September 2023 News, Updates and Monthly Contest from The Ink Well

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Hello Beautiful Community!

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!

We have an announcement, plus our August contest winners, and of course our new contest of the month!

Here are the topics in this newsletter:

• New Requirement for Translated Stories
• Appreciation and Rewards for Our Delegators
• Important Reminders to All Writers in The Ink Well
• Winners from the August Contest!
• September 2023 Contest — 10-Hive Prize + 2nd and 3rd Place Prizes
• Find Us on Discord
• Creative Inspiration
• Delegate to The Ink Well / Follow Our Curation Trail

New Requirement for Translated Stories

Going forward, we have a new requirement for translations. You must include your original story in the language in which it was written. This is because the tools we use to identify content written by AI (which is not allowed in The Ink Well) work more effectively in native languages, and it will help us avoid falsely identifying a story as AI-written.

So, if you use a translation tool to translate your story, you must provide the story in English as well as in your native language. Thank you.

Appreciation and Rewards for our Delegators

We appreciate all the delegations we have received — and thank you to the new delegators who began supporting us after we made our announcement in May. Delegations enable us to support the writers in The Ink Well and run contests!

The Ink Well now pays out curation rewards for your delegations!

By delegating any amount of your Hive Power to the @theinkwell account, not only will you be supporting the writers and the community as a whole, but you'll also earn rewards.

These rewards are paid out on a daily basis, proportional to the amount of HP you delegate. This is similar to other big curation projects, but you'll be directly supporting fellow writers and The Ink Well community — one of the creative epicenters of Hive!

Want to delegate to The Ink Well? See the last section of this newsletter for some handy HiveSigner links! Or do it on your own by delegating any amount to @theinkwell account, from your favorite frontend or wallet.

Questions? Visit the ask-theinkwell channel in our Discord server.

Important Reminders to all Writers in The Ink Well

There are a few things that we'd like to provide as reminders, as these are common issues.

Do not use AI to generate written content in our community

As we mentioned in the March 2023 newsletter, we do not allow AI-generated content in the community. All stories must be completely original, and written from your own personal experiences and imagination.

Note: AI for image generation is okay.

Avoid morals, lessons and author intrusion

When we read stories, whether they are fictional or creative nonfiction stories, we do NOT read to be taught something. We do NOT read to find out what the author has to say about the story at the end. We do not read to learn lessons about kindness, thoughtfulness, God, politics, or anything else.

We read to be entertained, and to experience something outside of our own daily lives — just as we do when we watch a movie or a TV show. And, we want to draw our own conclusions at the end of the story.

When the author provides a summary of the lesson to be learned from the story at the end, this is called author intrusion. You can read our article on author intrusion in our catalog of fiction writing tips.

So — please do not add a lesson or moral, or write a story or creative nonfiction piece for the purpose of instructing, teaching or preaching. Thank you!

Please be sure to use the appropriate tags:

• #fiction for fictional stories
• #creativenonfiction for non-fiction stories
• #inkwellprompt for all stories written for prompts in The Ink Well

This is important because a) it's not always easy to tell the difference between fiction and nonfiction (and readers consider its merit accordingly), and b) it makes it possible to search for those tags when we review stories for winning entries.

Remember to add your story link to a comment on the prompt post

If you are entering a story into one of our fiction or nonfiction contests, you must add a link to your story in the comments.

We try to catch all entries as we list the participants and winners, but it is extra work for us to find those who have not added their link to a comment on the prompt post and we do not always find them. If you miss this step, you may miss out on being considered for contest prizes.

Please follow these important rules for images

We have three important rules around images:

1. All images must come from license-free or creative commons sites, such as Pixabay, Unsplash, Pexels, or Wikimedia Commons. Or they can be your own images. (You may not use images you find on Google, Pinterest or a website. Those are copyright protected.)
2. You must provide attribution for ALL images — even if they are your own.
3. For any image that is not your own, you must link to the image. For example, if you find an image on Pixabay, the source link you provide must be the URL of the page on which that image appears.

The difference between fiction, nonfiction and creative nonfiction

In The Ink Well, we are all about storytelling. When you make up the story from your imagination, it is called "fiction." When you tell a story from your real life experiences — with characters, conflicts, action, and dialogue — that is creative nonfiction. Other types of nonfiction are not accepted in The Ink Well.

That's why all of our creative nonfiction prompt posts start out with a pointer to our article describing creative nonfiction.

Be sure to read that article before posting nonfiction in The Ink Well!

Here are a few important notes:

1. Creative nonfiction is real life storytelling.
2. Your story must include elements of fiction, such as characters, dialogue, scene setting, action, a conflict and its resolution, etc.
3. Do not post other types of nonfiction in The Ink Well, such as advice columns, self-help information, a report on your health, etc.

Here are some examples of nonfiction vs. creative nonfiction:

• Nonfiction: How I spent my day.

• Creative nonfiction: The day I spent with my father when I finally realized how much he loved me.

• Nonfiction: Three ways to improve your mood.

• Creative nonfiction: How I spent two years recovering from depression with the help of a friend.

• Nonfiction: The political strife in my country.

• Creative nonfiction: The night my husband and I pretended our country is not at war and had the time of our lives.

We hope that helps!

Note: Going forward, we will not curate nonfiction posts that do not follow our guidelines.

Winners from the August Contest!

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Thank you to everyone who participated in our August 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 August inspired by the prompt Yellow Door.

Winners!

Here are our three winners for the August, 2023 contest.

• We have selected @kemmyb's story, Promise and Exceptions as the prize winner! Congratulations! You will receive 10 Hive.

• In second place, we have selected @lenaspiritual's story, Keira's Worst Nightmare. Congratulations! You will receive 5 Hive.

• In third place, we have selected @jhymi's story, Blooming Hope Congratulations! You will receive 4 HBI.

Well done, @kemmyb, @lenaspiritual and @jhymi!

Honorable mentions:

• @lara-bee: End It All
• @lightpen: All the Glitters Is Not Gold
• @jjmusa2004: The New Turn
• @popurri: The Tenant
• @katleya: The Secret Behind the Yellow Door

Thank you, all!

September Contest!

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Get ready to put your creativity to work! For August we will award a first place price of 10 Hive, second place of 5 Hive, and third place of 4 HBI for the monthly contest.

For the month of September, 2023, the fiction prompt is barrier!

What can you do with this prompt? This month, tell us stories about barriers — real or perceived. A barrier is something that creates a blockade. It could be an actual barrier wall — for example to keep the ocean from washing away roads and homes. It can be a structure or wall between that separates neighboring homes (and perhaps is a source of tension between neighbors).

But some barriers are not seen. They are only felt or imagined, like the barriers people put up in a relationship when they are still hurting from a bad relationship in the past and don't want to get hurt again. Or barriers in communication that keep two people from saying what they really mean. There are also barriers to success, like people with power preventing others from achieving their dreams. And, as the featured picture suggests, sometimes the things we face in life only look like barriers, when in fact we could get past them with planning or determination.

Everyone deals with barriers in life of one kind or another. Let's see characters dealing with barriers and trying to overcome those obstacles!

We look forward to reading your stories.

Remember to include the important elements of good fiction, including character building, conflict, a story arc, and the important storytelling skill of integrating action, dialogue and narrative.

Contest Rules

• Write one story this month in The Ink Well inspired by the word "barrier." (Note: Please do not submit the same story to more than one contest.)

• Post a link to your story in a comment on this post.

• Use the #inkwellprompt and #fiction tags 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, 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

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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:

1. 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
2. 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!

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.

50 HP	100 HP	500 HP	1000 HP	5000 HP
click here	click here	click here	click here	click here

A big thank you to all of our delegators:
@jayna, @felt.buzz, @agmoore, @marcybetancourt, @marlyncabrera, @stormcharmer, @selftheist, @iamraincrystal, @preparedwombat, @gracielaacevedo, @timix648, @samsmith1971, @jackdeathblack, @josemalavem, @riverflows, @generikat, @mineopoly, @hazmat, @treasuree, @innfauno12, @kingsleyy, @popurri, @nancybriti1, @itsostylish, @marriot5464, @morey-lezama, @evagavilan2, @moneykeep, @mrenglish, @stuartcturnbull, @marilour, @rinconpoetico7, @funshee, @amiegeoffrey, @loveah, @balikis95, @jhymi, @cool08, @rukkie and @raymondpeter.

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 and @samsmith1971.

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