The Ink Well Prompt #88 - 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!

What Is The Ink Well All About?
The Ink Well is a creative writing community. Here are answers to some Frequently Asked Questions about The Ink Well.

  • No novels, chapter stories or multi-part stories
  • No poems
  • No introduction posts
  • No memes

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.

Important tips!

  • Among the factors we look at is quality of engagement with others in the community
  • Please make sure your story is clearly inspired by the prompt.
  • Remember to link your story to the prompt post.

Weekly Challenge and Prize Announcement

Time for the prize announcement and new challenge!

Last week's prompt was Midnight and the skill challenge was to create a strong story arc. This community really came through with surprising, amazing stories!

Many of our writers created original, memorable stories in response to the prompt. Our selections of this week's winners and honorable mentions reflect how well writers dealt with this prompt and skill challenge.

Update! We are excited to share that in addition to our first place winner, we are awarding a second and third place, in addition to a few honorable mentions. For second and third place we are awarding Hive Basic Income (HBI). The third place winner receives 2 HBI and the second place winner receives 3 HBI.

Here are this week's honorable mentions, all of them written in response to the prompt and skill challenge.

Honorable Mentions

As I tried to explain the situation, a man walked into the room. What the hell is going on?? Protocol reset, he said. I saw the laser roll back. After two hours of negotiations and investigation of identity, they agreed to override my vault with an admin password. As the vault door rolled back, I storm into the vault. I couldn't believe what I saw, which was nothing!! My wishbone relic was gone!! This can't be happening at all.

Ana took a good look at him and there was much goodness in him, then she said:
"What you look at fills the heart, if I come every night and you see me, your breast will be filled and a heart will be made of me."

"Sir Midknight?" A young squire asked nervously. "Yes boy?" I answered back.
"This isn't your jurisdiction, you should leave." He stood with his eyes darting around looking at every corner, every shake in the shadow seemed to make him jump.
Making such people squeal is one of the best feelings, so I put on my most dangerous smile, tipped my hat down and turned to look at him.

Finally, it gave way, something tore it from its hinges and threw it furiously backward. A large brown bear with traces of a maritime uniform appeared, barely able to pass through the frame. It tried but only its snout full of sharp teeth passed through and attempted to devour the officer, but it was out of range.

She sat on her rocking chair in the tree house and the heavy sigh she made almost put off the candlelight.
She was lost in thought for a few minutes like she did the previous year and the year before. Sometimes Valerie wished she could get stuck in her fantasies where everything was perfect for her.

Third Place: Wins 2 HBI

The trip home was uneventful, and soon Jacques was setting up a cheese board with his blue cheese and pouring himself a red. He set up his photo in his loungeroom, throwing some rich throw blankets around to give the impression of luxurious ease and then the vignette was immortalised on his socials, captioned with a soppy phrase about good French wine and cheese marking the end of an exhausting week.

Second Place: Wins 3 HBI

I started to analyze how neurotic and uptight I’d become over the years. Was it my accounting job? I mean, God forbid I screw up on the numbers for someone’s taxes. In the nine years I’d been working for Jim, I’d only messed up the numbers once. Then, I realized, that’s what sets us apart. Suddenly the idea flowed so freely into my mind: Some things are okay to get backwards. Others, not so much. Let us help you with your taxes. I began to brainstorm all of the humorous scenarios I could apply to this campaign as I progressed further in the wrong direction.

And the winner of the Midnight/create an arc challenge is... @zeraton with the story Midnight Paralysis. Congratulations, @zeraton. You will receive 5 Hive!

Ah... these series of unfortunate, aggravating events continued nonetheless until, at length, I was no longer able to keep my eyes open - despite all my body's struggles to stay awake. And though I did not realize it until then, I found myself slowly drifting off into a peaceful slumber. But it wasn't long, before yet another issue came to disturb my night again.

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

Stories From the Previous Week

@madamnaomi
@billionz
@khaleesi
@mrenglish
@ricardo993
@raymondpeter
@zeraton
@tozill
@royaldiadem
@cescajove
@talon12
@dennmarc
@stellageorge
@kemmyb
@balikis95
@chincoculbert
@nelson-george
@popurri
@janaveda
@cool08
@justine619
@amiegeoffrey
@adhyaksaardaus
@juanvegetarian
@abigail04
@merit.ahama
@diikaan
@benstel
@buezor
@diebitch
@iyimoga
@bahnhoft

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

This Week’s Prompt

The Ink Well is fortunate to have many members who are eager to write. 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.

At last, the prompt of the week!
This week's prompt is Hunger. Our skill challenge will be to create conflict in the story. You will find a discussion about the role of conflict in @jayna's essay, Adding Conflict. A simple way of looking at conflict is to think of it as the engine that drives the story. The conflict may be psychological or physical. Sometimes (often) stories have more than one conflict. But usually there is a central conflict that needs resolution by the end of the story.

In writing for the prompt, you don't have to use the exact word of the prompt. Derive inspiration from it, and let your imagination go to work.

Here are some ideas to help get you started on your story.

  1. Hunger is a prime motivating force in nature.
  2. Everyone knew Angelina hungered for that title.
  3. The animal was gaunt. It wasn't just hungry. It was starving.
  4. Matthew's desire to win was so strong that he ignored the welfare of his family.
  5. The wolves howled outside the cabin. William knew they would wait for him until their hunger was satisfied.
  6. The hungry ants swarmed the sweet morsel so that it disappeared from view.
  7. Which is stronger: an appetite for revenge, or a yearning for justice?
  8. Alfred was driven to win his mother's approval at any cost.
  9. Adolescents sometimes strive so hard to be thin, that they are perpetually hungry.
  10. Freud saw love and hunger come together in a mother's nourishment of her child.

These are just some ways in which the prompt might inspire a story. You can probably come up with much more interesting ideas of your own.

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:

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:

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

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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, @zeurich, @felt.buzz, @marcybetancourt, @agmoore, @marlyncabrera, @stormcharmer, @generikat, @iamraincrystal, @preparedwombat, @gracielaacevedo, @chocolatescorpi, @seeger, @itsostylish, @josemalavem, @morey-lezama, @sayury, @evagavilan2 and @popurri.

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