The Ink Well Fiction Prompt #137 - Plus Weekly Challenge and Prize Announcement

_{Source: Pixabay}

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 just peruse and enjoy the work of our community members.

Special Reminder: Check out our monthly fiction contest for the month of September, 2023, ending September 30! And be sure to honor the countdown timer! 10 Hive to the winner!

Before You Post in The Ink Well...

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Weekly Challenge and Prize Announcement

Time for the prize announcement and new challenge!

Last week's prompt was: "Wonder". And we encouraged authors to integrate all of the storytelling skills that make stories compelling and readable.

Stories From the Previous Week

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

• @seunruth
• @jhymi
• @abigail04
• @do777
• @ayokunlehenry
• @kemmyb
• @smc.arike.oba
• @aly.squid
• @rinconpoetico7
• @lightpen
• @balikis95
• @seki1
• @ricardo993
• @cedujem
• @popurri
• @kingsleyy
• @kei2
• @jazclassic
• @marynn
• @osomar357
• @cojonac97
• @marriot5464
• @stellageorge
• @deraaa
• @devotedman
• @toluwanispecial
• @iskawrites
• @mrenglish
• @selftheist
• @universoperdido
• @cool08

Honorable Mentions

Our honorable mentions of the week are:

• @aly.squid: Alice in Search of a Wonder
• @selftheist: A World to Wonder
• @universoperdido: Come Back with Me
• @lightpen: A Good Reputation Saved My Preference
• @jazclassic: Death Was Peaceful
• @rinconpoetico7: The Marvelous Stone

The Winners!

All of these authors wrote fantastic fiction using the prompt, and did an excellent job with the storytelling skills we look for in the best-told stories!

This week we have two winners who tied for third place!

Tied for Third Place: Wins 2 Hive

• @iskawrites, with the story The Swaddling Wonder

Amidst the dancing and celebration, Adeline wondered why she couldn't find the King anywhere. Why would he throw a party and be absent from it? She proceeded to his chambers and sensed something fishy when she saw more than the usual number of guards standing at his doorway.

"What's going on in there?" The guards failed to give a reply so she knew something was awfully wrong. Just like she suspected, one of the young palace maids was well dressed, pacing the room. She could also see the king's bed had been adorned like he was expecting a new bride.

"What in heaven's sake are you doing here?"

Tied for Third Place: Wins 2 Hive

• @smc.arike.oba , with the story Blackale

The bar was vintage, fair-sized, and cosy. Every piece of furniture was made from real mahogany, and a day was dedicated to having them polished once every six months. There was a real fireplace at the corner, and it was lit every night during the winter. He usually enjoyed that particular season because his nights were spent in front of that fireplace with a mug of warm ale.

He heard another ding from the doorbell. ‘You would think people would read signs and stay away’, he thought. “The sign says closed! We are closed!”, he said this time and faced the door. He didn’t see anyone. “What the hell!” he said, walking towards the light switches to flip all of them on.

A creak came from a chair scraping against the ground, then the door leading to the storage flipped open, and he heard bottles being broken back there.

Second Place: Wins 3 Hive

• @deraaa, with the story The Fae Princess

The air became stale, almost deathlike as a figure emerged from the coach. Mohawk trimmed neatly at the sides, pointy ears to match, dressed in midnight black, a raven tattoo above his right eye, and lips pressed into a grim line; Ashton’s obsidian pools slowly took in the people.

“Rise.” Came his voice.

They all did and he continued, “People of Wormhare. I am Ashton. You all know me as the commander of the Raven armies or the Dark prince. Today, I have been sent here on a quest to find the successor to the throne.”

First Place: Wins 5 Hive

• @kei2, with the story, Zoro; The Message from the Stars

Zoro always believed that life on Earth wasn't the end. “Look at the bright stars Mira. It's where souls go to live when they leave Earth. It's a whole euphoric city of stardust and nostalgia. Everything is real over there. Everything you can ever imagine.” Zoro would look into Mira’s brown eyes and smile. She'd cup his face in her hands and kiss his cheeks. Mira loved to trace the lines of age on the edges of his eyes. “Someday, I'll go there,” he'd add.

“Perhaps I’d come with you to this city of fantasy. Sixty years on earth is a lot. Another sixty in some sort of paradise wouldn't hurt.” Mira would always tease. Even in death, Mira kept those beautiful moments she cherished alive. A tear ran down the creases on her face. More memories of Zoro came to her like a revelation. She remembered the night Zoro peacefully left her in his sleep. That night, Zoro had finished telling her one of his unusual stories. Mira recalled saying, “I really hope you make it to Fantasyland someday.”

Congratulations to @kei2, @deraaa, and @smc.arike.oba and @iskawrites!

This Week’s Prompt

FIRST: A COUNTDOWN NOTE
Be sure to submit your entries before the countdown ends.

You must submit before the end of the countdown to be considered for the prizes and honorable mentions.

Please observe the timer below this post. If it's purple, and the COUNTDOWN time is in the future, you can submit and be eligible for prizes and honorable mentions.

If the countdown is gray, and the timer has expired, you can submit, but your story will not be eligible for prizes or honorable mentions.

When the timer expires, we get busy reviewing all the stories, and no further submissions are considered.

Prompt of the week!

WAIT! Did you read the information above about the countdown timer? Okay, proceed!

This week's prompt is: "Ruins."

What to do with this prompt?

The word ruins can describe old dilapidated buildings, an old falling down castle, ancient crumbling structures such as the ruins from the Roman empire, or even the ruins of a relationship. Structural ruins could even be an ironic backdrop for a blossoming relationship. We hope that gets you thinking!

Let's see stories involving ruins — however you choose to interpret that word, and wherever your imagination takes you.

Use Your Storytelling Skills

For many months we asked our community members to focus on a skill each week, such as character development or dialogue. Going forward, we are looking for all of these skills as we identify winners and honorable mentions:

• Great first lines.
• Good settings.
• Well-developed characters.
• Integration of action, dialogue and narrative.
• A conflict that intrigues the reader.
• A "story arc" which results in the resolution of the conflict and brings the story to a satisfying conclusion.
• And of course, we are looking for well-edited stories that are not littered with typos or grammatical errors.

To be eligible for prizes, you must write a story based on the prompt (be sure to use the prompt word(s) in your story), and demonstrate the fiction writing skills we have been encouraging everyone to practice. Be sure to turn to our catalog of fiction writing tips for guidance!

Ready, set go!

A week from now, we will select winning stories that demonstrate these qualities and utilize the prompt. Good luck! Be sure to read the contest rules and reminders below.

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:

• 50 Loglines
• 50 Story Ideas
• 50 Imagination Ticklers

Weekly Prompt Rules:

1. Deadline: You have SIX DAYS to write for the prompt, and you must submit your story before the end of the countdown to be considered for prizes and honorable mentions. You can find the countdown timer at the bottom of the prompt post on The Ink Well home page.
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 — as well as #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. But please do use the prompt word(s) within the story.
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 all image source links.
7. Length: We request that story word counts are a maximum of 1,500 words in length and a *minimum of 350 (ideally 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!
8. NEW — Translations: If you post a story that has been translated from another language, please include both the English version and the translation.

Reminders: Be sure to also read our community rules. As always, please avoid violent, gory, bloody, brutal, sexist or racist themes and language, NSFW (not safe for work) stories like erotica, stories with a political or religious agenda, and stories featuring abuse of any kind. (We have a complete article about The Ink Well stance on violence and brutality for more information.)

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; #47 Unlikely Hero; #48 Inheritance; #49 Under the Light of the Moon; #50 Three Words: Shoes, Mood, Adventure; #51 They're Here; #52 Artist; #53 Headlights; #54 Tomorrow; #55 Lense; #56 Perfection; #57 Making and Breaking Rules; #58 A Reckoning; #59 Blossom; #60 Temptation; #61 Happiness; #62 Footprint; #63 Frequency; #64 Sailing; #65 Fortune; #66 Worry; #67 Adventure; #68 Shadow; #69 Motor; #70 Embarrass; #71 Proud; #72 Guide; #73 Impression; #74 Lost; #75 Wonder; #76 Tear; #77 Splash; #78 Brilliant; #79 Sinkhole; #80 Exhaust; #81 Roll; #82 Wishbone; #83 Chatterbox; #84 Foil; #85 I can't believe you said that; #86 Boo; #87 Midnight; #88 Hunger; #89 Light; #90 Spirit; #91 Fire; #92 Tend/Tender; #93 Cheer; #94 Appearance; #95 Ambition; #96 Trust; #97 Fly; #98 Comfort; #99 Fate; #100 To Create; #101 Vision; #102 Sympathy; #103 A Special Time; #104 Suspense; #105 Bride, stairs, illusion; #106 Reality TV; #107 Things the Go Bump in the Night; #108 First line: Two strange things happened that day; #109 What if that loose floorboard was actually a hidden passageway?; #110 Footsteps; #111 Mess; #112 Cards; #113 Elephant; #114 Crystal; #115 Phone call; #116 Date; #117 Chocolate; #118 Three words: wish, button, sky; #119 RSVP; #120 Objets d'art; #121 Soul; #122 Scuttlebutt; #123 Recall; #124 Doorway; #125 Beacon; #126 Seagull, Market, Box; #127 Window; #128 Terrified; #129 Dance; #130 Two endings; #131 Ghosted; #132 Treasure; #133 Taste; #134 Reunion; #135 I miss you; #136 Wonder}

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