Image source: Pixabay
Dear community,
Welcome to Prompt #19 in our creative nonfiction initiative. Thank you to everyone who contributed a nonfiction story last week.
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: Surprise!! We enjoyed reading about the meaning of good friends.
Writers who joined in the fun:
Honorable Mentions of the Week
Our honorable mentions for last week's prompt are:
Third Place: Wins 2 Hive
Our third place winner is 
I opened my box and dropped the clothes one after the other for him to see.
Ooooh! Oooh! 😲. Daaaaaaaaad!! I was surprised by what I saw!
It was a brand new phone in its box. Wow! I couldn’t believe my eyes. Dad got me a phone already and he told me to go out there and hustle. I felt he even loved me more. He smiled and walked out of the room. 😂 I went to him to appreciate him. I was overwhelmed with happiness.
Second Place: Wins 3 Hive
Our second place winner is 
He remembered how I admired a dinner dress (an expensive made-in-UK dress) the other day and added it to his budget just to make me happy. He knows how I love red dresses with golden accessories and so he ordered my perfect size online, he added a golden wristwatch, a golden necklace, a golden shoe, and a golden human hair wig. It was a complete set, or let me say a complete dressing for me from head to toe. It wasn't on my birthday, and neither was it on my anniversary day, it was just an ordinary day when I received this surprise present from a dispatch rider while my husband was away to work. You needed to see how curious I was opening that package 📦. The rider mentioned that the gift was for Mrs. Nkem, as I was opening the package, the rider was on a call with my husband and I sensed he was the brain behind the gift. I love surprise presents, I can express lots of excitement with them sometimes, it's just fun for me.
First Place: Wins 5 Hive
Our first place winner is 
'If it's the wrong colour or you don't like it, you can return it', she said, in the manner of someone unused to gifting. I'm overcome, a little gobsmacked, and my thirteen year old self does not know how to unwrap a present from my mother. How will I pretend, even now?
It's not even my birthday.
As I unwrap it, I see glimmers of green and the shape of it, and know what it is immediately. It's the gorgeous sea glass and wood mobile I had seen at the plant nursery that week, where a gift shop spills into the courtyard. I'd told her about it in the course of an afternoon coffee. I'd loved them, and how they the glass clinked merrily against each other in the breeze, and the beauty of found objects. I could imagine where I would hang it, rejuvenating a tired part of the house and adding interest. A frivolous thing.
The Ink Well Creative Nonfiction Writing Prompt #19:
Words that mark life.
Words help us to manage the world. Sometimes it is difficult to convert feelings into words, but summarizing experiences in sentences is the best way to manage ourselves, to relate to ourselves and to others.
Tell us which words have marked your life!
For this prompt, there are several possible approaches you could take. For example:
Maybe a teacher made it clear to you how good you were in certain aspects and that decided your development as a person?
Tell us in what way a phrase stayed in your memory forever?
Do you repeat a phrase to yourself in certain circumstances?
Are there any phrases that make you very happy?
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 2 Hive
Deadline
You have a week, until the next prompt is posted, to post your creative nonfiction story in The Ink Well community.
Interested in joining our community? Start by joining Hive!
We invite lovers of creative writing to visit The Ink Well, a Hive community started by 
You can follow our curation trail by going to our hive.vote curation trail page and clicking the follow button.
We welcome delegations! These support our community in many ways, including helping us to provide support to quality content creators through curation and contests.
, 
, 
, 
, 
, 
, 
, 
, 
, 
, , 
, 
, , 
, , 
, 
, 
, 
, 
, and 
.
Click banner to visit our community page
Find us on twitter by clicking the banner above.