Important FAQs about The Ink Well: Do's and Don'ts, Rules and Tips!

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Welcome to The Ink Well! The following information appeared for many months in our weekly contest post. In order to make the weekly post more succinct, we are moving this contest to a post of its own, and we will link to these guidelines all new and returning writers and regulars.

Please read this information before you post in The Ink Well.

What Is The Ink Well All About?

The Ink Well is a creative writing community for short stories. We are all about creativity, quality, community, and engagement. We are here to help writers thrive, and to improve their writing skills. Our admins very often provide constructive feedback on content published in our community to support writers on their journey.

Guidelines for Posting in The Ink Well

We only accept fictional short stories and creative nonfiction stories. This means:

• No novels, chapter stories or multi-part stories
• No poems
• No introduction posts
• No memes
• No photography posts
• No advice columns or self-improvement articles
• No "moral" stories or morality lessons
• • No vignettes, character studies or incomplete stories*

If you want to post in our community, 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 posted in the community.
• Write complete stories. As a guideline, write at least 750 words and make sure you include the important elements of a story: characters, settings, action, dialogue, a conflict and a resolution.
• Put effort into your posts. Review and edit your content for errors before publishing.
• Do not generate content using AI.
• Do not plagiarize content, rewrite stories that have appeared elsewhere, or re-post your own content that has appeared anywhere else. The Ink Well is for 100% original content written by you.

Not meeting these guidelines will affect the curation of your posts and your eligibility for our contests. Abuse of The Ink Well community for content farming or plagiarism will get you banned from the community.

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 suitable for all ages.

We do not allow stories depicting violence, rape, brutality, physical abuse or gore. If you have questions, please read this article explaining our stance on violence.

How Can You Improve Your Writing Skills?

We have a number of resources to help writers grow.

• To build your fiction writing skills, see the resources in our catalog of fiction writing tips. (Many of our writers are developing awesome storytelling skills, and you can too!)
• To learn more about writing effective creative nonfiction stories, see our article on tips for success. Additionally, many of the articles for fiction writing apply to creative nonfiction as well. Add characters, action, dialogue, and a conflict that is resolved in the end. That is story telling!

How Can You Get Rewards in The Ink Well??

We refer you to the above guidelines for posting in our community. 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 story telling, such as character development, dialogue, 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.

Summary and Final Thoughts

Summary of important tips:

• Only post 100% original content that does not appear elsewhere in any form.
• Take the time to read and edit your stories to look for errors.
• Engage with others in the community by reading and commenting on their work.

Reminders when writing for our prompts:

• Make sure your story is clearly inspired by the prompt.
• Be sure to post your story before the end of the countdown period.
• Remember to link your story to the prompt post.

Thank you for being a part of The Ink Well!
@jayna, @gracielaacevedo, @yaziris, @itsostylish, @samsmith1971 and @agmoore

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, @gracielaacevedo, @yaziris, @itsostylish, @samsmith1971 and @agmoore.

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, @samsmith1971, @grindan, @jackdeathblack, @josemalavem, @riverflows, @itsostylish, @stuartcturnbull, @morey-lezama, @evagavilan2, @popurri, and @mrenglish.

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