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Hello and welcome to the The Ink Well weekly fiction prompt. 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.
Important FAQs about The Ink Well!
Before we get to the prompt, we have 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. We do not accept essays, poems, chapter stories or other content. Just short stories! And we are all about creativity, quality, community, and engagement. This means that just dropping by to post some stuff is not acceptable. 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 you post in our community, please be sure to read the community rules (right side of the page) where we outline the "do's and don'ts" for posting in The Ink Well. If you only use a mobile phone and can't see 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 invite you to use the #creativecoin prompt. We are pleased to announce that we are getting some curation attention from the Creative Coin Fund. You can read about it in our recent newsletter.
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, or a story arc. (See our catalog of fiction writing tips for information on these important aspects of short stories.)
- Your story appears to be a retelling of an old folk tale. There's nothing wrong with folk tales, but here in The Ink Well, we are looking for 100% original fiction. We want to see fresh new stories from your imagination, not age-old stories with well-worm themes.
Okay! Let's review fiction entries from last week's prompt and launch a new one.
Stories From the Previous Week
Thank you to everyone who posted a story for last week's prompt, “Graveyard," which invited The Ink Well authors to write about the big spooky white ball in the sky at night. You guys came up with some great full moon tales!
Here are the week's stories. Be sure to read and support these authors for their work!
- That Scary Night, by @sunnyag
- I Know What You Did, by @blueeyes8960
- Full Moon, by @mrnightmare.net
- Apparent Death or Real Death, by @gracielaacevedo
- Dearly Departed, by @oscarpower55
- It's Been Ten Years Now, by @cool08
- The Terror at Night, by @dwixer
- Laughing At Death, by @mrenglish
- Going with my uncle to the cemetery, by @johnbenn
- Lessons, by @milezofplay
- Under the sea, life is more sinister in the dark, by @ricardo993
- Nocturnal, by @sonofremi
- A Grave Dream, by @yuki-nee
- The Black Gate Yard, by @ozohu
- Tan's Passion Unhindered, by @kemmyb
- The Pirates' Cemetery, by @katleya
- Center for Relaxation and Atrocities, by @iyimoga
- The Wish of the Dead, by @mcluz
- I'll Drive, by @b0s
- The Halloween Party, by @khaleesii
- The Last Enemy of Our Enemies Is Still Our Friend, by @deeanndmathews
- A Grave Mistake, by @diebitch
- Leave, by @vincric
- The Vacation, by @daveyjones7
This Week’s Prompt
For our final Halloween-inspired prompt for the month of October, we're going with a classic: jack-o-lantern.
Whether you want to write something spooky or creepy, or you want to talk about a child's Halloween experience, or any other aspect of these iconic carved works of temporary art, there are plenty of possibilities.
SPECIAL NOTE: @hivebuzz is hosting a really fun challenge. Check it out here. You may be able to use your jack-o-lantern short story in The Ink Well as your entry to the HiveBuzz story challenge. (They didn't say whether they mean fiction or non-fiction when they said "your scariest Halloween story", so we are going to assume this is up for interpretation.)
Get creative! We look forward to reading your stories!
Note: As always, please avoid gory, bloody, brutal, sexist or racist themes and language, NSFW (not safe for work) themes, and stories featuring abuse of women, children or animals.
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:
- 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.)
- Story link: Post your story in The Ink Well community, and post a link to your story in a comment on this post.
- Hashtags: Please use these hashtags: #fiction #writing #inkwellprompt #theinkwell.
- COMMUNITY SUPPORT: Visit the work of at least two other community members and comment on their work.
- 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.
- 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.
- Length (NEW!): We request that story word counts are 1,000 to 1,500 words maximum length. This is just a guideline. Longer stories tend to get fewer readers. Additionally, The Ink Well admins appreciate keeping to that maximum story length for our time management!
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
Thank you for being a part of The Ink Well!
@jayna, @agmoore and @gracielaacevedo
We would like to invite lovers of creative writing to visit The Ink Well, a Hive community started by @raj808 and @stormlight24 and run by @jayna, @agmoore and @gracielaacevedo.
We also invite you to follow The Ink Well curation trail on the Hive blockchain, at https://hive.vote/. Simply navigate to the curation trail section and search for theinkwell (all one word with no @ symbol) and our trail will pop up as an option.
Similarly delegations are possible on Hive using the fantastic https://peakd.com/ Hive Blockchain front end. If you wish to delegate to @theinkwell, you can do this from the wallet section of https://peakd.com/
@jayna, @agmoore, @gracielaacevedo, @iamraincrystal, @generikat, @marlyncabrera, @owasco, @preparedwombat, @marcybetancourt, @zeurich, @barge, @lacrucita, @stormcharmer, @adncabrera, @vision-of-esca, @josemalavem, @morey-lezama, @sayury, @rypo01, @evagavilan2 and @bertrayo.
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Lots of people getting in on the writing challenge, that's a great thing! Jack-o-lantern - hmmmmm, have to let that roll around awhile and see if anything surfaces. But if not, I know there'll be plenty of good submissions to read and enjoy!
@blueeyes8960, for extra incentive, check out this initiative by @hivebuzz: https://peakd.com/halloween/@hivebuzz/halloween-2021. I've added the information to this prompt post as well.
Hey! That sounds good too! 😃
Seems like a great match for our prompt this week, doesn't it?
so it seems...😉
Oh my, it's been a while since I joined in on the writing challenge. As a matter of fact, I've missed reading all the amazing short stories here. Life and work have been suffocating lately, but I'm hoping to find the time and courage to be part of this.
Sorry to hear you've been so busy, @hillarypowers. We miss you!
Jack-O-lantern 🎃
This is going to be a huge read as I am sure some spooky stories will soon begin to flood #theinkwell community.
Yes, I'm really going to miss the spooky stories when October is over. It has been a lot of fun! Thank you for being part of the fun, @mrenglish!
This week's prompt is finally here! Hopefully I could make good use of the prompt to write a great story. Wish me luck!
Good luck, @yuki-nee!
Thank you!
Good job! Looking forward to all amazing entries.
It will be interesting to read all the jack-o-lantern themed stories this week!
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This is my entry
https://hive.blog/hive-170798/@emeka002/crazy-old-john
Thanks for a very thoughtful prompt word on this occasion :)
Here is my story, I have just started posting my comments on other posts, thank you!
https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@sunnyag/happy-halloween-dr-smith
Here is my entry.
https://peakd.com/@mrenglish/bishops-curse-on-halloween-carnival-eve
A perfect prompt for one of my favorite times of the year.🎃
Here's my entry:
https://hive.blog/hive-170798/@generikat/hello-harbinger
I'm so looking forward to reading everyone's entries!
And my comments (so far):
@iyimoga
@emeka002
Sometimes what you hate is what keeps coming to you.
A wonderful piece.
My entry for the week.
https://ecency.com/hive-170798/@iyimoga/the-inkwell-prompt-round-37
Comments
@milezofplay
@generikat
My submission...
https://peakd.com/@cool08/a-scary-moment
Commented on
@iyimoga
@dwixer
hey guys, click on the link below to view my story...you'll like it
https://ecency.com/hive-170798/@ji33y/the-hallow-s-eve
Hellow!
My comments to:
@sunnyag
@mrnightmare.net
My entry:
https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@katleya/the-ink-well-prompt-37-death-calls-trick-or-treat
Maybe not quite the spooks...but maybe just a little
Ok, that's enough pre-empting ;p
https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@kaerpediem/captain-of-my-heart
I'm finally done writing my story. Here's the link: https://ecency.com/hive-170798/@yuki-nee/the-jack-o-lanterns-and-the-mysterious-small-shop
I'm a bit late but here's my entry: The Flame in the Hollows
Enjoy!
Hello everyone, please check out my entry,
Thank you
https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@khaleesii/the-inkwell-prompt-37-the-last-halloween-trip
My entry: Vertran and Louisa Find Their Own Pumpkin Patch
My comments:
I've joined the prompt this week! https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@jayna/the-halloween-princess-a-short-story
I guess I'm late again, probably
Anyway, here is my entry
https://hive.blog/hive-170798/@jadams2k18/unexpected-visit-una-visita-inesperada-the-ink-well-prompt-37
Wow lots of creative stories this week. Enjoyed reading them. Here's my take:
https://ecency.com/hive-170798/@diebitch/happenings-in-a-mental-asylum
I hope to still be on time for this one. This is my link
https://peakd.com/@kei2/the-ancestor
@yuki-nee
@khaleesii
Hellooo. This is my entry of the prompt.
https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@ricardo993/the-righ-guy-or-the-ink-well-prompt
Here's my entry, Happy Halloween!
😄
https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@vincric/night-of-sugary-hell
You are fast, @sonofremi! Congrats on being the first one.
Thanks for being an early bird, @milezofplay. Please be sure to take the time to review and edit your stories before submitting. There is no rush since you have a week before the next prompt, and quality is more important than speed. :-)
We encourage everyone to use the resources we provide (listed in this post above the prompt) to ensure they are submitting quality work. Thank you!
Thank you for working a little more on your story, @milezofplay. We always encourage our writers to take the time to review their work carefully before submitting. Stories always improve in the process!
Did you use Google Docs, as described in the Help for the Grammatically Challenged post? I think you would find it very helpful.
Sorry about the error. This is fixed.