear team of @cinnccf another great initiative that you share with us, here is my participation:
https://peakd.com/hive-152524/@madridbg/the-strange-case-of-the-species-393-new-coffee-fruit
I had a lot of fun with this initiative. Thank you very much.
https://peakd.com/hive-152524/@luzvicente/the-magical-coffee-bean
Thanks for your entry!
Righto @riverflows - we still have time, but time is ticking!
Happy new week to everyone. Here is my link to this week's #spillthebeans
https://peakd.com/hive-152524/@esther-emmanuel/my-magical-harvest
Thanks for your entry!
Happy day here I share my story, thanks for the topics are very good https://peakd.com/hive-152524/@tejimundo/deadly-aroma
Thanks for your entry!
Thank you for your advice and suggestions for the writing of the stories. With all my love I received them and took them into account for this participation.
Here I share my story:
https://peakd.com/hive-152524/@enclassecu/light-in-the-darkness
Thanks for your entry!
Greetings. 😃 Here's my story and I hope you enjoy reading it.
https://peakd.com/hive-152524/@ladytitan/emmas-coffee-plant
Thanks for your entry!
https://ecency.com/hive-152524/@kristowe/the-new-life-experience
Thanks for your entry!
The canephora chronicles is shaping out real nice! 😉
https://peakd.com/hive-152524/@simplifylife/the-canephora-chronicles-the-rise-of-capulus-prequel-2
Thanks for your entry!
Have a happy afternoon. Here is my participation in this new challenge.
https://peakd.com/hive-152524/@universoperdido/take-us-with-you
Thanks for your entry!
Nice to be here again, this is my entry https://peakd.com/hive-152524/@jetta.amaya/veronicas-silence
Thanks for your entry!
Hello coffee lovers. Here is my story
https://peakd.com/hive-152524/@chacald.dcymt/i-hope-it-will-rain
🎆🎇🎉🎊🌧️💐✨🌾🌱🌹🌙🌿🍃🥀⚡🌺☘️🍀🌈🌷⭐🪴🌵🌸🌟💮🌴🌳💫☀️💮☔🌲🌳🌍🌌🌠☄️🏵️🐝🌻🌼🍄🐞🦋💙☕💜🍍🎆🎇🎉🎊🎆🎇🎉🎊🌧️💐✨🌾🌱🌹🌙🌿🍃🥀⚡🌺☘️🍀🌈🌷⭐🪴🌵🌸🌟💮🌴🌳💫☀️💮☔🌲🌳🌍🌌🌠☄️🏵️🐝🌻🌼🍄🐞🦋💙☕💜🍍🎆🎇🎉🎊
Thanks for your entry!
https://peakd.com/hive-152524/@lisrl26/you-cant-imagine-what-happened
Greetings to all. A new week and a new creative writing challenge. Here is my participation
Thanks for your entry!
Greetings friends, those tips that you share with us are very good, to improve and grow as a great community. Here I leave my participation this week, greetings.
https://peakd.com/hive-152524/@davidpena21/the-altered-seeds
Thanks for your entry!
Hello good evening, dear community, I am back to the contests I enjoy the most, here is my entry, I hope you like it, https://peakd.com/hive-152524/@eollarvesm/the-secret-of-my-coffee
Thanks for your entry!
Hi Cinnccf,
My entry;
https://ecency.com/hive-152524/@kei2/imprints
Thank you so much for participating:)
I'm always pleased to participate.
Post Link
https://ecency.com/hive-152524/@dwixer/the-coffee-drop
Here My entry, good luck to everyone❤️
https://peakd.com/hive-152524/@franchalad/its-raining-coffee
Thanks for your entry!
Morning Coffee Gang! Down to the wire again, but was glad to finish this piece off. It's just a little bit of fun ;)
https://peakd.com/hive-152524/@lordtimoty/the-slightly-vulgar-story-of-how-candice-became-a-coffee-drinker-spillthebeans
Thank you so much for participating ;)
Hi friends, I wrote my story for the challenge, a very special coffee storm....
https://peakd.com/hive-152524/@ungranulises/coffeestorm
Thanks for your entry:)