Creative Nonfiction in The Ink Well: Prompt #10

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Dear community,

Welcome to Prompt #10 in our creative nonfiction initiative. Thank you to everyone who contributed a nonfiction story last week! In case you missed the announcement about The Ink Well opening up to nonfiction stories, you can see it here.

Here's a quick overview of how it works:

Each week, we will 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, be written in English (or another language as well as the English translation) and — as much as possible — free of errors.

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 It

• Check 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

1. Write creative nonfiction stories about real life, memories, or experiences.
2. As with our fiction guidelines, we ask that articles be at least 350 words in length. Optimal length is 750-1500 words.
3. 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.)
4. Please post directly in The Ink Well community, and post your link in a comment on this post.
5. 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
• 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: Gift!

• @owasco
• @grindan
• @riverflows
• @kingsleyy
• @erh.germany
• @lightpen
• @itsostylish
• @fantom22
• @samsmith1971
• @rammargarita
• @geelocks
• @pjpavan
• @funshee
• @aly.squid
• @maam.sammy
• @lrscarmen
• @deirdyweirdy
• @merit.ahama
• @chacald.dcymt
• @faitz007
• @amiegeoffrey
• @abdul-qudus
• @idlemind
• @cool-cool
• @diikaan
• @abigail04

Honorable Mentions of the Week

Our honorable mentions for the growing up prompt are:

• @riverflows: On the Emotional Tension of Gift Giving
• @erh.germany: Slide Rulah!! The Greatest Gift Ever
• @owasco: The Best Present I Ever Got
• @chacald.dcymt: An Unexpected Visit at Christmas

Third Place: Wins 1,000 Ecency points

Our third place winner is @lightpen, with his story, The Spirit of Giving.

It was at that early time of harvesting season. We went to buy ingredients to cook Egusi (melon soup) with Ogufe (chevon) to eat the first pounded yam of the year. My father had shared the yam gift to not less than 15 people a day before. Each person got five tubers. When we got to the market, I realized that five tubers of yam of the same sizes as ours was going for 2000 Naira. This was a reasonable amount of money then. When I got home, I told my father about the value of what he was giving out as a gift and a part of me propelled me to tell him to put a stoppage to it.

Second Place: Wins 3 Hive

Our second place winner is @deirdyweirdy, with her story, Replaced.

The shed felt damp as she entered, the darkness inside broken only by the dim rays that fought their way through the scratched old panes of the small window, just managing to illuminate the eclectic collection of odds and ends her mother insisted upon keeping. "Keep a thing; its use will come’ she would say, but looking around her, Trudy couldn’t see much truth in this. What use was there for a two-legged chair, a bucket with a hole in it, or a chest of drawers with no drawers?

First Place: Wins 5 Hive

Our first place winner is @samsmith1971, with her story, The Art of Living with Joy.

To this day, when I am out in the garden on a beautiful summer's day, I find great joy in performing the moves of some of my favourite katas. It is so incredibly mindful and meditative. It is about breath, space, movement, speed, precision, grace, and balance. And it is about the pure joy that I derive from engaging in the art form. It is an intricate dance of epic proportions. Out of nowhere, I will perform a sequence of moves in my kitchen - my kids and hubby are used to this.

Congratulations, @samsmith1971, @deirdyweirdy, and @lightpen!

The Ink Well Creative Nonfiction Writing Prompt #10: Peace

How many of us have peace in our hearts? With the complexity of life, the demands on our time, and the many emotions we experience, peace is hard to obtain, and hard to hold onto. Here are a few ideas for what to do with this prompt.

• Think about what peace means to you. Do you seek out a sense of peacefulness?
• Do you remember a time when you felt at peace? What were the circumstances? Or do you remember a time when your life felt particularly tumultuous and you found a way to restore peace and mindfulness?
• Are there people who inspire you because they have the ability to create peacefulness and calm?

We look forward to reading your stories. Have fun!

Please use the tags #creativenonfiction and #inkwellprompt on these posts. And please remember to add your post link to a comment on this post!

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!

Interested in joining our community? Start by joining Hive!

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We invite lovers of creative writing to visit The Ink Well, a Hive community started by @raj808 and @stormlight24 and run by @jayna, @agmoore, @gracielaacevedo @yaziris and @itsostylish.

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A big thank you to all of our delegators:
@jayna, @felt.buzz, @zeurich, @marcybetancourt, @agmoore, @marlyncabrera, @stormcharmer, @generikat, @iamraincrystal, @preparedwombat, @gracielaacevedo, @chocolatescorpi, @seeger, @samsmith1971, @grindan, @itsostylish, @josemalavem, @morey-lezama, @sayury, @evagavilan2 and @popurri.

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