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Dear community,
Welcome to Prompt #14 in our creative nonfiction initiative. Thank you to everyone who contributed a nonfiction story last week. You guys continually wow us with your amazing stories!
Here's a quick overview of how it works:
Each week, we provide a creative nonfiction prompt. You are also welcome to post other creative nonfiction pieces that are not based on the prompt. See the guidelines below.
To be curated, your content should follow our guidelines, be at least 350 words (but ideally 750 -1500 words), be written in English, or another language as well as the English translation, and — as much as possible — free of errors. We also expect everyone who posts stories in The Ink Well to read and comment on the work of at least two other community members for each story published. (Thank you!)
What Is Creative Nonfiction?
There are many guides and resources online for getting to know this wonderful genre. It is truly about storytelling. The simple difference between creative nonfiction and fictional stories is that the story is not made up.
We like this definition from an article on creativenonfiction.org:
Simply put: Creative nonfiction is true stories, well told.
With creative nonfiction, you are using the literary and storytelling tools of a fiction writer to craft stories from real life experiences. Set the scene. Give the details. Profile the characters. Give us the dialog, as best you can remember it.
Ideas and inspiration:
Creative nonfiction stories can be snippets from your life autobiography — moments in time you want to capture in words, whether they were frightening, enlightening, bittersweet, or life-altering. They can be observations about life, about a time you connected at a profound level with a perfect stranger, or something you have learned along the way that made you a better person.
Do you love podcasts? One of the greatest sources of creative nonfiction is The Moth Radio Hour. Listen to a few of the stories from The Moth, and we guarantee you will be inspired.
Here are some additional resources for learning more about the creative nonfiction genre:
-- Reedsy blog: What is Creative Nonfiction? The Unputdownable Truth
-- Writers.com: Understanding Creating Nonfiction: What It Is and How to Write ItCheck out this list of creative nonfiction stories. For example, one of the stories is about a funeral for a lizard named Rango.
We hope you are inspired!
Guidelines for Creative Nonfiction Articles in The Ink Well
- Write creative nonfiction stories about real life, memories, or experiences.
- As with our fiction guidelines, we ask that articles be at least 350 words in length. Optimal length is 750-1500 words.
- Please read and edit your content before posting. It makes a big difference in how we reward work published in The Ink Well. (And we have some great guidelines for improving your grammar and fixing errors before you post in this article.)
- Please post directly in The Ink Well community, and post your link in a comment on this post.
- Please use the tag #creativenonfiction on these posts.
Here are some examples of what we are looking for:
- Explore an idea that interests you, such as how childhood experiences shape us as adults.
- Write about the study of dreams and what they mean, along with your own experience.
- Tell about an experience from your life that profoundly changed you.
- Write about a teacher who inspired you.
In other words, tell a story from real life. And illustrate the ideas you share with real world experiences, memories and observations.
Here’s what we are NOT looking for:
- A picture of a flower or other posts focused on photography
- A few paragraphs about what you ate for lunch
- Recipes and how-to articles
- Life lessons or advice
- Essays about religion or politics
- Poetry
What will be muted:
- Spam posts or plagiarism
- Graphic violence
- Lectures or proselytizing about religion, politics or morality
Last Week's Creative Nonfiction Winners
Thank you to all who participated in last week's prompt: Heritage!
Honorable Mentions of the Week
Our honorable mentions for last week's prompt are:
: My Beautiful Heritage
: My Family Legacy
: Full House
: Generational Commendation That Runs to Our Family
Third Place: Wins 1,000 Ecency points
Our third place winner is 
I could have been assigned to Father Laherty - a smart, young, chipper math teacher who had a warm smile and a laidback attitude. Perhaps, Mrs. Cosgrove? The gentle, motherly French professor who let everything slide. Maybe, Mrs. O'Bryan? The quick-witted English teacher who always had a joke at the ready - her dry humor effortlessly evoking eye-rolls and snickers from her students. Any one of those - and more - would have been acceptable for my 13 year old frailties. But no, I was sitting in the 5th aisle, FIRST row, directly in front of this tiny Tasmanian devil of a man! I suppose that might sound irreverent to call a priest a devil - but fret not, it was only his shape. Massive rounded back, broad shoulders, full chest, pregnant-looking belly - all balanced on teeny little legs.
Second Place: Wins 3 Hive
Our second place winner is 
She was a young girl spoiled and protected by a very respected and well-known family in the parish of The Valley, an old colonial area of Caracas, where the houses were the typical red-roofed mansions, with a central patio and in the living room, balconies with seats where young people used to chat through the window. The streets had old names I lived in: royal street, back street and Cajigal street, still remain in my childhood memories. And I have not lost that taste for the traditional, for the villages and their houses of yesteryear.
First Place: Wins 5 Hive
Our first place winner is 
Everything was bigger than I was in that kitchen. Several copper kettles that could have held me easily were cooling along the side wall. A huge marble work bench in the center of the room was large enough for six people to have a picnic on, and it was covered in recently filled chocolate molds in a variety of animals and shapes. There were racecars and bulldogs and pigs rowing boats; there were roosters and turkeys and lambs and horses and rabbits galore. Trays of colorful mints filled a cooling rack - pink, green, blue and white. The white ones, peppermint, were my favorites. My father pulled one off the tray, still warm, and placed it on my tongue. There were trays of peanut clusters, peanut brittle, ribbon candies, nut barks, and much more, everywhere I looked. These were the fruits of that day's labors. It would all be left to cool and set overnight, then packaged for sale in the morning.
The Ink Well Creative Nonfiction Writing Prompt #14: Two Truths and a Lie
This week, we are going to have some fun. We'd like you to use your story telling skills to combine some fiction with your creative nonfiction story. Are you game?
This writing prompt idea comes from a traditional ice breaker game used at parties and business events to get people talking about themselves and interacting.
Here's how it works:
- Think of two things about yourself (certain traits or experiences you've had) that might be of interest to others. Write at least a few paragraphs about each of those things. Use your story telling techniques to provide details. For example, if you once had a picture taken with a famous person, describe the scenario. Who was it and how did they act? Were you nervous? Did you get their autograph?
- Also invent one thing that is not true about you, and write about it exactly as if it was true. The third thing must be similar to the other two, but you will make it up. You'll want to keep people guessing about which of the three things is the one you made up, so make it convincing.
- You can write about the three things in any order. Embellish them with plenty of details so they are all realistic.
- Finally, at the very end of your article, you can reveal which one you made up.
You will know how convincingly you wrote the "fictional" piece about yourself from the comments on your story.
Have fun and good luck! We look forward to reading your stories.
Please use the tags #creativenonfiction and #inkwellprompt on these posts. And please remember to add your post link to a comment on this post!
NOTE: Please refrain from providing advice, guidance, or suggestions to others about their life choices in your post. Creative nonfiction is about storytelling.
Prizes!
- The top creative nonfiction story of the week will receive 5 Hive
- The second place story will receive 3 Hive
- Third place will receive 1,000 Ecency points
Deadline
You have a week, until the next prompt is posted, to post your creative nonfiction story in The Ink Well community.
See you in The Ink Well!
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