Image source: mostafa_meraji on Pixabay
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.
Important FAQs about The Ink Well!
Before we get to the prompt, we have answers to some Frequently Asked Questions about The Ink Well.
What Is The Ink Well all about? The Ink Well is a short story community. We do not accept essays, poems, chapter stories or other content. Just short stories! And we are all about creativity, quality, community, and engagement. This means that just dropping by to post some stuff is not acceptable. 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 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.
We invite you to use the #creativecoin prompt. We are pleased to announce that we are getting some curation attention from the Creative Coin Fund. You can read about it in our recent newsletter.
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, or a story arc. (See our catalog of fiction writing tips for information on these important aspects of short stories.)
- Your story appears to be a retelling of an old folk tale. There's nothing wrong with folk tales, but here in The Ink Well, we are looking for 100% original fiction. We want to see fresh new stories from your imagination, not age-old stories with well-worn themes.
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 prompt, “Family Ties." You guys brought us some wonderful tales of the things that bind family members together.
Here are the week's stories. Be sure to read and support these authors for their work!
- Conclusions, by @milezofplay
- The Homeless, by @sunnyag
- The Younger Me, by @ozohu
- Absentee Husband, by @mrenglish
- Changes, by @wrestlingdesires
- The Prodigal Son, by @cool08
- My Brother's Heart, by @emeka002
- The Cold House, by @ricardo993
- Family Ties, by @mcluz
- The Tribal Conflict, by @dwixer
- The Family That Never Leaves Anyone Behind, by @khaleesii
- Family Ties, by @iyimoga
- My Family and I, by @chidubem26
- From Farm to Desk, by @katleya
- The Long Journey Home, by @blueeyes8960
- When You Find Out You Have Six (Dozen) Brothers, by @deeanndmathews
- Sleeping With a Princess Forever, by @khoola
- The Unpredictability of Life, by @yuki-nee
- You Are Not My Brother, by @mosin-nagant
- Iphigenia, The First Born, by @gracielaacevedo
This Week’s Prompt
One thing that is central to every good story ever written is conflict. For the reader to care about the character, we need to know what problem they are trying to overcome, or what they desire. That is conflict. By telling the story of the conflict and how it is resolved, you create a story arc which is an important structure for a good story.
The prompt is: longing. For this prompt, we want you to create a story with a conflict based on a need or desire. Help your readers to experience and feel your character's deep longing for something it seems they cannot obtain — then resolve the conflict by the end of the story.
Here are a few examples of conflicts based on longing:
- A child wants a turkey for Thanksgiving, but there is not enough money.
- A husband wants to find the perfect gift for his wife for her birthday, but he does not have any good ideas and his time is running out.
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
- #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
Thank you for being a part of The Ink Well!
@jayna, @agmoore and @gracielaacevedo
We would like to invite lovers of creative writing to visit The Ink Well, a Hive community started by @raj808 and @stormlight24 and run by @jayna, @agmoore and @gracielaacevedo.
We also invite you to follow The Ink Well curation trail on the Hive blockchain, at https://hive.vote/. Simply navigate to the curation trail section and search for theinkwell (all one word with no @ symbol) and our trail will pop up as an option.
Similarly delegations are possible on Hive using the fantastic https://peakd.com/ Hive Blockchain front end. If you wish to delegate to @theinkwell, you can do this from the wallet section of https://peakd.com/
@jayna, @agmoore, @gracielaacevedo, @iamraincrystal, @generikat, @marlyncabrera, @owasco, @preparedwombat, @marcybetancourt, @zeurich, @barge, @lacrucita, @stormcharmer, @adncabrera, @vision-of-esca, @josemalavem, @morey-lezama, @sayury, @rypo01, @evagavilan2 and @bertrayo.
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Since I joined this community at the #33 word prompt shadows it has been a motivating factor to write my imagination, this had been very helpful.
This is yet another prompt that will put to test how imaginative one can be. Thanks to #Theinkwell community for this giant stride.
Good luck, @mrenglish!
I'm excited about this one! Weldone @jayna, thank you for always giving us the opportunity to be creators.
Looking forward to seeing what you come up with, @ozohu!
Fingers crossed.
Thank you for submitting a story, @mrenglish. I look forward to reading it.
@theinkwell Here is my story for prompt #39. I am posting my comments on various posts (posted 4 so far) and will keep posting as many as possible. Thank you.
https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@sunnyag/mark-is-no-more-willing-to-go-for-biking
Thanks so much for engaging with other writers' work, @sunnyag. You are an awesome community member and we appreciate you!
For me community comes first @jayna there is no fun if there is no interaction with the community. I will keep posting as and when possible. Thank you!
That is a great way to approach anything, @sunnyag. Your spirit has always been evident.
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Another good prompt! I'm conflicted about what to write...😁
That's good when the prompt makes you think!
What to do, what to do... When I look for ideas I often read about the subject before I go to sleep and my subconscious comes up with a solution. May not work for you, but it almost always works for me.
That does seem to happen quite often, just let the mind work it out on its own.
I love that method, @agmoore. In fact I suggest that very thing in all of my prompts for Write Club. For me, it works best to get a story started. Just a beginning and a character and a situation are all that's needed. Then my subconscious mind begins to build out the story.
Yes, sometimes at first glance I think there is nothing I can write about that, then a few days laters, the words just fly under my fingertips, lol.
Here's my entry. https://ecency.com/hive-170798/@b0s/self-reflection
I have commented and will continue commenting on the work of other authors
Thank you for your story, and for engaging with other writers, @b0s!
I read your story, @b0s. In the past I worked with people who were clinically depressed. It is a dangerous condition. You deal with the dangers well in your story.
I'm glad you could relate with it. Thanks for reading
This is my entry
https://hive.blog/hive-170798/@emeka002/dreams-and-hope
Awesome!
I read your story. So many children have dreams that will never be realized. It's kind of rest from the misery of the world to read about a child whose dream comes true.
My entry https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@ozohu/first-time-apart
Comments on @sunnyag and @b0s
You've become so consistent in your story writing, @ozohu. Great job!
My entry for this week
https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@readthisplease/love-stuck-between-a-rock-and-a-hard-place
Comments on @ozohu and @bos
Looking forward to reading it!
My entry
https://ecency.com/hive-170798/@iyimoga/the-ink-well-prompt-39
Thank you @iyimoga. I read your story. After being angry at the father (!) I was uplifted by the spirit of love that finally brought the sisters together. Good story.
Comment on
@sunnyag
@dwixer
Thank you for being such an active community member, @iyimoga!
I'm looking forward to more stories on this prompt. The ones I've read have been great! Here's mine:
https://ecency.com/hive-170798/@diebitch/like-we-used-to
Looking forward to reading it. Glad you are reading other work in the community.
Here's mine - and I actually managed to keep it short 😂
https://ecency.com/hive-170798/@wrestlingdesires/a-christmas-vision
Brevity is a gift, in speech and in writing :)
It's also an art - one I am still trying to master :) ...
!PIZZA !ALIVE
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.
My entry
https://peakd.com/@cool08/no-pain-no-gain
I have commented on:
@sunnyag
@b0s
Thank you for supporting your fellow writers, @cool08!
PIZZA Holders sent $PIZZA tips in this post's comments:
@wrestlingdesires(9/20) tipped @theinkwell (x1)
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Morning to the @inkwell community,
Here is my work for this weeks prompt #39 [Sleeping with a Princess 'love and despair']
(https://ecency.com/hive-170798/@khoola/sleeping-with-a-princess-love)
@lovesniper, I am currently working on my intro-post but every time I learn something new @newbies-guide I tend to rewrite my work, every time I see a great intro-post I tend to re-write it again... and when finally I realize I am no longer writing a short story ( "is this a blog... about myself!?" ) my confidence just plummets.
lastly, I still have a problem with the 'insufficient credit transaction' ( my coins are in the WAX blockchain and I am still figuring things out... I just stumbled here because of splinterlands )...
I'll have my intro up some time next week.
Cheers!!!
P.S.
I am really sorry for posting... that here... I am just unsure If I can make another post...
Hellow!
My comments:
@deeanndmathews
@mosin-nagant
My entry:
https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@katleya/the-ink-well-prompt-39-broken-youth-dreams
Hello, fellow writers! This community is everything I've been looking for: from writing tips focused on fiction to amazing weekly prompts to fuel creativity 😍 And on top of that, the engagement and interaction between authors seem great! I'm thankful to be here, and will soon begin to participate in your activities. ❤️ For now, I'll give a read to some of last week's short stories.
Wonderful to hear and thank you for joining us, @beautifulwreck!
Hello everyone, please check out my entry, thank you.
https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@khaleesii/the-inkwell-prompt-39-a-hive-love-story
I almost missed it, here is my entry for this week.
https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@ricardo993/mistakes-and-failures-or-the-ink-well-prompt
Thanking you in advance for reading, I leave you with my exercise on longing.
https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@gracielaacevedo/longing-discovered
Here is my entry
https://www.proofofbrain.blog/hive-170798/@onwugbenuvictor/choosing-between-what-you-love
I have supported
@readthisplease
@b0s
Hi everyone, here is my own entry for this week prompt
https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@amiableamara/love-and-music
My entry: Delford Drake III Finds His Coach
My comments:
Greetings all. Sincere apologies on my previous post. Here's my official entry.
Where Is Love❤
Comments in three other entries @sunnyag @b0s @amiableamara
Hi, thanks for the interesting prompt. Here's my submission for this week's prompt: https://ecency.com/hive-170798/@yuki-nee/the-curse-of-death
Hello! I hope you're all well. Here's my short story for this week's longing prompt! I made sure to stop by and support some fellow writers' work, of course.
My entry
https://ecency.com/hive-170798/@fj125/the-ink-well-prompt-39
Good luck and have fun!
You always bring an interesting perspective to the prompt, @milezofplay
Wow,that's a lot of commenting. Thank you!