Image source: Caleb Jones on Unsplash
Hello and welcome to the The Ink Well weekly fiction prompt. 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.
Flash Fiction Contest Update
Last week's flash fiction contest based on a choice of prompts is now closed. Thank you so much to everyone who participated! We now have the challenge of selecting winners, and you guys have not made this easy fo us. There are SO many wonderful stories.
We will complete our judging and post an announcement and rewards by this Friday, September 24. Stay tuned!
Note that we did not publish a highlights magazine this week, as we want to reserve that for the announcement of the winners. With this post we will launch a writing prompt for the coming week.
Important Community Notes
Before you post in our community, please be sure to read the community rules (right side of the page) where we outline the "do's and don'ts" for posting in The Ink Well. If you only use a mobile phone and can't see 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.
Be Sure to Read Stories by Your Fellow Writers!
Authors, please read and comment on other writers' stories. We request that you read at least two stories weekly, or two stories for each one you publish in The Ink Well. It only takes a little time, and this ensures that we have a thriving and supportive community. It also builds your following and improves your rewards!
Also note that we only select stories for the periodic highlights magazine by authors who are engaging with other members' posts.
Thank you to all of the community members who take the time to read other authors' work and provide comments. You are so awesome!
Okay! Let's review fiction entries from last week's prompt and launch a new one.
Stories From the Previous Week
Thank you to everyone who posted a story for last week's “flash fiction prompt," which invited The Ink Well authors to join our contest by writing a story that included one of the sentences provided:
- No one knew where she was going.
- We watched the spaghetti slide slowly down the wall.
- The surface of the pond began to bubble and gurgle.
- We took the long way to avoid the cottage where the troll lived.
- There was unrest in the city that night.
- When the curtain moved, I felt a creeping sensation and gasped.
- The second time Mike and Maxine got married was better than the first.
- The sign by the door said, "Take an umbrella in case of rain."
Here are the week's stories. Be sure to read and support these authors for their work!
- No One Knew Where She Was Going, by @repayme4568
- The Footprints, by @ubani1
- Take Your Chances When You Get the Opportunity, by @readthisplease
- Family Matters, by @bruno-kema
- Mara 2021, by @juanvegetarian
- Mike's Dilemma, by @iyimoga
- Johnny Felt a Creepy Sensation and Wanted to Run, by @sunnyag
- Closure, by @greenie.girl
- Where Is Marina?, by @wrestlingdesires
- The Not So Lucky Adventurer, by @yuki-nee
- The Forbidden Start, by @dwixer
- The Marinar Gauntlet, by @generikat
- Moving, by @faithann
- Battle for the City of Ake, by @kemmyb
- Masterpiece, by @b0s
- Because Without Looking for You I've Found You Everywhere, by @ricardo993
- Where Is Mrs. Cruz?, by @mrnightmare.net
- Unsettled Community, by @cool08
- Female Disinheritance, by @mcluz
- Natalie's Sketch Gift, by @esther-emmanuel
- Taken, by @rokhani
- Where Did She Go? by @diebitch
- The second time Mike and Maxine got married was better than the first.
- The Kiss of the Angel of Death, by @deeanndemathews
- Second Time's a Charm, by @onwugbenuvictor
- Not In Season, by @vincric
- The Project, by @justclickindiva
- Drowned, by @mrenglish
This Week’s Prompt
The prompt for this week is a fork in the road. Read on to discover how to use this prompt!
Most people are familiar with the expression "a fork in the road." It does not typically mean there is a dining utensil lying on the street, of course. It is about choices. Life quandaries. Evaluating options and making a choice that takes a person toward one thing and away from another.
There are many things you could do with this prompt. Your character could be trying to decide whether to stay within a marriage, move to a different city, or accept some kind of deal that would help achieve their goal, but at an unfortunate cost.
Note that you don't have to use the prompt phrase "a fork in the road" in your story. We're just looking for those life decisions, large and small, or perhaps reflections of a person who took a fork in the road long ago... and is looking back on what might otherwise have been.
Get creative! We look forward to reading your stories!
Note: As always, please avoid gory, bloody, brutal, sexist or racist themes and language, NSFW (not safe for work) themes, and stories featuring abuse of women, children or animals.
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.
- 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 (NEW!): We request that story word counts are 1,000 to 1,500 words maximum length. This is just a guideline. Longer stories tend to get fewer readers. Additionally, The Ink Well admins appreciate keeping to that maximum story length for our time management!
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
Thank you for being a part of The Ink Well!
@jayna, @agmoore and @gracielaacevedo
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My entry: Put a Fork in This Case, Because It's Done -- a special treat for those who read @justclickindiva's prompt #31 and remember Mr. and Mrs. Bungling, but also a standalone response to be enjoyed by those who haven't read "The Project" yet!
My comments:
Hello @deeanndmathews. Yes, it is a special treat. I thoroughly enjoyed reading the solving of my "who actually done it?" It was a surprise because I wasn't sure Mrs. B. was was being forthright.
Thank you. Hope you enjoy the rest of your Sunday evening.
I totally approve of this message:
And I apologize for falling so, so, so far behind.
Many of us write not for payouts and prizes, but for the feedback from readers. Otherwise we pour out our hearts, yearning for contact with others, only to throw words into the void, and it can be lonely.
Read. Upvote. Comment.
Thank you, fellow writers and readers, and thank you, Inkwell team.
We have missed you, @carolkean! Thank you for stopping in at least for a hello!
https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@ricardo993/underestimate
My entry for this week, I hope you like it.
My entry for the week.
https://ecency.com/hive-170798/@iyimoga/the-ink-well-fiction-31
Great! I'm excited already. *does a small dance. Hehehe
We live to inspire our community of writers, @faithann. :)
Have fun.
Interresting. Hope I can join. I'm not comfortable writing stories on mobile. Laptop just crashed. Just as well, it was a ten year old machine. 😂
Oh no! That's unfortunate. I prefer the laptop as well, but one thing I have found is that I can draft in Google docs on my phone. It often takes several sessions to finish a story, so it's just there in the cloud for when you can get to it. Then when you're ready to post, you double-tap anywhere in the document and then you can tap "Select All" and then "Copy." Then you go to your Hive post window, tap there and you will see the option to Paste.
Good luck!
Thanks for the advice, @jayna. I use the Writer Plus app on mobile and just copy it to a post editor on HIVE. I have not tested Google docs but I will try it out for comparison. :)
Sounds like another brainstormer to me but as usual, I will give it a try :) I have posted 4-5 comments and will keep doing so on other posts!
https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@sunnyag/why-am-i-such-a-loser
You are a trooper, @sunnyag. Always up for a challenge!
Thanks. I have tried as best as I could.
And it shows! Your progress as a writer is so incredibly inspiring, @sunnyag. ❤️
🙏
I can't wait to see the stories for this, what a great prompt :) I don't have anything for it yet, but it will come to me :) ...
!PIZZA !ALIVE
@theinkwell! I sent you a slice of $PIZZA on behalf of @wrestlingdesires.
Learn more about $PIZZA Token at hive.pizza (7/10)
Yes, I'm sure it will, @wrestlingdesires. I sometimes find that if I put an idea in my head and go for a walk or a bike ride, the idea will suddenly pop into my head. Weird how that works.
True! But I have to say, the Marina story was inspired by a browsing of Hive ♥️
We never know where our ideas and inspiration will come from!
Exactly :) And when it comes we need to run with it!
!PIZZA !ALIVE
@jayna! I sent you a slice of $PIZZA on behalf of @wrestlingdesires.
Learn more about $PIZZA Token at hive.pizza (7/10)
You Are Alive and have been rewarded with 0.1 ALIVE tokens from the We Are Alive Tribe, and it's paid for by the earnings on @alive.chat, swing by our daily chat any time you want.
You Are Alive and have been rewarded with 0.1 ALIVE tokens from the We Are Alive Tribe, and it's paid for by the earnings on @alive.chat, swing by our daily chat any time you want.
It seems to me that it's about time to return to fiction writing. And this invitation from @theinkwell looks very appealing.
How exciting, @morey-lezama! We look forward to reading your creation.
Thanks you so much!
Another good prompt. I'll be sure to write something for this week's prompt so do expect a story from me 😉
Wonderful!
I really sort of hope someone writes one involving an actual fork in an actual road. Ha ha.
Lmao! That would be a very interesting read indeed especially if the writer could make it into an actual dilemma so as to stay within the theme of the contest.
Hello all members of #inkwell, This is my entry for this week promt: https://ecency.com/hive-170798/@repayme4568/the-voice-of-the-town
My entry for the week
https://ecency.com/hive-170798/@readthisplease/life-changing-decisions-are-sometimes-considered-a-small-price-to-pay-for-who-we-love
I'm finally done writing the story for this week's prompt. Here it is. Enjoy!
https://ecency.com/hive-170798/@yuki-nee/dream-and-potted-camellia-a
I also read, commented and upvoted several of our community's writers today, and the past few days.
Hello! Here's my story for this week's prompt - -
https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@kemmyb/to-tell-or-not-to-tell-or-the-ink-well-prompt-32
Comments - -
-Wrestlingdesires
-Dwixer
-Ricardo993
Thanks so much for your support every week, it really does mean a lot ♥️ Here is my entry for the prompt of the week :)
https://ecency.com/category/@wrestlingdesires/mike-s-choice-plus-original
My entry
https://www.proofofbrain.blog/hive-170798/@onwugbenuvictor/cost-of-true-friendship
I just dropped my entry. Enjoy! https://hive.blog/hive-170798/@faithann/a-million-dollar-bet-or-or-the-inkwellprompt
Comments on:
@readthisplease
@mcluz
My entry for this week's prompt
https://peakd.com/@cool08/absolute-secrecy-or-the-ink-well-prompt-32
Commented on:
@kemmyb
@faithann
Hello. Here is my entry for Prompt: #32
https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@justclickindiva/the-plunge-or-the-ink-well-weekly-fiction-writing-prompt-32
Comments on other Authors:
@kemmyb
@deeanndmathews
@faithann
@joseph1956
@katleya
@evegrace
Here's my submission 😁 :
https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@juanvegetarian/a-fork-in-the-road-erza-and-ezra
My entry, actually, I don't really understand since we have language boundaries in this matter but anyway I hope this will be fine,
https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@mrnightmare.net/inkwell-prompt-32-or-a-monster