Dear community:
Welcome to Prompt #23 in our creative nonfiction initiative. Thank you to everyone who contributed a nonfiction story last week.
Here's a quick overview of how it works:
Each week, we provide a creative nonfiction prompt. You are also welcome to post other creative nonfiction pieces that are not based on the prompt. See the guidelines below.
To be curated, your content should follow our guidelines, be at least 350 words (but ideally 750 -1500 words), be written in English, or another language as well as the English translation, and — as much as possible — free of errors. We also expect everyone who posts stories in The Ink Well to read and comment on the work of at least two other community members for each story published. (Thank you!)
What Is Creative Nonfiction?
There are many guides and resources online for getting to know this wonderful genre. It is truly about storytelling. The simple difference between creative nonfiction and fictional stories is that the story is not made up.
We like this definition from an article on creativenonfiction.org:
Simply put: Creative nonfiction is true stories, well told.
With creative nonfiction, you are using the literary and storytelling tools of a fiction writer to craft stories from real life experiences. Set the scene. Give the details. Profile the characters. Give us the dialog, as best you can remember it.
Ideas and inspiration:
Creative nonfiction stories can be snippets from your life autobiography — moments in time you want to capture in words, whether they were frightening, enlightening, bittersweet, or life-altering. They can be observations about life, about a time you connected at a profound level with a perfect stranger, or something you have learned along the way that made you a better person.
Do you love podcasts? One of the greatest sources of creative nonfiction is The Moth Radio Hour. Listen to a few of the stories from The Moth, and we guarantee you will be inspired.
Here are some additional resources for learning more about the creative nonfiction genre:
-- Reedsy blog: What is Creative Nonfiction? The Unputdownable Truth
-- Writers.com: Understanding Creating Nonfiction: What It Is and How to Write ItCheck out this list of creative nonfiction stories. For example, one of the stories is about a funeral for a lizard named Rango.
We hope you are inspired!
Guidelines for Creative Nonfiction Articles in The Ink Well
- Write creative nonfiction stories about real life, memories, or experiences.
- As with our fiction guidelines, we ask that articles be at least 350 words in length. Optimal length is 750-1500 words.
- Please read and edit your content before posting. It makes a big difference in how we reward work published in The Ink Well. (And we have some great guidelines for improving your grammar and fixing errors before you post in this article.)
- Please post directly in The Ink Well community, and post your link in a comment on this post.
- Please use the tag #creativenonfiction on these posts.
Here are some examples of what we are looking for:
- Explore an idea that interests you, such as how childhood experiences shape us as adults.
- Write about the study of dreams and what they mean, along with your own experience.
- Tell about an experience from your life that profoundly changed you.
- Write about a teacher who inspired you.
In other words, tell a story from real life. And illustrate the ideas you share with real world experiences, memories and observations.
Here’s what we are NOT looking for:
- A picture of a flower or other posts focused on photography
- A few paragraphs about what you ate for lunch
- Recipes and how-to articles
- Life lessons or advice
- Essays about religion or politics
- Poetry
What will be muted:
- Spam posts or plagiarism
- Graphic violence
- Lectures or proselytizing about religion, politics or morality
Last Week's Creative Nonfiction Winners
Thank you to all who participated in last week's prompt: "Try, fail, try again." We enjoyed reading how our writers reacted to this announcement. There was fantastic writing!
Writers who joined in the fun:
@abrarhussain
@abdul-qudus
@amiegeoffrey
@hiverdrive
@fragozar01
@idlemind
@funshee
@yuki-nee
@jhymi
@kingsleyy
@mrenglish
@restcity
@princessbusayo
@diikaan
@edystringz
@ricardo993
@riz611
@treasuree
@abdul-qudus
@amiableamara
@dianelson
@jessicaossom
@lenaspiritual
@lightpen
@lizizoo
@lrscarmen
@marynn
@Owasco
@rammargarita
@rukkie
@timix648
@merit.ahama
@borderline.baby
@gracielaacevedo
Honorable Mentions of the Week
Our honorable mentions for last week's prompt are:
@amiegeoffrey: I didn't give up on my journey of learning a new language even though I failed at first.
Third Place: Wins 2 Hive
Our third place winner is @yuki-nee , with his story Rising from Failure: A New Phase .
Hence, in August of 2019 I resumed my schooling.There was a lot of struggle in the first few weeks. I couldn't keep up with the younger students and the overwhelming amount of information they were exposed to. To avoid another setback, I put in more effort than ever before. I paid close attention in class, took extensive notes, and raised my hand whenever I had questions.
The turning point occurred when I received my first poor grade. There were times when I wanted to quit because I believed I would never be good enough.(...)And now, I will have my diploma in hand in a few months. It has been a long and challenging road, but I am so pleased with myself that I have not given up. I have tried, failed, and tried again, but this time I have succeeded. .
Second Place: Wins 3 Hive
Our second place winner is @owasco, with his story Humiliation and Failure.
The first time was back when she was only twenty three. She had been asked to audition, so she felt like hot stuff. But when they asked her to sing, she froze. She was then commanded to "just sing Happy Birthday." Only tiny croaks came out of her mouth. Mortifying! Nearly thirty years passed before she dared to try again.
This time the aspirant got serious. She worked diligently for weeks beforehand. She'd gotten acting advice, voice lessons, and a wardrobe consult about how to dress to impress. She made sure to get plenty of sleep leading up to the event, and to drink lots of water. By the time the audition came up, she sounded like a rock star.
At home. Where no one could hear her.
First Place: Wins 5 Hive
Our first place winner is @restcity, with her story Fight, Fail, Keep Fighting!.
Try Again:
Nowadays I am able to let things like that go. I combat my overthinking by giving myself time to think about it and moving on. If a mistake I made is just rotting in my mind, I’ll ask myself: What am I so mad about? Could I have changed what happened? What can I do in the future to prevent this outcome?
I’ll write about what happened, and what I could do next time to prevent the bad outcome. I don’t feel completely better, but my mind feels eased enough to move onto other things.
I still have a bit of that girl from before. The me who dwelled on her mistakes, the girl who feels like she always does things wrong. But I fight her with the older, more doughty me, who knows with time and practice I can and have improved myself for the better. Nowadays I shake off a little insult. And good luck if you wanna bully me.
The Ink Well Creative Nonfiction Writing Prompt #23:
"The biggest surprise of my life."
Surprise is an emotional situation, an experience caused by something we do not expect and that completely captures our attention.
There are surprises of all kinds: pleasant surprises and unpleasant surprises, big surprises and small surprises.
Surprises make life interesting.
This week we ask you to surprise us with situations that have happened to you.
For this theme there are several possible approaches. For example:
You thought you knew a person very well, yet you have been surprised by the way they have acted.
You arrive home to find it tidied up very differently from the way you left it. What happened?
You have been thinking and suddenly you discover something inside you that surprises you.
A landscape, a flower, a gesture... captivates your attention. Tell us about it!
Have fun and good luck! We look forward to reading your stories.
Please use the tags #creativenonfiction and #inkwellprompt on these posts. And please remember to add your post link to a comment on this post!
NOTE: Please refrain from providing advice, guidance, or suggestions to others about their life choices in your post. Creative nonfiction is about storytelling.
Prizes!
- The top creative nonfiction story of the week will receive 5 Hive
- The second place story will receive 3 Hive
- Third place will receive 2 Hive
Deadline
You have a week, until the next prompt is posted, to post your creative nonfiction story in The Ink Well community.
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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Congratulations!
@restcity, @owasco, @yuki-nee , @diebitch, @timix648 , @fragozar01, @amiegeoffrey.
Thanks for these great stories!
Thanks to all the writers!
Thanks!
Thank you!
Thanks 🙂🙂
Thank you!
This is a link to my Nonfiction prompt #23:
https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@princessbusayo/inkwell-creative-nonfiction-23-oror-the-day-came-as-the-biggest-surprise-of-my-life
I supported @dianelson @mmenyene @inessita @jetta.amaya @princess-dara
Ok
I will check on it
Congratulations to all winners and honorable mentions. Too bad for me, my submission came late, so it wasn't curated 😅. My fault for submitting late hahaha
Congratulations again everyone!😊😍
For sure your story will be cured, have a little patience, @idlemind. It's a good idea to arrive earlier with the stories!
Thank you for this 😊
Next time, I'll submit early.
Congratulations all 😁
Congratulations to all the winners 🏆
Oh God I can not wait to read this week's stories 😄
Congratulations to our winners, I'm looking forward to a lot of stories that are full of surprises this week.
Congratulations to all the Winners and the honourable mentions 🎉🎉
Wow congratulations to all winners and honourable mentions...and thanks @theinkwell for the mention 🙂
I can't wait to see stories for this prompt 😅💪
Why, thank you!!! What a pleasure! Much appreciation to you for your appreciation of my story!
Beautiful prompt . Congratulations to the winners, you guys are amazing.
Commented @bdellium29 @drceeyou
Here is my link to the contest
https://ecency.com/hive-170798/@princess-dara/humans-are-full-of-surprise
Congratulations to the winners. Thank you for the opportunity Inkwell. All the best to all entries....
My post entry
https://ecency.com/hive-170798/@marynn/creative-nonfiction-in-the-ink?referral=marynn
I engaged and supported these authors @popurri @george-dee and @kemmyb
Congratulations to the winners. I share with you my entry for this week https://peakd.com/@jetta.amaya/some-things-never-cease-to-amaze-us-englishspanish
I read and commented to: @princess-dara and @marynn
Congratulations to the winners and honorable mentions.
It has been a crazy time but I will be back - if for nothing else -at least to enjoy the stories.
Saludos, acá les dejo el enlace a mi participación:
https://hive.blog/hive-170798/@inessita/unexpected-surprise-creative-nonfiction-in-the-ink-well-prompt-23
Congratulations to the winners . Here is my entry
https://ecency.com/hive-170798/@amiableamara/the-red-king?referral=amiableamara
https://hive.blog/hive-170798/@mmenyene/biggest-life-surprise
This is my post entry
https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@dianelson/whats-life-without-you
This is the link to my entry. I hope you enjoy reading 😊.
Congrats for all the Winners....here's my entry below for this week
https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@faitz007/when-i-decided-not-to-give-up-yet
Congratulations to the winners.
https://ecency.com/hive-170798/@abdul-qudus/what-a-surprise
Here is my entry for the week.
Supported @princessbusayo @marynn
Here's my entry for the prompt
https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@hazmat/a-surprise
Here is my entry
https://ecency.com/hive-170798/@mrenglish/pleasant-surprises-ink-well-creative
I have engaged on the following authors work
@princessbusayo and @minhajulmredol
Supported @timix648 @Princess-dara @jetta.amaya @Itsostylish @Mmenyene @George-dee and @princessbusayo
I enjoyed reading your stories.
Here is the link to my entry.
Words: 1233
Reading: 6 min
"A Windfall of Fortune: How I Unexpectedly Came Into a Massive Amount of Money."
Awwwwwwwwwwwn
Thank you.
I'll read it too
Here is my entry:
https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@lightpen/insincerity
I love this weeks topic, it requires me to crack up my brain, being so forgetful this days .
https://ecency.com/hive-170798/@stellageorge/fate?referral=stellageorge
My entry for the week's prompt.
Okay so here is my entry
https://ecency.com/hive-170798/@treasuree/surprised-at-her-words-creativenonfiction
and congratulations to last week winners🎉🎉
Greetings to all.
Congratulations to the winners.
Here is my entry:
https://ecency.com/hive-170798/@marilour/the-surprise-that-dissipated-the
Supported @wrestlingdesires @treasuree @stellageorge @dapomolaaaa @lightpen
Thanks for your kind words 🙌
Greetings, kindly find here my entry.
https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@funshee/i-never-saw-that-coming
https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@royaldiadem/an-unexpected-visit
My Entry
Here is my entry
https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@amiegeoffrey/her-attitude-surprised-me
Supported @kinganny and @royaldiadem
Hello everyone. Here is my entry;
https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@rukkie/an-unexpected-surprise-oror-creativenonfiction-23
I engaged @princessbusayo and @faitz007
Congratulations to the winners
Kindly find below my entry to this week's prompt
The biggest surprise of my life!!!
https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@jjmusa2004/the-biggest-surprise-of-my
Hello @theinkwell! Here's my story (a sad one though) for this prompt--
https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@kemmyb/an-unpleasant-surprise-at-the
Comments--
-Royaldiadem
-Marilour
-Jjmusa2004
And finally, my entry🌺:
https://ecency.com/hive-170798/@jhymi/a-surprise-for-the-anti
I supported @funshee, @kemmyb
This is my entry in this week's nonfiction contest.
https://ecency.com/hive-170798/@rammargarita/reminiscences-of-my-primary-education
My entry
https://ecency.com/hive-170798/@lrscarmen/unforgettable-surprise-creative-nonfiction-in
Comments on @kemmyb @jjmusa2004 @amiegeoffrey
Here is my entry for this week prompt
https://ecency.com/hive-170798/@dapomolaaaa/a-special-kind-of-surprise