The Inkwell Combined Writing Prompt #37 ~ Fiction or Creative Nonfiction

_{Source: Pixabay}

Welcome to the Weekly Writing Prompt from The Ink Well

We provide one weekly writing prompt for short story writers. You may choose to use the prompt to write a fictional story (made up from your imagination) or a creative nonfiction story (based on your real life experiences).

IMPORTANT: To be considered for curation, you must include one of these tags on your post:

Fictional stories: #fiction
Creative nonfiction stories: #creativenonfiction

You must also read and comment on the work of two other community members. Remember: We look for this when we curate your story. If we don't see this engagement, we will either provide a reminder or skip curating your post.

It is also very helpful to the admin team when authors add Fiction or Creative Nonfiction (or CNF for short) to the story title!

TheInkWell Section Seperator.png

Before You Post in The Ink Well

Be sure to check out our community rules before posting in this community. You can find them at the top of our home page. They also appear at the top of a new post window.

Please also check out these additional helpful resources:

Learn more about our community and the expectations of community members in our FAQ post and our treasure trove of tips and guidelines.
Peruse our collection of great writing resources on everything from character development to how to write dialogue in our catalog of storytelling tips.
Learn more about creative nonfiction, how it differs from fictional stories, and tips for success in our post on creative nonfiction tips.
Remember that we are always about quality first. Never about quantity. To achieve awards in The Ink Well, take the time to write quality stories and check them for errors. See the topic of the month, "Don't Miss This Step" in the March 2025 newsletter to learn about using tools (and using them properly) if you are not already doing this. We do notice when you don't take the time!

TheInkWell Section Seperator.png

Last Week's Winning Story of the Week

Thank you to everyone who shared a story for the last prompt, "Super power"!

Each week we pick one of our favorite stories of the week and award the author 5 Hive.

And we have a winner! Congrats to @rammargarita for her story Honesty Above All Else.

Here's what our curators had to say:

I like this creative nonfiction story by rammargarita. It has a strong arc, good description and dialogue. It's about honesty and her son. Her son turns in a valuable phone and is rewarded. Sometime later he loses his wallet and a young lady finds it. Eventually that young lady becomes his wife. Nice little story.

Congratulations, @rammargarita!

TheInkWell Section Seperator.png

Short Story Writing Prompt of the Week

This week's prompt is: "Signal."

Signals come from many different things. One person can signal to another to be quiet, or to sit up straight, or to follow them somewhere. We get signals from traffic lights, electronic devices, whistles on a football field, and gestures and body language from the people in our lives.

Tell us a story inspired by signals.

Here are some suggestions from ChatGPT for fictional stories and creative nonfiction stories to inspire your creativity.

Fictional Short Story Ideas

The Last Radio Signal

When a massive solar storm knocks out modern communications worldwide, a young woman discovers an old shortwave radio in her grandfather's attic. Night after night she hears a mysterious signal repeating the same cryptic message. As society struggles to adapt to the blackout, she becomes obsessed with tracing the source, only to learn the signal is coming from a remote location tied to a decades-old disappearance.

Signal Lost

A commuter train passes through a tunnel where every passenger's phone loses service. One day, during the brief blackout, a man receives a text message anyway. It contains only three words: Don't get off. He ignores it. At the next station he witnesses a tragedy that seems connected to the message. Soon more impossible texts arrive, each offering warnings that force him to choose whether to trust an unknown sender.

The Lighthouse Signal

A lonely lighthouse keeper notices that the beacon has begun flashing an extra pattern each night after midnight. Ships report seeing it, but no one knows who is controlling it. As the keeper investigates, she uncovers a secret community living on a nearby island, using the lighthouse to send messages hidden in plain sight.

Creative Nonfiction Short Story Ideas

Reading the Signals

Reflect on a period in your life when you ignored obvious warning signs—a failing relationship, burnout at work, a financial problem, or a health concern. Explore why those signals were difficult to recognize at the time and what you learned when you finally paid attention.

The Signal That Changed Everything

Write about receiving a message that altered the course of your life. It could be a phone call, email, text message, letter, or even a conversation. Recount where you were when it arrived, how you reacted, and how that single signal created a dividing line between "before" and "after."

Searching for a Signal

Tell the story of a time when you felt disconnected—from family, friends, a community, your faith, or even yourself. Use the metaphor of searching for a signal to explore loneliness, uncertainty, and the moments that eventually helped you reconnect.

Tell us a story!

As always, you do not need to actually use the prompt word(s). They are here to inspire your creativity!

We look forward to reading the product of your imagination or your personal experience!

Good luck! And of course, you are welcome to use AI to generate ideas and images, but the writing must be your own! We do not accept stories that are AI-generated or heavily edited by AI. Only use tools like Grammarly to fix spelling and grammar issues.

Remember, as always, we are looking for the elements of story. These include:

Great first lines
Good settings
Well-developed characters
Integration of action, dialogue and narrative
A conflict that intrigues the reader
A "story arc" which results in the resolution of the conflict and brings the story to a satisfying conclusion
And of course, we are looking for well-edited stories that are not littered with typos or grammatical errors — please use the free Grammarly tool for grammar and spelling checks (and not AI writing or rephrasing tools for revising)

You can find more on all of these topics in the catalog of storytelling tips.

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:

Rules:

Accepted content: Remember that we only accept short stories (fiction or creative nonfiction). We do not accept advice columns, personal development articles, reviews, chapter stories, recipes, etc. We also do not accept posts about violent, gory, bloody, brutal, sexist or racist themes, NSFW (not safe for work) stories like erotica, stories with a political or religious agenda, or stories featuring abuse of any kind. (We have a complete article about The Ink Well stance on violence and brutality for more information.) And do NOT use AI tools to write or manipulate your stories. You must provide your own unique content.
Post link: Please be sure to publish your story in The Ink Well community, and post a link to your story in a comment on this post.
Hashtags: Use the #fiction tag for fictional stories and the #creativenonfiction tag for creative nonfiction stories. You can also use #writing, #inkwellprompt and #theinkwell.
Images: Please only use images from license free and creative commons sites, like Pixabay, Unsplash and Pexels. You can also generate them with AI tools. Images you find on the Internet are copyright protected and cannot be used. Be sure to provide all image source links.
Length: We request that story word counts are a maximum of 1,500 words in length and ideally 750-1000 words. This is just a guideline. Longer stories are okay too, but they tend to get fewer readers. Additionally, The Ink Well admins appreciate keeping to that maximum story length for our time management. (Note: We generally consider stories less than 750 words "too short" and they tend to be missing important character development. See the "story length" topic of our September 2025 newsletter for resources on how to improve and further develop your stories.)
Translations: If you post a story that has been translated from another language, please include the English version first, followed by content in the original language.
Community support: When you post in The Ink Well, please be sure to visit the work of at least two other community members and comment on their work.

Past Prompts

After 241 straight weeks of fiction prompts (and nearly as many creative nonfiction prompts) we have started a fresh new series! If you'd like to see the full list of previous fiction prompts, you can find them at the bottom of fiction prompt #241.

Thank you for being a part of The Ink Well!
@jayna, @gracielaacevedo, @agmoore and @yaziris.

TheInkWell Section Seperator.png

Interested in joining our community? Start by joining Hive!

Join here at Hive Onboard

Already a Hive member? Click Subscribe at the top of The Ink Well community home page.

_{Questions? Ask The Ink Well on Discord.}

TheInkWell Section Seperator.png

We invite lovers of creative writing to visit The Ink Well, a Hive community started by @raj808 and @stormlight24 and run by @jayna, @gracielaacevedo, @agmoore and @yaziris

How to Follow Our Curation Trail

You can follow our curation trail by going to our hive.vote curation trail page and clicking the follow button.

Note: The Ink Well pays out curation rewards to our delegators!

How to Delegate to The Ink Well

We welcome delegations! These support our community in many ways, including helping us to provide support to quality content creators through curation and contests.

50 HP	100 HP	500 HP	1000 HP	5000 HP
click here	click here	click here	click here	click here

A big thank you to all of our delegators:
@jayna, @felt.buzz, @carn, @cliffagreen, @ricardo993, @itsostylish, @agmoore, @marcybetancourt, @marlyncabrera, @jasonbu, @stormcharmer, @nathy33, @ozd, @iamraincrystal, @preparedwombat, @gracielaacevedo, @timix648, @samsmith1971, @betholoji12, @jackdeathblack, @josemalavem, @generikat, @mineopoly, @hazmat, @kingsleyy, @popurri, @nancybriti1, @rinconpoetico7, @iyimoga, @kachy2022, @monster-hunter, @whatmidesays, @raymondpeter, @gabmr, @rishagamo, @morey-lezama, @evagavilan2, @funshee, @amiegeoffrey, @rukkie, @tomiajax, @stuartcturnbull, @mosin-nagant, @almadepoeta, @ubani, @wesphilbin, @amakauz, @zoe01, @estilodereba, @ellizy, @faithwellington, @patienceakpan, @artofkylin, @ricurohemi28, @benwesterham, and @shakavon.

_{Click banner to visit our community page}