The Ink Well Community
About The Ink Well
The Ink Well is a niche community for short story writers. It's just under a year old and is supported by @curie and the @ocd Communities Incubation Programme. Through the year it has run two seasons of writing challenges and a successful writing prize and has built a repository of writing tips. The community has established rules and curation policies.
Right now, we are looking for curators to join the editorial team to help take The Ink Well community to the next stage. Long-term, we'd like to build a team of eight or nine curators to share the work, with one curator available every day of the week.
We have just over a thousand subscribers and a core group of about fifty to a hundred writers contributing to the community. We publish two or three posts a week, a combination of writing challenges, engagement posts and writing tips.
Plans for The Ink Well
The Ink Well aims to create a long-term income for writers through tipping. It will complement other forms of income for writers including traditional publishing, Amazon KDP and platforms like Patreon. You can read more about our plans in the September newsletter.
In order to do this, The Ink Well is looking for high quality writing, and short stories that have a clear story arc, a satisfying resolution, well-developed characters and a high standard of editing and presentation. We have lots of writing tips to help with this and new tips are developed as we become aware of new needs.
Curators play a really important role in helping contributors to increase their writing skills. You'll be able to identify whether a story has key elements and to provide gentle constructive feedback that will help writers to grow in confidence and skill.
Stories are evaluated against the following criteria:
| Category | Explanation |
|---|---|
| Setting | Time and place the story is set and whether this affects the story. Has the writer created a world that is believable? |
| Story arc | What is the story arc? Does the story incorporate conflict, climax and resolution? Is the ending satisfying to the reader? |
| Characters | How are characters drawn in the story? What is their role in the story? Do they change or remain the same? Are they fresh and original or stereotypical? Are they believable? |
| Style | The writer's use of language, imagery and tone. Is the writer engaging? Are they showing not telling? |
| Presentation | Does the editing and presentation enhance the writing? Has the writer developed their story and corrected mistakes? |
We've recently introduced a #feedback tag so that writers can openly invite curators and other members of the community to comment on their story.
Plans for the next few weeks include setting up a book store, creating a FAQs post and a library of writing tips by topic. There will be a writing prize over the winter holidays with 500 Hive in prizes.
Benefits for Curators
There is a range of direct and indirect benefits for curators:
- included as beneficiaries in the weekly challenge post
- increased curation rewards through voting in advance of curie and ocd
- daily 100% @theinkwell vote
The Ink Well is a friendly community with enthusiastic contributors. Reading and critiquing other people's writing helps to hone your own skills as a writer and, if you haven't tried it before, you will develop your community building and management skills.
You would be working with an established team including @shanibeer, @stormlight24, @jayna and @carolkean and supported by the founder @raj808.
Interested?
If you're interested, please let us know in the comments - if you'd like an informal chat you can get in touch with me on Discord: @shanibeer#7523
Many thanks and we'd love to hear from you!
Hello @shanibeer,
I have known @raj808 for several years (on the blockchain) and was excited by his plans to create a writing community in which members might actually earn money. I hope Raj is doing well.
You are looking for curators and one of the reasons I stay on the platform is so that I might help people who need support of one kind or another. I'm not sure I'm qualified, but here goes.
In the past I've been in physical writing groups with some great leaders (Maxwell Wheat and Barbara Rogan). These were astute readers who guided the group gently and productively. Technically, I'm an English teacher (certified) but I've never taught English and still have to look up grammar points from time to time. I have the obligatory degree in humanities and literature, which I guess helps to refine my writing analysis.
My time on Hive is divided. I love science, art and history as much as I love writing so perhaps I could devote one day a week to curating for theinkwell--if you think the relationship might work out.
I hope this 'resume' isn't out of place. Just want to let you know that if there is some way I can help, here I am.
Good luck with all your plans. They sound wonderfully practical.
Hi @agmoore, I'm ok and tentatively posting again on hive 🙂 Long time no chat. I shall try and stop by your blog to see what you've been up to and read some of your work at some point in the next few days.
I can attest to @agmoore credentials in regards to creative writing @shanibeer. She is a great fiction writer herself and has always provided astute critical feedback on my posts in the past. back when I was a general curie curator in 2018 she was one of the authors I checked regularly as a potential for curation which speaks to her creative work on here. Also she has been around since the Halcion days for creative writing on what was then steem. Anyway, I'll stop with the embarrassing big ups now 😂
Hello Raj!
So many thoughts I've had for you in the past months. I am so glad to hear from you, and that you are 'OK'. Didn't realize you were posting again. I will have to check the blog regularly to catch you.
Thanks for the heads up to @shanibar. This community means a lot to me, not just because it hosts writing, but because it was your concept and you brought it to fruition. It seems to have good stewardship now.
I'm not embarrassed at all. What a pleasure to hear kind words from a friend.
I hope your creative energy is a source of satisfaction. Please be well.
AG
Hello @agmoore, so good to hear from you!
Are you on discord? If so, could you send me a friend request?
Many thanks.
I will head over to Discord now. I sometimes get lost there but have copied @shanibeer#7523 and will see if I can send out that friend request (my greatest deficit on the platform is negotiating its technical aspects).
Thank you
Hey @shanibeer,
Sorry to jump in a bit off-topic.
We are very grateful that you currently support the HiveBuzz proposal, but it will expire in a few days.
Do you mind to cast your vote for the renewal proposal we made for 2021 so we can continue with our work?
Thank you. Wish you a happy Xmas 🎅
https://peakd.com/me/proposals/147
Cool, happy to do that, thank you for the reminder 😍.
Season's Greetings 🎄
Thank you so much 👍
Hi @shanibeer,
Thank you for participating in the #teamuk curated tag. We have upvoted your quality content.
For more information visit our discord https://discord.gg/8CVx2Am
👍 😍
Thanks for continuing to make Hive awesome.
Ho Ho Ho! @shanibeer, one of your Hive friends wishes you a Merry Christmas and asked me to give you a new badge!
HiveBuzz wish you a Merry Christmas!
May you have good health, abundance and everlasting joy in your life.
To find out who wanted you to receive this special gift, click here!
You can view your badges on your board and compare yourself to others in the Ranking
Do not miss the last post from @hivebuzz:
Congratulations @shanibeer! You received a personal badge!
Wait until the end of Power Up Day to find out the size of your Power-Bee.
May the Hive Power be with you!
You can view your badges on your board and compare yourself to others in the Ranking
Do not miss the last post from @hivebuzz: