The Inkwell Fiction Prompt #231

Welcome to the Weekly Fiction Prompt

Hello community members! Thank you for joining our weekly writing prompt!

Getting Started

If you're new, be sure to check out our community rules before posting in The Ink Well. You can find them at the top of our home page.

Please also check out these additional helpful resources: * You will find all kinds of great resources in our catalog of storytelling tips. * You can learn more about our community and the expectations of community members in our treasure trove of tips and guidelines. * We are always about quality first. Never about quantity. To achieve the kinds of awards you want, 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!

Stories from the Previous Week

Thank you to who posted a story for last week's prompt: "Boondoggle":

@edith-4angelseu
@gabmr
@ubdan313
@nachomolina2
@marriot5464
@riya2020
@goshen
@oyebolu
@sherah
@zerah
@jennyzee1
@venom2951
@lailawrites
@bisolamih
@riconpoetico7
@abojode
@happy080
@marsdave
@treasuree
@almadepoeta
@delightedpen
@abuzayd
@popurri
@zain-ab001
@pretemi

Author Shout-outs

As always, we received some excellent stories for last week's prompt. Here are a few of the stories that received high marks from our curators.

@edith-4angelseu

The Memorial

Curator comment:

@edith-4angelseu writes a story in which the past endures in the present because of the power of love. An elderly man and his grandson visit the site of a collapsed building. This collapse was the event that stole the child's mother from him. The government promised to build a memorial, but the only memorial was a pile of dirt. Grandfather and grandson bring back the memory of the daughter, and the child inscribes on a sign that marks the location, "Lagos forgot but we didn't". This is a sensitive story that does not have a hint of melodrama.

@sherah

I'll Be True to Myself and the State

Curator comment:

@sherah writes a fiction with near brilliant characterisation and a jaw dropping ending. The piece about an army officer questioning his superior is crisp in dialogue and swiftly drives to its conclusion offering a textbook example of show-don’t-tell and a totally unexpected hard hitting conclusion. Good read!

@zerah

Saving Mum

Curator comment:

@zerah has a talent for creating charming characters, and she does it again with a little boy who wants his widowed mother to be happy. The child sets up dates for her by using an online dating service. His mother is astonished when a man turns up at the door. And astonished again when a second man turns up. In the end, it is a pizza delivery man, not ordered from a dating service, who may be a possible match for his mother. This boy is a bit precocious but still we find him to be a full and entertaining character.

Nicely done, writers! We normally pick three writers to showcase, but there were so many great stories last week that we had to showcase a few more. You guys rock!!

Fiction Writing Prompt of the Week

This week's prompt is: "In the time before"

Sometimes life presents a fork in the road. A turning point. It could be that an opportunity arises. Or a chance encounter with an old friend might open a doorway to some kind of change — whether it is a relationship change, life change, or a change in circumstances. Or a person who had been an important or nurturing figure is suddenly gone.

What gets left behind? When change occurs — good or bad — there is inevitably a loss of some kind, whether it is the loss of innocence, the loss of independence, the loss of someone special, or simply the loss of daily life the way it was.

In the time before, there was stasis. There was perhaps comfort and predictability. Major life changes can undermine that sense of stability. Maybe your character thinks of the time before with a painful yearning for what was. Or perhaps the time before seems to be sealed inside a memory vault, cold and inaccessible — for example, when a child loses a parent at a young age and cannot seem to pull the memories of that parent into consciousness. But perhaps one day, a photograph or an aroma of baking bread brings back a perfect crystalline memory from the time before, and it fills a void like a lost puzzle piece.

What will you come up with? Tell us a story!

Good luck. 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

Writing Prompt Guidelines:

See The Ink Well FAQ: Before you post in The Ink Well, we ask that you read our FAQ post to familiarize yourself with our important community rules and guidelines.
Story link: Please be sure to 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: 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.
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. Please do use the prompt word(s) within the story.
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.
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!")
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.) And do NOT use AI tools to write or manipulate your stories. You must provide your own unique content.

Past Prompts

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](https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@theinkwell/the-ink-well-prom}