Creative Nonfiction in The Ink Well: Prompt #4

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Dear community,

Welcome to Prompt #4 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.

We began the initiative as a trial. It's going well, and we are excited to continue! We have now updated our rules to include creative nonfiction.

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.

In opening up our community to a broader range of content, we will take the stance that not every post will be curated. 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 work is that it 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 to overcome obstacles.

In other words, tell a story from real life.

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: The Music in You!

• @gracielaacevedo
• @fantom22
• @abdul-qudus
• @tozill
• @tejimundo
• @abigail04
• @volleyren20
• @riverflows
• @idlemind
• @drivingindevon
• @popurri
• @mrenglish
• @sapphireissafy
• @diikaan
• @nelson-george
• @zeraton
• @stellageorge
• @grindan
• @rammargarita
• @cool08
• @royaldiadem
• @pjpavan
• @treasure-joshua
• @jayna

Second Place: Wins 1000 Ecency Points

• Our second place winner is @riverflows, with her story, I am Loving Awareness: Music in the Yoga Room:

Yet mid way through the class, as we build toward a strenous standing series where we shift through the warrior poses and into balancing, the joyous and heart opening sound of Baba Hanuman resound through the space and I find myself weeping. It's a particular version of it that I adore, although there are many that have the same effect. Once, in Bali, I bawled my eyes out throughout the entire class, silently weeping, joyous, open, my heart hurting and exploding as I felt myself expanding in beauteous joy. I had to speak to the instructor about it afterwards and he just smiled, saying that it's a 'powerful heart opening mantra'. Hanuman, you might know, is the monkey god who ripped open his chest to reveal Ram, the avatar of the God Vishnu, and his consort, Sita. It's a story of boundless faith and devotion and pure connection to the divine.

First Place: Wins 5 Hive

• Our first place winner is @zeraton, with the story, Some people write their dreams in a book, I write mine into music:

This happened about a month ago: So there I was, in the dream, sitting on a bench and reading a book; the park filled with so much life and beauty: swans dancing by the lake, birds chirping and singing sweet melodious songs in the sky, and rabbits chasing butterflies on the grass. And even the squirrels and chipmunks, whom had all been busy twittering up in the trees this whole time, sang too a great many deal of tunes!

There also with me, was a little girl playing around with the animals. I suspected she must've been around the age of 3. She had very nice silky blonde hair with a pretty blue bow attached to it; pale white skin, and eyes, a staggering color of hazel. She wore a pretty peach dress and had a very warm smile on her face. And though, she did not speak a word to me, I found myself taking a much liking to the girl and fancied her presence a lot.

Congratulations, @zeraton and @riverflows!

The Ink Well Creative Nonfiction Writing Prompt #4: Overcoming Obstacles

Overcoming difficulties and challenges is an integral part of the human condition. Sometimes you just feel like giving up. It's often a conscious choice to push through, get life back on track, keep forging ahead, and never give up.

What can you do with this prompt? Here are a few ideas:

• Tell us about a time when you overcame obstacles and got through a difficult experience or phase of life. What was the driving force? How did your life change as a result?
• Write about one of the strongest, most inspirational people you know, and how they have never let circumstances drag them down. What are that person's character traits?
• Write about your take on the importance of staying on course when the going gets tough. Do you have any words of inspiration?

Please use the tag #creativenonfiction 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 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!

Join here at Hive Onboard

Already a Hive member? Click Subscribe at the top of The Ink Well community home page.

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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.

How to Follow Our Curation Trail

You can follow our curation trail by going to our hive.vote curation trail page and clicking the follow button.

How to Delegate to The Ink Well

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

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