Welcome to the Weekly Fiction Prompt
Hello community members. Thank you for joining our weekly writing prompt! If you're new, be sure to check out our community rules before posting in The Ink Well. (You can find them at the top of our home page. And you will find all kinds of great resources for fiction writers in our catalog of fiction writing tips.
Stories from the Previous Week
Thank you to who posted a story for last week's prompt: "Flight":
Author Shout-outs
We'd like to call out a few stories that got high marks from our curators.
Curator comment:
writes a well developed, sweet love story for the fiction prompt. The piece is nicely structured and has a strong arc. The story is about a troubled flight that ends in an emergency landing, giving the MC opportunity to form a relationship with a woman that he’s just met, but fancies. As a result of their interaction on the flight they end up as a happily married couple.
Curator comment:
writes a wonderful story that captures the experience of a young witch who must learn about her powers. She has lost her mother, but the memories of her are close and powerful. As she begins to pay attention to the messages her mother left for her, magical things begin to happen, and she is transported on a broomstick to a town she recognizes from a painting of her mother's, and realizes that she was the girl in the painting. So many great details in this delightful story!
Flight: Escape from the sphere
Curator comment:
is such a terrific storyteller. In this sci-fi story, Captain Hugo Dyson has escaped from his deteriorating ship on an escape pod, and in the first moments of confusion has no idea where any of the rest of the crew is. The AI speaks to him, but has been compromised due to the string of events and has invaded his mind. It apologizes but explains that while it is contrary to protocol, its first priority is survival of the crew. The implication of this isn't perfectly clear, as he seems to have all of his faculties intact and doesn't do anything he doesn't want to do. But the relationship between Hugo and Nebula (the AI) is absolutely priceless. He sees bright spots of light on the surface of the planet he is navigating towards and realizes they are other crew members in escape pods imploding as they enter its atmosphere. Together Hugo and Nebula make the necessary changes so they don't suffer the same fate, only to realize that they are captive of its inhabitants upon arrival.
Curator comment:
creates a character and a plot that might seem improbable, but she makes them work. In a world in which everyone today seems to want fantasy stories, this one is tame. A young girl is pursued by an enemy. At first we don't know the nature of the enemy. Then we learn it is her uncle, who has sent agents to kill her. He wants to inherit the family business, and in order to do that must kill off the girl and her parents. The story features some hand-to-hand combat, credibly described. The girl's motivation and actions are believable in the context of this story. Balikis95 works really hard to fit together a complex plot. She succeeds, mostly. Some tense inconsistency, though this seems to be common among our writers.
Fiction Writing Prompt of the Week
This week's prompt is: "Time Travel."
What to do with this prompt?
You can do whatever you wish, as always! As long as your story is inspired by the words "time travel," and you include it in your story, it's fine.
Of course we would love to see some sci-fi time travel stories. But it's not required. For example, if you don't want your character to travel in time, you could have them daydream about time traveling. They could imagine going back in time to better understand their childhood. Or they could imagine going to a point in time before some investments became highly profitable, or before something terrible happened — in case it is possible to change the course of events.
You could also have a character who teases another character about time traveling every time she finds him daydreaming. There are many possibilities.
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:
Writing Prompt Guidelines:
- See The Ink Well FAQ: Before you post in The Ink Well, we ask that you read our FAQ post to familiarize yourself with our important community rules and guidelines.
- Story link: Please be sure to 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 — as well as #dreemport, if you are also posting your story to the DreemPort site.
- 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.
- 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. Please do use the prompt word(s) within the story.
- 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 all image source links.
- Length: We request that story word counts are a maximum of 1,500 words in length and a *minimum of 350 (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. Thank you!
- Translations: If you post a story that has been translated from another language, please include both the English version and the translation.
Reminders: Be sure to also read our community rules. As always, please avoid violent, gory, bloody, brutal, sexist or racist themes and language, NSFW (not safe for work) stories like erotica, stories with a political or religious agenda, and 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 your stories. You must provide your own unique content.
Tips for Getting Curated by The Ink Well
There are some important elements of storytelling that make a story stand out, and make people want to read it, and keep reading. 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.
You can find more on all of these topics in the catalog of fiction writing tips.
Past Prompts
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; #48 Inheritance; #49 Under the Light of the Moon; #50 Three Words: Shoes, Mood, Adventure; #51 They're Here; #52 Artist; #53 Headlights; #54 Tomorrow; #55 Lense; #56 Perfection; #57 Making and Breaking Rules; #58 A Reckoning; #59 Blossom; #60 Temptation; #61 Happiness; #62 Footprint; #63 Frequency; #64 Sailing; #65 Fortune; #66 Worry; #67 Adventure; #68 Shadow; #69 Motor; #70 Embarrass; #71 Proud; #72 Guide; #73 Impression; #74 Lost; #75 Wonder; #76 Tear; #77 Splash; #78 Brilliant; #79 Sinkhole; #80 Exhaust; #81 Roll; #82 Wishbone; #83 Chatterbox; #84 Foil; #85 I can't believe you said that; #86 Boo; #87 Midnight; #88 Hunger; #89 Light; #90 Spirit; #91 Fire; #92 Tend/Tender; #93 Cheer; #94 Appearance; #95 Ambition; #96 Trust; #97 Fly; #98 Comfort; #99 Fate; #100 To Create; #101 Vision; #102 Sympathy; #103 A Special Time; #104 Suspense; #105 Bride, stairs, illusion; #106 Reality TV; #107 Things the Go Bump in the Night; #108 First line: Two strange things happened that day; #109 What if that loose floorboard was actually a hidden passageway?; #110 Footsteps; #111 Mess; #112 Cards; #113 Elephant; #114 Crystal; #115 Phone call; #116 Date; #117 Chocolate; #118 Three words: wish, button, sky; #119 RSVP; #120 Objets d'art; #121 Soul; #122 Scuttlebutt; #123 Recall; #124 Doorway; #125 Beacon; #126 Seagull, Market, Box; #127 Window; #128 Terrified; #129 Dance; #130 Two endings; #131 Ghosted; #132 Treasure; #133 Taste; #134 Reunion; #135 I miss you; #136 Wonder; #137 Ruins; #138 Beach memories; #139 There was something in the wind; #140 Mask; #141 Halloween; #142 [Photo album]; #143 Dreams; #144 Crayon box; #145 Back of beyond; #146 Intuition; #147 Delight; #148 Anticipation; #149 Holiday memories; #150 [Resolution](@theinkwell/the-ink-well-fiction-prompt-150; #151 Bicycle; #152 Flight
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We welcome delegations! These support our community in many ways, including helping us to provide support to quality content creators through curation and contests.
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