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: "Hope":
Author Shout-outs
We'd like to call out a few stories that got high marks from our curators.
The Agonizing Wait of the Master
Curator comment:
writes in a distinctive, original voice, and yet one hears in his words echoes of writers who have come before. He is heir to a legacy of great writing. One can hear Borges, and Unamuno in his words. What one cannot do is leave the piece and forget about it. The story will stay with the careful reader. It is a well-crafted tale in which there is left in the reader a doubt about the character and motivation of the narrator. The doubt is carefully cultivated by the author. Every word in the story pulls its weight. The writing is clear and powerful.
Curator comment:
Popurri delivers a spectacular melodious, lyrical gentle fiction about a family’s struggles. The family finds faith enough to overcome the “changes” thrown at them by fate and nature and finds hope in understanding the symbiotic relationship between man, God and nature. This simple story will make you laugh and cry while you absorb the pulse of its perfect rhythm. Gorgeous! This is a must-read!
Children Are the Living Messages We Send to a Time We Will Not See
Curator comment:
shares a story for the Hope prompt. A young girl, Sara, is living with cystic fibrosis, and a poor prognosis. She asks Santa for the gift of a sibling to heal her parents heart when she has passed, and is disappointed when no child arrives. So she writes a letter to God, asking for her request to be fulfilled, and for the chance to meet her sibling before she herself passes away. She has a vision of a baby girl being gifted to her at Christmas. Shortly thereafter her mother finds out that she is expecting another child. Her pregnancy goes beyond the expected due date by 3 days and sadly that is just too long for Sara, who passes away just before the baby is born. Not going to lie. Feeling a little emotional reading this. Beautifully conceived story by Iska. Nicely researched. Fortunately, these days people with CF have a longer life expectancy into their 40's on average and some even live into their 70's. It's a terrible disease and no child should ever have to suffer with a life-limiting illness. No child can ever replace another, but what a blessing the new baby was, for both Sara and her parents. My heart wishes that Sara had been allowed to meet her little sister.
Curator comment:
In response to the hope prompt,
offers a carefully constructed, effectively written story. A young woman wakes from her sleep to the buzzing of an alarm. She realizes she has overslept on a very important day, the day of her job interview. Traffic does not favor her journey to the interview, and she arrives late. As she begs security to let her in, one of the bosses passes by and instructs security to open the gate. The interview goes well, although the protagonist is the last of many to be interviewed. In the end, when the protagonist arrives home, she falls into bed and, briefly, a sleep. This sleep is interrupted by the ringing of a phone. She got the job. This story is tight. It has a symmetrical structure, which is aesthetically satisfying.
Fiction Writing Prompt of the Week
This week's prompt is: "Dreamcatcher."
What to do with this prompt?
Everyone dreams. And we have very little control over those dreams, or their effect on us. But in the traditions of the Ojibwe culture, they believed that a dreamcatcher could trap bad dreams and let good dreams through.
You could write a story about a person who makes dreamcatchers and can add special magical powers to them. Or you could write a story about a child who has nightmares every night until his mother installs a dreamcatcher over his bed. Dreams and nightmares and dreamcatchers have many possibilities!
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
You can find more on all of these topics in the catalog of fiction writing 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:
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 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!")
- 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.
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; #151 Bicycle; #152 Flight; #153 Time Travel; #154 A trip to the fair; #155 Don't sell me a dog; #156 Gravity; #157 Love, wheelbarrow, dog; #158 Stealing; #159 Sportsmanship; #160 Toast; #161 Pickle; #162 You only live once; #163 Ring; #164 Hope/sub>
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