Image source: Pixabay
First, a word of appreciation for all in the community who have been posting stories, providing feedback on one another's posts, and helping our community to grow and thrive! Thank you!
Okay, onto the news. Here are the topics in this newsletter:
- It's Official - The Ink Well is for Fiction and Creative Nonfiction!
- Winners from the November Contest!
- December 2022 Contest — 10-Hive Prize + 2nd and 3rd Place Prizes
- Find Us on Discord
- Creative Inspiration
- Delegate to The Ink Well / Follow Our Curation Trail
In Case You Missed It - The Ink Well Accepts Fiction and Creative Nonfiction
It began as an experiment, a little over a month ago when we decided to try adding the "creative nonfiction" genre to our community. We announced in last months newsletter that we had decided to incorporate creative nonfiction permanently. In case you missed it, here are the details. Be sure to check out our weekly creative nonfiction prompts.
What Is Creative Nonfiction?
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.
You can learn more about creative nonfiction and see examples in our weekly creative nonfiction prompt posts. The newest prompt is always pinned to the top of the community.
Housekeeping Notes
Be sure to always use the appropriate tags:
- #fiction for fictional stories
- #creativenonfiction for non-fiction stories
- #inkwellprompt for all stories written for prompts in The Ink Well
And remember to add your story link to a comment on the prompt post. Otherwise, we may miss it.
Winners from the November Contest!
Thank you to everyone who participated in our November fiction contest, with stories and comments. As always, we received some great stories!
The contest rules involved writing one story in The Ink Well during the month of October inspired by the prompt leave.
Thank you to all participants!
Winners!
Here are our three winners for the November, 2022 contest:
We have selected @kemmyb's story, Fond Memories of Dada as the prize winner! Congratulations to @kemmyb! You will receive 10 Hive.
In second place, we have selected @seki1's story, Leave. Congratulations to @seki1! You will receive 6 HBI.
In third place, we have selected @wrestlingdesires' story: A Fall for Every Season. Congratulations to @wrestlingdesires! You will receive 4 HBI.
And the rest of the participants in the contest of the month are honorable mentions, for their wonderful stories. (And of course The Ink Well admins can post for the prompts, but we are not eligible for prizes.)
- @balikis95: Demon of My Past
- @stellageorge: Colored Eyes
- @fantom22: Unfortunate Love
- @princess-dara: Going to Africa
December Contest!
Get ready to put your creativity to work! For December we will award a first place price of 10 Hive, second place of 6 HBI, and third place of 4 HBI for the monthly contest.
For the month of December, 2022, the fiction prompt is celebrate!
What can you do with this prompt? Here are a few ideas:
- Tell a story about a celebration gone wrong.
- Write about a couple celebrating their first Christmas together and both wishing they were with their families.
- Tell the story of a New Year's wish that comes true and sets some unfortunate events in motion.
In other words, bring some conflict into your celebration story, because as we all know, that's what makes fiction interesting. We get involved and we want to know how it turns out! And of course resolve the conflict in your story in the end.
Contest Rules
Write one story this month in The Ink Well inspired by the word "celebrate."
Post a link to your story in a comment on this post.
Use the #inkwellprompt and #fiction prompts on your post.
At the end of the month, we will choose three winners.
Hint: We are looking for a high-quality story. Don't rush. Be sure to use the skills we highlight in our weekly fiction prompts — great settings, good character building, strong dialog (which is often missing from stories we receive), and a good story arc that resolves well in the end.
And finally, we recommend using our tips in the article Help for the Grammatically Challenged to identify errors in your story before posting.
Good luck!
Find Us on Discord
Our Discord server is a great place to chat with other community members about the craft of writing.
Please pop into our Welcome channel, read our guidelines for conduct, and then feel free to interact with other community members or ask The Ink Well Team a question in the #ask-theinkwell channel.
Discord invitation link: https://discord.gg/Bng7mMsaQj
Creative Inspiration and Skill Building
Source: Myriams_fotos on Pixabay
In The Ink Well, we're not just about posting content and getting rewards. We are about building skills that help you earn the best possible rewards because your readers love to read your stuff!
We are here to nudge you to strive for greatness. You know how it feels when someone says, "Wow, just wow! I loved your story!" That's what it's all about. And the good news is that the rewards follow. If people love your work, they give you great upvotes. They seek you out. They want more of your creative content. And curation accounts like Curie, which we utilize and support, will give you the best possible upvotes too.
So what are you waiting for? Use our resources to build your skills and improve your writing. Here are some of the resources we provide:
- Creative inspiration
We encourage and support ideas and creativity by publishing a weekly fiction contest prompt on Monday nights, and a weekly creative nonfiction contest prompt on Saturdays. Additionally, we have a nearly inexhaustible list of ideas to spur your writing. And these resources are included in every weekly prompt for reference: 50 Loglines, 50 Story Ideas, and 50 Imagination Ticklers - Skill building opportunities
We have a great catalog of fiction writing tips that can help any writer learn and grow. You can learn about characters, conflict, scene building, dialog and more. We hope you take advantage of it. And here are some important tips that can help you improve your writing craft:
-- Draft your content in Google docs, or use Google docs for spell checking and syntax checking. It is very easy to do and it is explained in the post Help for the Grammatically Challenged.
-- Make sure your story has the key elements of a story, including character development, scene setting, dialog, action, a conflict, and a resolution. (A story arc is especially important for fiction, of course.) We provide resources to help you with all of these important fiction elements in our catalog of fiction writing tips.
-- Review your work before posting. You will most likely find a missing word, a grammatical error, a misspelling or a sentence that does not start with a capital letter, etc.
Thank you for reading our newsletter! We are here to encourage you and help you on your writing journey.
Delegate to The Ink Well / Follow Our Curation Trail
Want to support our community, our contests, and our rewards for great quality content? See the table below. We have made it super easy. Thank you, thank you, thank you! We have a goal to continue increasing the support we give to our wonderful, hardworking and dedicated authors!
You can follow our curation trail by going to our hive.vote curation trail page and clicking the follow button.
We welcome delegations! These support our community in many ways, including helping us to provide support to quality content creators through curation and contests.
@jayna, @felt.buzz, @zeurich, @marcybetancourt, @agmoore, @marlyncabrera, @stormcharmer, @generikat, @iamraincrystal, @preparedwombat, @gracielaacevedo, @chocolatescorpi, @seeger, @itsostylish, @josemalavem, @morey-lezama, @sayury, @evagavilan2, and @popurri.
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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