The Inkwell Combined Writing Prompt #8 ~ Fiction or Creative Nonfiction

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Welcome to the Weekly Writing Prompt from The Ink Well

IMPORTANT: We are now providing one weekly writing prompt. See the announcement in our October 2025 Newsletter for details. You may choose to use the prompt to write a fictional story (made up from your imagination) or a creative nonfiction story (based on your real life experiences).

To be considered for curation, you must include one of these tags on your post:

• Fictional stories: #fiction
• Creative nonfiction stories: #creativenonfiction

It is also very helpful to the admin team when authors add Fiction or Creative Nonfiction (or CNF for short) to the story title!

Before You Post in The Ink Well

Be sure to check out our community rules before posting in this community. You can find them at the top of our home page. They also appear at the top of a new post window.

Please also check out these additional helpful resources:

• Learn more about our community and the expectations of community members in our FAQ post and our treasure trove of tips and guidelines.
• Peruse our collection of great writing resources on everything from character development to how to write dialogue in our catalog of storytelling tips.
• Learn more about creative nonfiction, how it differs from fictional stories, and tips for success in our post on creative nonfiction tips.
• Remember that we are always about quality first. Never about quantity. To achieve awards in The Ink Well, take the time to write quality stories and check them for errors. See the topic of the month, "Don't Miss This Step" in the March 2025 newsletter to learn about using tools (and using them properly) if you are not already doing this. We do notice when you don't take the time!

Last Week's Winning Story of the Week

Thank you to everyone who shared a story for the last prompt, "Closing Time"!

Each week we pick one of our favorite stories of the week and award the author 5 Hive.

And we have a winner! Congrats to @artofkylin for her story, Where I'll Be From. Here's what our curator had to say:

@artofkylin tells an interesting fictional story. It narrates how the closure of the character's family life can occur when his parents and siblings oppose him pursuing university studies in another location. It is truly a story where tradition clashes with modernity. The author reflects with considerable closeness the conflict of the protagonist and shows us in images the family's pain at the loss of their son for reasons they cannot understand. Very good theme, well executed!

Short Story Writing Prompt of the Week

This week's prompt is: "Expectation" No matter how one is raised, and no matter what one chooses to do in life, expectation is a fundamental life experience. We expect things of others and of ourselves. We are filled with expectation when life events occur, when party invitations arrive, and when we plan to travel.

For a creative nonfiction story, think about a time when you had high expectations and it created a dramatic moment in your life. The expectation could have been about something you wanted from a friend, a gift you wanted from your parents, or a job you expected to be offered. Expectations — whether they are fulfilled or shattered — can cause powerful emotions and create some challenging life experiences!

Let's look at some different ways you could work with this prompt for a fictional story.

• You could write about a character awaiting something life-changing (such as a proposal, a job offer, or a highly anticipated letter), only to find the outcome entirely different from what they imagined. Though the result might be different from what the character expected, perhaps all is not lost... and maybe something even better is attained.
• Or think of a character who's living with the expectations of his family for who he will become in life, and the path he will take. How can he find his way and also keep them happy?
• Another idea would be to write about a character who has lofty expectations for her own life. What if she shoots for the stars? Can she make it?
• Or tell the story of a child's anticipation of Christmas and his expectation for what Santa will leave for him under the tree.

Those are just some ideas. Do as you wish with the prompt! You do not need to include the prompt word. Just let it inspire your story.

We look forward to reading the product of your imagination or your memories!

Good luck! And of course, you are welcome to use AI to generate ideas and images, but the writing must be your own! We do not accept stories that are AI-generated or heavily edited by AI. Only use tools like Grammarly to fix spelling and grammar issues.

Remember, as always, we are looking for the elements of story. These include:

• 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 — please use the free Grammarly tool for grammar and spelling checks (and not AI writing or rephrasing tools for revising)

You can find more on all of these topics in the catalog of storytelling tips.

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

Rules:

1. Accepted content: Remember that we only accept short stories (fiction or creative nonfiction). We do not accept advice columns, personal development articles, reviews, chapter stories, recipes, etc. We also do not accept posts about violent, gory, bloody, brutal, sexist or racist themes, NSFW (not safe for work) stories like erotica, stories with a political or religious agenda, or stories featuring abuse of any kind. (We have a complete article about The Ink Well stance on violence and brutality for more information.) And do NOT use AI tools to write or manipulate your stories. You must provide your own unique content.

2. Post link: Please be sure to publish your story in The Ink Well community, and post a link to your story in a comment on this post.

3. Hashtags: Use the #fiction tag for fictional stories and the #creativenonfiction tag for creative nonfiction stories. You can also use #writing, #inkwellprompt and #theinkwell.

4. Images: Please only use images from license free and creative commons sites, like Pixabay, Unsplash and Pexels. You can also generate them with AI tools. Images you find on the Internet are copyright protected and cannot be used. Be sure to provide all image source links.

5. Length: We request that story word counts are a maximum of 1,500 words in length and 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. (Note: We generally consider stories less than 750 words "too short" and they tend to be missing important character development. See the "story length" topic of our September 2025 newsletter for resources on how to improve and further develop your stories.)

6. Translations: If you post a story that has been translated from another language, please include the English version first, followed by content in the original language.

7. Community support: When you post in The Ink Well, please be sure to visit the work of at least two other community members and comment on their work.

Past Prompts

After 241 straight weeks of fiction prompts (and nearly as many creative nonfiction prompts) we have started a fresh new series! If you'd like to see the full list of previous fiction prompts, you can find them at the bottom of fiction prompt #241.

Thank you for being a part of The Ink Well!
@jayna, @gracielaacevedo, @agmoore, @samsmith1971, @itsostylish and @yaziris.

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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, @gracielaacevedo, @agmoore, @samsmith1971, @itsostylish and @yaziris

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