The Ink Well Prompt #73 - Plus Weekly Challenge and Prize Announcement

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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!

Here are answers to some Frequently Asked Questions about The Ink Well.

What Is The Ink Well All About?

The Ink Well is a short story community. This means we only accept short fiction. (Fiction means stories that came from your imagination, not from real life.)

It also means:

• No novels, chapter stories or multi-part stories
• No poems
• No introduction posts
• No essays or other non-fiction
• No memes

Just fictional short stories!

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.

Weekly Challenge and Prize Announcement

Time for the prize announcement and new challenge!

Last week's prompt was guide and the skill target was to create an attention-getting, irresistible first line for your story, a 'hook'.

Great work, everyone! There were some amazing 'hooks' in the stories submitted. Our selections of this week's winner and honorable mentions reflect how well writers dealt with this prompt and 'hook' challenge. There were many great stories. One of the tie breakers was the power of the hook, the first line (in some cases, first two lines together).

Selecting honorable mentions and the winner is never an easy choice. A significant factor that influences the decision is quality of engagement with others in the community.

Here are this week's honorable mentions, all of which provided strong first lines in their stories.

• @fantom22 with the story Sufferings of a Sad Soul

Reaching the night, a very frightening sound came after tearing the sound of silence.

• @restcity and the story I've Been Better

It was so hard to hold in that laugh that one summer morning.

• @assegai with the story Survival

Stand still or we are dead! Acmir whispered softly to his companions.

• @kei2 with the story Eden!

Grandma stood to the left of the dried cornfield with an endearing look on her wrinkled face.

• @lordtimoty with the story Thongs, Thongs, and Leather Shoes

Lionel was a well to do fellow, who liked to consider himself rather conservative. Yet, nothing could have prepared him for the moment when Guido showed up on his doorstep in nothing but a thong.

• And the winner of the guide, strong hook/first line challenge is... @jadams2k18 with the story My Guide. The first line of this story:

In spite of being a very peaceful and pleasant place, silence reigned when the barista called a person by name, the tension was so great that it was possible to cut the atmosphere of collective anguish with a knife.

Congratulations to @jadams2k18, who will receive 5 Hive as the winner!

Okay, let's review fiction entries from last week's prompt and launch a new one.

Stories From the Previous Week

@katleya
@merit.ahama
@abdul-qudus
@restcity
@samdove
@fantom22
@mrenglish
@cool08
@kelseyimoh
@emeka002
@abigail04
@stellageorge
@kingobonnaya
@chincoculbert
@madamnaomi
@lightpen
@chidubem26
@fragozar01
@lordtimoty
@hazmat
@nurudeen081
@itsostylish
@popurri
@dwixer
@jadams2k18
@bettyhandayani
@diikaan
@assegai
@kei2
@mypathtofire
@buezor
@amaponian
@young-boss-karin
@ellenklech
@farahikram
@raymondpeter

Thank you to everyone who posted a story for last week's prompt!

This Week’s Prompt

The inkwell is fortunate to have many members who are eager to write. However, the curation team does not have infinite resources. In order to be fair to all writers, we have decided to ask our members to publish only one story per week. If members choose to publish more than that, they may. However, only one story will be curated.

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. Moving forward the Ink Well Team believes this will provide a better experience for writers and curators.

At last, the prompt of the week!
This week's prompt is impression. With the skill challenge this week we are going to try something a little different. In her essay, Do Short Stories Have to Have a Plot, Jayna discusses character transformation. She ties this transformation to plot development and conflict resolution.

Do characters (protagonists) always transform in a story? Maybe not. But this week we are going to try and make that happen. As @jayna explains in her essay, this will happen through confronting challenge (conflict) and resolving that challenge. You can read @jayna's essay in Inkwell's Catalog of Fiction Writing Tips.

What should you do with the prompt, impression? And how do you handle the skill challenge? Here are some additional details:

Impression: This is a flexible word. We make impressions in the sand with our feet. We make impressions in pottery construction. We make impressions on people when we meet them. Sometimes, a single event can have a powerful impression on someone's life.

Allow your character to transform: We all can look back on the arc of our lives and find events or people that impressed us. Do we remember an incident from childhood? From the news? From history? Is there a friend, or noteworthy personage who impressed us so much that we changed in some way? That we, in a sense, transformed. This is what you should do this week with your character.

Find a moment or an event in which the character is impressed, and allow that character to transform from this experience. Once again, please refer to @jayna's essay, Do Short Stories Have to Have a Plot, for further guidance.

Here are some ideas, or examples that might help you to get started:

• When she was six years old, Cynthia's fireman neighbor died trying to save someone from a fire. Cynthia was so impressed by this tragedy that she developed a crippling fear of fire. In college, she decided to major in psychology and specialize in treating phobias. As she helped others to overcome their fears, she learned to deal with her own fear of fire.

• Jonathan didn't care much for pets, dogs especially. He reasoned that they ate food people needed. They made a mess. Then one day he saw a mother dog with an injured leg carry each of her puppies across a busy road. The dog limped, but never wavered until all her puppies were safe. The mother's dedication so impressed Jonathan that he gained a new respect for pets and started volunteering at a pet shelter.

• Andrew had been committed to a nursing home years before. The staff evaluated him as being non-responsive. One day a jazz band came to the home to perform. Everyone watched in amazement as Jonathan rose from his seat and swayed to the music. The staff realized that there was a way to reach Andrew. He could be impressed by music.

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:

• 50 Loglines
• 50 Story Ideas
• 50 Imagination Ticklers

Weekly Prompt Rules:

1. 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.)
2. Story link: Post your story in The Ink Well community, and post a link to your story in a comment on this post.
3. Hashtags: Please use these hashtags: #fiction #writing #inkwellprompt #theinkwell and #dreemport, if you are also posting your story to the DreemPort site.
4. COMMUNITY SUPPORT: Visit the work of at least two other community members and comment on their work.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. 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

Thank you for being a part of The Ink Well!

@jayna, @agmoore, @gracielaacevedo and @yaziris

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 and @yaziris.

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:
@zeurich, @jayna, @felt.buzz, @marcybetancourt, @marlyncabrera, @stormcharmer, @generikat, @agmoore, @iamraincrystal, @preparedwombat, @gracielaacevedo, @chocolatescorpi, @kirlos, @josemalavem, @morey-lezama, @sayury, @evagavilan2 and @deraaa.

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