Image source: Hitcom on Pixabay
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.
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.
Exciting News: January Collaboration with DreemPort
In case you missed our newsletter, DreemPort has selected The Ink Well for a community spotlight for the month of January. Be sure to see our newsletter and the DreemPort Challenge Announcement for details!
If you choose to participate, you can publish your story for this week's prompt in The Ink Well as usual, then post it on DreemPort and curate others to earn DreemPort tokens.
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 from your imagination.)
It also means:
- No novels, chapter stories or multi-part stories
- No poems
- 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.
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 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-worn themes, or worse — plagiarism (which will get you banned from the community).
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, “New Year."
We really enjoyed all of the creative and interesting stories about new year's resolutions and fresh starts. Thank you, everyone!
Here are the week's stories. Be sure to read and support these authors for their work.
- New Year, New Nothing, by @khaleesii
- New Year, New Spirit, by @radenkusumo666 - And Their Lives Changed, by @rayt2
- The Pub Peach, by @deraaa
- With a Pocketful of Posies, by @morey-lezama
- The Last Train, by @ubani1
- New Year Resolution, by @iyimoga
- Cross Over Bustlings, by @mrenglish
- The Joy of Having Good Friends, by @cool08
- A Cold Night on New Year's Eve, by @piratethanos
- New Yam Festival, by @mcluz
- New Year: New Hope, by @popmanj
- No New Year for the Crims, by @doziekash
- A New Year Gift, by @chidubem26
- Goals and Resolutions, by @bruno-kema
- Last Day of the Year, by @ghost.queen
- Happy New Year My Love, by @farahikram
- Bruno's Resolution, by @dwixer
- New Year New Blessings, by @emeka002
- Happy Beginning, by @mondraye
- Love at the End, by @sonofremi
- Rose, by @milesofplay
- The Real and Imaginary Parts of New Year's Day, by @deeanndmathews
- That Day 5 Years Ago, by @diebitch
- New year, New Life, Between the Mundane and the Divine, by @kayleya
- Holding On, by @ozohu
- New Dawn, by @kei2
- When It Was a New Year, by @oluwashinaayomi
- Parallel and Remote, by @gracielaacevedo
Well done, everyone!
This Week’s Prompt
The last three weeks we have been enjoying holiday-themed prompts, which were of course open to any sort of interpretation one might choose. We continue with a prompt that can be related to the holidays or not. It is up to you!
This week's prompt is: Unlikely Hero.
Unlikely heroes are those who surprise us by saving the day, or doing something impactful and important we didn't know they were capable of. It might be the child who brings his mother a fire extinguisher to put out a kitchen fire. Or the old lady who trips the bank robber on his way out of the bank building so he falls down and can be captured by the police. Or (based on the featured image for this post) a little dog who brings a stick so the snowman can have arms and wave at passersby.
We hope that will get your imaginations started! We look forward to reading your stories. Remember to participate in the DreemPort challenge, if you are so inclined!
Note: As always, please avoid 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.
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 and #dreemport, if you are also posting your story to the DreemPort site.
- 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: 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 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
- #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
Thank you for being a part of The Ink Well!
@jayna, @agmoore, @gracielaacevedo and @wrestlingdesires
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, @gracielaacevedo and @wrestlingdesires.
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, @preparedwombat, @marcybetancourt, @zeurich, @stormcharmer, @adncabrera, @vision-of-esca, @josemalavem, @morey-lezama, @sayury, @evagavilan2 and @bertrayo.
This is a fantastic prompt from The Inkwell and what a great teem up between The Inkwell and Dreemport💗 I do hope that a lot of you will choose to take part in this community collaboration over the next 3 weeks. They are always a lot of fun! I see people from Dreemport here writing already which is wonderful and I hope to be able to read and engage with a lot of your stories in Dreemport come Thursday this week. I'd also love to see stories in Dreemport from those who primarily call the Inkwell home and who perhaps have not used Dreemport before. Please do come over on Thursday and visit our lovely home. It takes 2 minutes to register on the site, you get to engage with other authors and also have your own post curated by a wider audience. You may even enjoy it as much as we do and choose to keep bringing your post links to Dreemport each week. I'd love that! I'm a sucker for a well-written short story and I love the quality of writing that I see in The Inkwell. Now I need to go and make an attempt at this prompt myself 🤗💥
me too hehehehehe I'm thinking ... thinking... thinking... :)
but don't worry @jayna - you won't have to figure out who I am.. hahaha
I'll be submitting as myself hahahahaha not my anon account LOLOL
Now you are thinking...would love to see something from you!
Wonderful, @dreemsteem! Looking forward to your story!
Hello everyone, this is my entry to this week's contest, thank you.
https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@khaleesii/the-inkwell-prompt-47-my
This would be my first time here on inkwell. And this was through @dreemport but all the way I really loved the prompt word for the week and I would make sure to make an entry.
This is really nice. Thanks for the granting the opportunity to write
Hello @theinkwell! Here's my story for this prompt-
https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@kemmyb/the-werewolf-and-the-blue
Comments -
Khoola
Khaleesii.
Of course, I had to scribble something for this challenge
@theinkwell & @dreemport ❤️❤️❤️
https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@kaerpediem/unlikely-hero-oror-fiction-writing-challenge
I had a lot of fun with this one. Hope everyone enjoys!
https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@l337m45732/they-came-in-the-night-hive-170798
I am here to give this a shot for this first time. I am totally excited at resuming writing after such a long time.
Unfortunately I didn't post in the community because I didn't understand what that meant until I was done publishing. I thought it was just using the tag. I still hope you visit the post as your critique will be highly appreciated. Thank you!
Here is my entry
https://peakd.com/fiction/@zyzymena/unlikely-hero
Here is my entry
https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@merit.ahama/jimmy-brought-justice-orsubor-inkwell-prompt
And I'll be submitting to Dreemport right away 😊
Nice topic, I can't help participating. This is my entry below
https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@adoore-eu/an-unlikely-hero-the-ink-well-community-challenge-47
I just read it!
Nice, thanks, how do you do?
Hi Everyone! Really enjoyed this prompt. I had so many ideas of how my story should go but I finally settled on this one: Danny and the Inner Voice
Hello! Good initiative. I will try to join
My comments:
@ozohu
@deraaa
My entry:
https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@katleya/the-ink-well-prompt-2-decision-time-spain-or-guinea
Thanks for the awesome prompt! Here's the link to my story: https://ecency.com/hive-170798/@yuki-nee/gil-the-unexpected-hero
I want to be a part of this multi-brain competition so I write a short story. this is my entry
But I think the prompt of "Unlikely hero" narrows the scope of the writing, whatever this is the idea of brilliance of senior players .
https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@fantom22/ronnie-won-the-heart-of-rias-dad
Hello everyone, hope you all are good?
My entry for the week is The Unexpected
I hope you enjoy it.
Thank you.
https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@mmykel/the-rescue Here is my entry.
Good day to you
Nice having the opportunity to write and participate in this weeks prompt.
https://peakd.com/@abdul-qudus/sarah-and-the-little-bird
Here is my link
Here's my entry entitled ADA. Thank you for the challenge!
This is the link to the entry for today 👇
https://hive.blog/hive-170798/@raymondpeter/don-t-judge-the-book-by-its-cover-the-ink-well-prompt-47
I have read and comments on two post, posted by the members of this community such as: @mandete and @kemmb
Thank you for viewing my blog.
Best regards,
@raymondpeter
My entry
https://ecency.com/hive-170798/@uekop2/genny-s-diary
My entry
https://ecency.com/hive-170798/@iyimoga/theinkwell-prompt-47-the-saving
Comment
@adoore-eu
@dwixer
I think the word 'unlikely' in the prompt should provoke some interesting stories.
Absolutely, I'm looking forward to seeing all the iterations that this will produce.
my mind is starting to churn hehehehe
!ROTFL you can't enter your own contest haha
Oh but she can! The reason is that it is a "challenge," and there are no prizes. The important thing is that people are inspired to write and participate in the communities. :-)
lol fab! well I always look forward to reading anything written by @dreemsteem
hahahahahaahaha the pressure the pressure!!!
I haven't done anything like this, but have told my kids bedtime stories that I have made up on the fly. Is there a length that is preferred when submitting a short story? I feel like i have run across stuff from @wrestlingdesires quite often and I think @davidbright. I think this is a fun group with creativity streaming out like rays of sunshine!
That it is :-)
It's indeed going to be fun. The prompt is out already.. 'unlikely hero'....write a story about someone who isn't a hero but in one way or the other the person saved the day... That's what is expected of you. Have you joined the community yet?.. If not you can quickly join it.
The bed time stories you tell your children might as well be a that story. Just write it down and you are good to go...
your'e gonna have fun!!!! hahahahaha
can't wait to see what you come up with! bedtime stories are a GREAT analogy to what prompts can bring out in us hehehe
andn don't forget - after you're finished - make sure you submit that post on THURSDAY for the DreemPort challenge. hehehe
You can submit it to Hive any time before that - but save it to submit on Thursday for the DreemPort site :)
I look forward to seeing what you come up with, @liftslikealady. As for length, there are some guidelines in the prompt post. :-)
My submission for #47 Inkwell Prompt
St. Elmo's Fire
I have so far read and commented on the following 13 posts for #47 week:
@abmakko, @davidbright, @mmykel, @amirtheawesome1, @maryjacy, @joseph23, @merit.ahama, @princessbusayo, @hopestylist, @l337m45732, @khaleesii, @b0s, @khoola
Wow... just wow... I should have wrote.
"@samsmith1971 my favorite hero"
off to read St. Elmo's Fire.. this phrase sounds familiar to though...
haha yes well it is also the title of a 1985 coming of age film starring members of the Brat Pack. I loved that film growing up! But my submission is not a film review haha; it's a short story ...of sorts... I'm really interested to hear your thoughts 🙏
That's such a great rest. Thanks for reading through all of those.
haha, I'm not done yet...lol. I will try to get through a few more before the next prompt kicks off. 🙏
Alright. That's so nice of you.
Yeah, you did a great job... weldone!
Thanks, I love short stories from the Inkwell...and also it comes with the territory hehe
Thanks for leaving a motivating comment on my post and I also loved your write up... I enjoyed reading it. Thanks for your unfailing support.
You are very welcome @davidbright. You knocked my socks off with your entry. It was no surprise to see the support you received from the public curators. You are an excellent writer. Hold that close to your heart and value it.
Awwww... You make me blush.. The support was overwhelming. I never believed I could have such support on hive since am this quiet person. I really do appreciate you
Wow, just wow. Thank you for joining our community with a bang, @samsmith1971!!
The world is full of heroes, of beings who practice virtue!
Let's describe them!
We are waiting for amazing stories.
Yes!
Quite an interesting prompt that will provoke amazing stories
My brain has began the journey into creativity so as to bring something meaningful here. Let me get to work. Brain working 360 degree 😂
and don't forget to drop that URL into DreemPort for Thursday!!! hehehe
Sure, I will not forget ma 😊
Heroes are everywhere. Big heroes, small heroes. Heroes are heroes and as for this prompt, many guys will kill it.
Nice job @theinkwell
What an awesome prompt ❤️ This one is going to be fun!
Yes, and the stories are already coming in!
So nice
My entry for this week's prompt, thank you.
https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@piratethanos/my-unlikely-hero
going to read this now. Have I told you- every time that I see your username, it makes me smile. pirates are awesome.
Hahahaha... Thanks for looking the name. The pirates on cartoons and some movies are awesome, others not so much.
This is my entry;
THE UNBELIEVABLE HERO https://ecency.com/hive-170798/@princessbusayo/the-unbelievable-hero
commented on @piratethanos @adoore-eu @mrenglish @rayt2
Thank you 😊
@silentbot star 3
Here is my entry to the 47th prompt.https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@mrenglish/one-eyed-manuel
Commented on @milezofplay @hopestylist
My entry
https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@cool08/ben-the-savior-of-his-community
Commented on:
@mrenglish
@rayt2
@adoore-eu
My entry
https://www.proofofbrain.blog/hive-170798/@onwugbenuvictor/unlikely-hero
Ghad, finish this early to clear my head.... here is my entry for this weeks prompt, Unlikely Hero!
The Red Demon
Hope you guys enjoy! 😁
hehehehe don't forget to drop that URL into DreemPort on Thursday :)
thank you for reminding me...
@theinkwell, Unlikely Hero is one of the coolest prompts in my opinion. Unfortunately, I'm running out of ideas myself. In the end I wrote a story that seemed a bit absurd and vague in theme. However, I have tried. Thank you for this great prompt.
Here throw my entry:
• Hypno
This is my entry
https://hive.blog/hive-170798/@emeka002/josh-saves-the-day-the-hidden-talent
Here is my entry. Am glad getting to know the Inkwell community
https://ecency.com/hive-170798/@joseph23/jonas-the-unlikely-hero
Commented on
@emeka002
@onwuegbuvictor
@khaleesi
Our apologies, @joseph23! We have been overwhelmed by the DreemPort challenge with many new writers and a much higher volume of stories than usual. Our admin team could not keep up. We are reading now. Thanks for your patience.
Oh wow!!!! I hope that's a good problem to have hahahaha
and not a bad one????
We were surprised by the high number of entries for Thursday too!!! hehehehe
I guess when we partner up, we make magic!!! LOLOL
Oh yes, it's a wonderful problem! We may have to do this again sometime. We are very happy. Thank you, @dreemsteem.
hehehe glad to hear it!!!
We were just discussing how well it went in the meeting this week for staff - very excited for this week!
DreemPort will be putting up the post today reminding everyone to go get that prompt hehehe
and I literally had NO inspiration for last week's prompt! I so wanted to enter hahaha but then after seeing how many you got - I thought - ohhhh good thing that I took a break this week! hehehehee
but this week I hope to be inspired for the prompt! hehehe
@theinkwell, seems you missed my entry or is the post not eligible for the prompt ?
Thanks for this prompt. Here is my entry https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@ozohu/her-scariest-two-minutes
Commented on @mrenglish and @adoore-eu
This prompt luckily matched a story I was working on. All I needed was a little edit, add the tags, and press publish.
https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@amirtheawesome1/you-are-here-now
here is my submission
https://hive.blog/hive-170798/@abmakko/a-savannah-tale-unlikely-hero
supported @princessbusayo @adoore-eu
Wonderful topic...I just participated in it, this is my entry
https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@victorbch/an-unlikely-herothe-ink-well-community-challenge-47
Nice prompt that triggers multiple imaginations. I had to settle for one, Lols.
Here is my entry post for inkwellprompt #47- the unlikely heroes.
https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@popmanj/the-lost-hunters
Hello everyone, here's my entry to this week's prompt
https://ecency.com/hive-170798/@b0s/the-unlikely-hero
My entry for this week's prompt. Hearts Soar. thank you
My Entry:
crossing-the-world
Hello @theinkwell
This is my entry
https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@mandate/unlikely-herothe-inkwell-writing-prompt