Image source: dendoktoor 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.
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.
The January Collaboration with DreemPort Continues!
In case you hadn't heard, DreemPort selected The Ink Well for a community spotlight for the month of January. This is week 2! For details, be sure to see our newsletter and the DreemPort Challenge Announcement.
If you choose to participate, you can publish your story for this week's prompt in The Ink Well as usual, then post it on DreemPort and curate others to earn DreemPort tokens. The day to post your story on DreemPort is Thursday.
Congratulations to last week's DreemPort winners, announced here:
- @davidbright - An Unlikely Hero
- @l337m45732 - They Came in the Night;
- @warpedpoetic - Unlikely Hero - My Father the Stranger;
- @abmakko - A Savannah Tale;
- @maryjacy I'd Lost Him Forever
Important FAQs about The Ink Well!
Here are 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. This means we only accept short fiction. (Fiction means stories that came from your imagination, not from real life.)
It also means:
- No novels, chapter stories or multi-part stories
- No poems
- No introduction posts
- No essays or other non-fiction
- No memes
Just fictional short stories!
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.
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, scene details 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, or worse — plagiarism (which will get you banned from the community).
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, “Unlikely Hero."
We really enjoyed reading stories about people who unexpectedly save the day. Thank you, everyone!
Here are the week's stories. Be sure to read and support these authors for their work.
- My Unlikely Hero, by @piratethanos
- The Unbelievable Hero, by @princessbusayo
- One-Eyed Manuel, by @mrenglish
- An Unlikely Hero, by @adoore-eu
- Look at My Unlikely Hero, I Love You Mom, by @rayt2
- Ben, the Savior of His Community, by @cool08
- Unlikely Hero, by @onwugbenuvictor
- The Red Demon, by @khoola
- Hypno, by @mosin-nagant
- Josh Saves the Day: The Hidden Talent, by @emeka002
- My Saving Grace, by @khaleesii
- Jonas the Unlikely Hero, by @joseph230
- Her Scariest Two Minutes, by @ozohu
- You Are Here Now, by @amirtheawesome1
- A Savannah Tale, by @abmakko
- Jimmy Brought Justice, by @merit.ahama
- Unlikely Hero, by @zyzymena
- The Werewolf and the Blue Morpho Were-Butterfly, by @kemmyb
- An Unlikely Hero, by @victorbch
- They Came in the Night, by @l337m45732
- The Lost Hunters, by @popmanj
- The Unlikely Hero, by @b0s
- Hearts Soar, by @lookingforspace
- The Unlikely Hero, by @zeraton
- Saved, by @ubani1
- Decision Time: Spain or Guinea, by @katleya
- The Rescue, by @mmykel
- Ronnie Won the Heart of Ria's Dad, by @fantom22
- The Unexpected, by @bruno-kema
- Don't Judge the Book by Its Cover, by @raymondpeter
- The Outbreak, by @dwixer
- Sarah and the Little Bird, by @abdul-qudus
- Genny's Diary, by @uekop2
- Gil: The Unexpected Hero, by @yuki-nee
- Unlikely Hero, by @kaerpediem
- The Saving Grace, by @iyimoga
- ADA, by @litguru
- Crossing the World, by @gracielaacevedo
- Unlikely Hero, by @mandate
- Brigham Monkey and the Masked Butterfly, by @liftslikealady
- Don't Look Back, by @idlemind
- St. Elmo's Fire, by @samsmith1971
- Powerless, by @doziekash
- Discharged and Acquitted, by @ghost.queen
- The Vagabond Dog, by @mcluz
- Jules Dubois Finds Out He Is a Hero After All, by @deeanndmathews
- Re-ignited, by @diebitch
- A Chance at Life, by @mondraye
- They Were Stucked There, by @farahikram
- Tripper, by @milezof play
Well done, everyone!
This Week’s Prompt
At last, the prompt of the week!
This week's prompt is: Inheritance.
Everyone wants an inheritance. Inheriting money or property is a thrilling proposition for many people. Perhaps it will improve their social status, or enable them to buy things they have always wanted.
But when it comes to inheritance, many things can go wrong, or can turn out differently than people expect. It can create family arguments over whether the inheritance is fair.
And what if the inheritance is...
- A tiny island
- A broken down building
- A castle
- A single coin
- The key to a safe — whereabouts unknown
- A giant house that has annual taxes in excess of the character's income
- A teenager
- A pig farm
- A deadly snake...
... or any another possibility that comes to mind.
We hope that will get your imaginations started! We look forward to reading your stories. Remember to participate in the DreemPort challenge, if you are so inclined!
Note: As always, please avoid gory, bloody, brutal, sexist or racist themes and language, erotica and other NSFW (not safe for work) content, 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 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.
- 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: We request that story word counts are a maximum of 1,500 words maximum length (preferably 750-1000 words). 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
- #39 Longing
- #40 Feast
- #41 Gift
- #42 Season of Light
- #43 Believe
- #44 Elf
- #45 Holiday
- #46 New Year
- #47 Unlikely Hero
Thank you for being a part of The Ink Well!
@jayna, @agmoore, @gracielaacevedo and @wrestlingdesires
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, @gracielaacevedo and @wrestlingdesires.
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, @preparedwombat, @marcybetancourt, @zeurich, @stormcharmer, @adncabrera, @vision-of-esca, @josemalavem, @morey-lezama, @sayury, @evagavilan2 and @bertrayo.
Click banner to visit our community page
Find us on twitter by clicking the banner above.
I'm curious about the dreemport site. What is it all about and what is their website?
!LUV
@theimpostor(1/1) gave you LUV.
of course - I can help with that! :)
Check out these two posts!
DreemPort launches, want to help?
Ready to try? Follow this step by step guide to get started today!
Hope that helps @theimpostor :)
if you have any other questions - feel free to tag me! or just drop a comment on any of my posts and I'll come find ya ;)
Thank you I will start to explore it.
wonderful!
p.s. the red is always sus
hehe
Hehe red fits to my username then.
Please do. It is nice @dreemsteem has responded to your quest. I am exploring @dreemport too and you have a lot of friends there to support you. Enjoy
Thank you for the encouragement. Actually I'm just a newbie. It is just a lot of great people in there.
Have some !LUV
@theimpostor(1/1) gave you LUV.
Welcome. Be consistent with great contents, you will love it here
Yes yes I actually made an outline and plot for my next story; it is part of the weekly prompt or about inheritance. I will publish it tomorrow since it is night here.
This was my post Cracked
I commented on the following authors:
@khoola, @itsostylish, @litguru, @dreemsteem, @iskafan, @abmakko, @chincoculbert, @joalheal, @ayesha-malik
Here is my entry for prompt #48.
https://peakd.com/@mrenglish/jagunas-house-of-commotion
I have made comments on:
@cool08
@katleya
My submission
https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@cool08/unity-and-honesty-the-twin-virtue
I have comment on
@rayt2
@smilejerry
@piratethanos
This is an interesting prompt and I just made my entry. I supported @piratethanos, @smilejerry @rayt2 @katleya @cool08
https://www.ecency.com/hive-170798/@princessbusayo/the-ink-well-prompt-48
Great prompt! Let's go!!!.... it was awesome reading so many wonderful stories last week in Dreemport. Remember to wait until Thursday to put your challenge post into Dreemport this week, but...now that you have an account there, please do feel free to pop any or all of your posts this week into Dreemport for more eyes on your content and hopefully additional curation comments and rewards. Maximum of 1 post each per day per person so make sure you keep Thursday for your Challenge post. And if you wrote last week and didn't use Dreemport, I hope you'll give us a try with Inheritance. Looking forward to seeing what you all have for us this week😊
I just did my story. So, tomorrow, I need to log on to dreemport and curate and post my link? i probably should message you in discord. lol
You've got it! Exactly this - you post your challenge link on Thursday! 😍
Thanks for the information and encouragement to the community, @samsmith1971!
My participation
https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@marcybetancourt/celebrating-life
Readings:
@dreemport
@zeraton
@fantom22
@khoola
What a great prompt! So many ways to take this :) ...
It will be fun to see what everyone comes up with!
Another great week to write more. Last week’s prompt was amazing and cool to read from other writers too.
Let’s get this week up again.
Thanks so much for joining us, @abdul-qudus!
Great prompt for the week.. This is going to be an interesting one. I hope to come up with something great for this. All the best to everyone
Yes, it's going to be a wild ride!
Today I posted the # 47:
https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@katleya/the-ink-well-prompt-47-champion-canine-merit-medal
My comments:
@merit.ahama
@abdul-qudus
This prompt word is awesome.
Glad you're excited about it!
Getting inspired by the prompt. I guess I will finally submit my first short story here🤗
Hooray! Welcome @wems!
Honestl The Inkwellpromts Remains My favorite prompt because once I see them ideas start bubbling in my head immediately.
That's great that you are inspired, @doziekash!
My username is written wrong, didn't get the tag.
Sorry, @khaleesii. Thanks for letting us know. I've fixed it.
It's no problem, thank you.
I made comments on @fantom22 and @stellageorge posts
This is my submission for this week's prompt
https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@piratethanos/the-ink-well-prompt-48-0fe9320488657
Well this one is going to be fun! Can't wait to read the stories!
Yes, it should be a busy week!
Hello @theinkwell! Here's my story for this prompt-
https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@kemmyb/a-better-match-or-the
Comments--
Katleya
Rayt2
Wrestlingdesires
So happy that we have another week with you! I just dropped the post sending everyone here for the challenge prompt!
For anyone that beats their own rating last week, they'll get +50 Dreem tokens added to any other prizes won for this week!!!
So fun! Thanks for allowing us the privilege to link arms with you this month @theinkwell! :)
Thank you for the great opportunity, @dreemport. I only hope we can keep up!!
hehehehe yes!!! I know the feeling hahahahahahaha
Here's my interpretation of the prompt inheritance entitled The Unremembered Gate. Thank you for the challenge!
Great prompt! Will be back with my entry.
Nice prompt, and let's roll up our sleeves.
This is my entry:
The Guardian of Cursed Sword
Here is my entry
https://ecency.com/hive-170798/@joseph23/the-ink-well-prompt-48
I have commented on @princessbusayo @smilejerry and @kemmyb posts
Hallo kommunitY and team @theinkwell, I like fiction stories, with short imaginations, I hope I can participate in this good community. thanks for today, i can see this community.
This is my entry to the prompt✔️💯♥️
https://hive.blog/hive-170798/@emeka002/felix-the-bad-child
https://hive.blog/hive-170798/@farahikram/you-reap-what-you-sow
Here is my entry.
Thanks you!
https://ecency.com/hive-170798/@ji33y/the-inherited-curse
Here's my entry on this; Arizonas and Skunks
Comments on several other entries
I am glad to participate this week.
Here is my entry.Heading to support others.
https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@adoore-eu/my-share-of-the-inheritance-the-ink-well-contest-48
This is my entry to this week's prompt "INHERITANCE"
https://hive.blog/hive-170798/@kingkenny44/the-lost-inheritance
I'm here this week - hooray! I was inspired by some conversation on a comment section in my post and... voila. hahaha I have a story! LOL sometimes its that easy! And sometimes it's like pushing against a wall! hahahaha
I've already supported @mrenglish, @cool08, @princessbusayo, @katleya, @kemmyb, @litguru, @doziekash, @farahikram and @adoore-eu!
Here is mine!
Ingredients, Infusions and Intuitions: Inheritance
Wouldn't it be great if stories always just flowed out like a river? Sigh. We wish! Thanks for sharing your story, and for your awesome community curation!
Hello! Very interesting prompt you got there. It gave me a wide range of possibilities...
However, I decide to go with this one: Maldak's curse of the Inheritance
It's a little different, hopefully it make the cut...
My prompt story: https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@cliffagreen/new-fiction-for-the-ink-well-prompt-48
Thank you!
this is my entry
https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@fantom22/fake-documents-and-punishment-for-forgery-the-ink-well-prompt-48
Finished! It is another Bedtime Story!
https://ecency.com/hive-170798/@liftslikealady/brigham-monkey-and-the-golden
Was I supposed to include who I supported so far also? So far, @piratethanos and @mrenglish
Hello everyone, this is my entry to this week's prompt, thank you.
https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@khaleesii/inkwell-prompt-48-or-or
Here is my entry:
https://www.proofofbrain.blog/hive-170798/@khoola/a-star-is-reborn
Currently: commented on dreemsteem, getting back at joseph23 read his work can't remember if I said anything 🤣.
This is my entry
https://hive.blog/hive-170798/@emeka002/felix-the-bad-child
My first participation in the second week of this contest here is my entry;
https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@ayesha-malik/inherited-dreemport-challenge
Stories by @khoola, @katleya @cool08 inspired me to share my views in their comment section.
Here's my entry for this week's contest:
Too Late to Change
here is my submission
https://hive.blog/hive-170798/@abmakko/family-ties
supported: khoola dreemsteem princessbusayo mrenglish
It's another moment to express our view with a great community like this. You know how it feels doing what you love doing. Here is my entry post for inkwellprompt #48: Inheritance
Good luck to everyone.
https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@popmanj/i-wish-the-owner-is-here
This is my entry to the prompt
https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@mandate/my-short-lived-inheritancethe-inkwell-writing-prompt
https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@joalheal/the-mc-millers
My entry... Greetings for all!
Here is my entry to the #48 prompt word “inheritance”.
https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@abdul-qudus/the-wicked-stepmother
And I shared a comment section with
Davidbright and Mandate
I have made the necessary corrections @inkwell
https://hive.blog/hive-170798/@emeka002/felix-the-bad-child
My entry for the week.
https://ecency.com/hive-170798/@iyimoga/a-blessing-in-disguise
Comment
@liftslikealady
@mrenglish
Here's My entry
https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@b0s/the-unwanted-inheritance