Hello and welcome to the The Ink Well weekly fiction prompt and prize announcement! The Ink Well is a Hive blockchain-based social media community of creative writers. If you love to write short stories, we invite you to join us. Or peruse the work of our community members.
Note: We always launch our prompt posts with important information. So be sure to check it out first! Then we invite you to read on and see what we have in store for this week's prompt.
Important FAQs about The Ink Well!
What Is The Ink Well All About?
The Ink Well is a creative writing community. Here are answers to some Frequently Asked Questions about The Ink Well.
- No novels, chapter stories or multi-part stories
- No poems
- No introduction posts
- No memes
The Ink Well is all about creativity, quality, community, and engagement. As such, we ask the following:
- Please take the time to get to know the community and read other writers' work. Everyone who posts in The Ink Well is expected to read and comment on at least two other stories for each piece you post.
- See our catalog of fiction writing tips and make use of our resources. (Many of our writers are developing awesome skills, and you can too!)
- Put effort into your posts. Review and edit your content for errors before publishing.
What are the community rules?
You can find our community rules at the top of The Ink Well community (right side of the page).
Please read the rules before posting in The Ink Well, as we outline the "do's and don'ts." If you can't find them, you can read them here.
Our community rules are designed to make our community a safe, welcoming, plagiarism-free space for self-publishing original short stories. We do not allow stories depicting violence, brutality, or abuse of women, children or animals. If you have questions, please read this article explaining our stance on violence.
What does it take to get rewards in The Ink Well??
We refer you to the above description of what The Ink Well is about. If you are not getting great rewards, it is likely for one of the following reasons:
- Your story has many grammatical errors. (This is easily fixed with the tips in our post, Help for the Grammatically Challenged.)
- Your story lacks some important elements of good fiction, such as character development, dialog, scene details or a story arc. (See our catalog of fiction writing tips for information on these important aspects of short stories.)
- Your story lacks originality or does not follow our community rules.
Important tips!
- Among the factors we look at is quality of engagement with others in the community
- Please make sure your story is clearly inspired by the prompt.
- Remember to link your story to the prompt post.
Weekly Challenge and Prize Announcement
Time for the prize announcement and new challenge!
Last week's prompt was Appearance and the skill challenge was to add conflict to your story. This community really came through with surprising, amazing stories!
Many of our writers created original, memorable stories in response to the prompt. Our selections of this week's winners and honorable mentions reflect how well writers dealt with this prompt and skill challenge.
Update! We are excited to share that in addition to our first place winner, we are awarding a second and third place. We also will be selecting honorable mentions. For second and third place we are awarding Hive Basic Income (HBI). The third place winner receives 2 HBI and the second place winner receives 3 HBI.
Here are this week's honorable mentions, all of them writing in response to the prompt and skill challenge.
Honorable Mentions
with the story The Mysterious Sandwich Bag Switch
After a ride which may very well have given him whiplash, the stranger found himself in front of a high-rise. The sign, engraved in exquisite gold plating, announced that it was the headquarters of W.W. Enterprises.
with the story A Decision for the Future
All eyes turned to the tenth child of the household. The room was filled with nothing but deafening silence and Seline was already regretting ever saying those words. But she just actually found the courage to speak it after getting advice from her best friend so she was definitely not backing down.
with the story Perfect Imperfections
I thought my story would be as it had been for as long as I could remember where Mother talked about my "accomplishments" throughout dinner, Father nodded and grunted at the appropriate places while I sat there dutifully speaking only when needed.
with the story Formula to Be a Winner
When Roberth hung up the call his mother felt proud, her son did not get carried away by the way he looked but did something more important, he focused on fulfilling his dreams, from the moment he did not let his appearance limit him he became a winner.
with the story The World in Valerias Eyes
She was four years old when she realized there was something wrong with her. She could see children understanding each other and play together--but not her, she was born to not be able to hear on both of her ears and she realized then why her parents love her so much.
Third Place: Wins 2 HBI
with the story Mercy and Merhamet
When Suat saw these children coming to his shop, he first thanked god for his situation, then he examined the children. Their lips were dry from thirst, their hair was greasy from dirt, and their clothes were full of dust and mud. He felt pity. But he was not in a position to help.
Second Place: Wins 3 HBI
with the story The Magician...or Something Somewhat Resembling One
And then Adam completely lost his poise. His voice, only moments earlier resembling a radio announcer, was now transformed into a whining banshee. He leapt across his makeshift stage space and began to yell, ‘You were supposed to come out! You’ve ruined it! Why would you do this to me?’
And the winner of the Cheer/create a vivid story setting challenge is...
In my office he settled on a chair like a nervous bird on its perch, somehow exuding an air of restlessness while sitting stock still. I walked to the sideboard and poured a small liqueur for each of us. This was not my usual habit on a first consultation, however he seemed so agitated I hoped the alcohol would soothe him. When I handed him the drink he threw it back in one and held the glass as I have seen Catholics clutch a rosary, hoping that it may provide relief, or redemption.
Okay, let's review fiction entries from last week's prompt and launch a new one.
Stories From the Previous Week
Thank you to everyone who posted a story for last week's prompt!
This Week’s Prompt
The Ink Well is fortunate to have many members who are eager to write. It would be wise to use talent on the best story you can write so you can receive the optimal curation. Remember, Quality over Quantity.
Please Note: The Inkwell curators read many creative submissions each week. Ideally, we would comment and curate each piece. However, there are physical limitations, which include time. It may be the case that stories are submitted and are not curated. We do try to curate every piece but that may not happen.
At last, the prompt of the week!
This week's prompt is Ambition. Our skill challenge will be to work on writing character descriptions. 
**When you write for the prompt, you don't have to use the exact word. Derive inspiration from it. Ambitions are dynamic. They give characters motivation. This can give your story a relatable quality. We all have or have had ambitions, things we wanted to do and achieved or didn't achieve.
Here are some Ambition examples to help you get started on a story. You can probably come up with much more interesting ideas of your own.
- All Andrew could remember was failure. It hit him in the face each morning. His youthful ambition, all those bright dreams, had somehow died.
- Cynthia regarded the eager faces of her young gymnastic students. Missing from those innocent eyes was the hungry ambition of more practiced athletes.
- Can anyone hope for success without at least a hint of ambition?
- Alicia was competitive. It wasn't that she wanted to beat her teammates or her competitors from other schools. She wanted to beat everyone, anyone who might possibly come against her.
- Arthur's ambition was modest, compared to what most people want. All he wished for was the ability to take that first step, to finally get out of his bed and walk.
- Naked ambition can be quite ugly when it is not tempered by grace.
- She yearned to bake the perfect cake, to make a confection that would be the talk of the county fair.
- By the look of them, sloths have no ambition. Perhaps they seem that way to a casual human, but these animals are driven to take care of their young, and to survive.
- Writing a three-volume history of the Industrial Revolution is an ambitious undertaking.
- "You are boring," Agatha shouted at Bert. "You lack insight, creativity and ambition."
A week from now, we will select a winning story that demonstrates this skill and utilizes the prompt. Of course, we will also be looking for overall quality in the winning story. Good luck!
Note: As always, please avoid violent, gory, bloody, brutal, sexist or racist themes and language, erotica and other NSFW (not safe for work) content, and stories featuring abuse of women, children or animals. (We have a complete article about The Ink Well stance on violence and brutality for more information.)
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:
Weekly Prompt Rules:
- Deadline: You have a week to write for the prompt, until the next one is posted. (Note: You can write for any of the prompts anytime. This is just a guideline to be included in the weekly round-up in the next prompt post.)
- Story link: 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 and #dreemport, if you are also posting your story to the DreemPort site.
- COMMUNITY SUPPORT: 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 or include the prompt word.
- 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 the source link.
- Length: We request that story word counts are a maximum of 1,500 words maximum length (preferably 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!
Reminder: Be sure to also read our community rules. The reason for the repeat reminder is that we see many stories describing brutality of women, children, or animals, or that have excessive gore or violence, and we must mute them. Please do not post these stories in The Ink Well. We want our community to be a safe and comfortable place for all readers.
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
Thank you for being a part of The Ink Well!
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