Announcement from The Ink Well: Creative NONfiction Trial & First Prompt!

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Dear community,

We have an exciting announcement to share. As you know, we like to shake things up from time to time, whether that comes in the form of additional rewards, special contests, new ways to highlight the wonderful work of our writers, or fun new initiatives.

This one is unprecedented! Check it out.

Announcing Creative Nonfiction in The Ink Well (Trial Period)

In The Ink Well, we’ve always been devoted to short stories, and we feel this is really the heart and soul of The Ink Well. But we are looking for ways to kick-start some fun initiatives that inspire new members to come and join our community.

How would you like to write short stories from real life?

Now you can!

Our foray into creative nonfiction will be on a trial basis. If it results in an explosion of spam (which as you know we have worked diligently to stamp out), we will re-evaluate. But as usual, we have a plan for making it all work! Here it is:

Each week, we will provide a creative nonfiction prompt. This will help guide our community members toward writing engaging, interesting nonfiction stories.

Note that you are welcome to post other creative nonfiction pieces that are not based on the prompt, but please be sure to follow the guidelines below.

In opening up our community to a broader range of content, we will take the stance that not every post will be curated. To be curated, your content should follow our guidelines, be at least 350 words, be written in English (or another language as well as the English translation) and — as much as possible — free of errors.

What Is Creative Nonfiction?

There are many guides and resources online for getting to know this wonderful genre. It is truly about storytelling. The simple difference between creative nonfiction and fictional work is that it is not made up.

We like this definition from an article on creativenonfiction.org:

Simply put: Creative nonfiction is true stories, well told.

With creative nonfiction, you are using the literary and storytelling tools of a fiction writer to craft stories from real life experiences. Set the scene. Give the details. Profile the characters. Give us the dialog, as best you can remember it.

Ideas and inspiration:

• Think of a story your grandfather might have told from his own childhood that started with, "When I was just a boy..."

• Creative nonfiction stories can be snippets from your life autobiography — moments in time you want to capture in words, whether they were frightening, enlightening, bittersweet, or life-altering. They can be observations about life, about a time you connected at a profound level with a perfect stranger, or something you have learned along the way that made you a better person.

• Do you love podcasts? One of the greatest sources of creative nonfiction is The Moth Radio Hour. Listen to a few of the stories from The Moth, and we guarantee you will be inspired.

• Here are some additional resources for learning more about the creative nonfiction genre:
  -- Reedsy blog: What is Creative Nonfiction? The Unputdownable Truth
  -- Writers.com: Understanding Creating Nonfiction: What It Is and How to Write It

For additional inspiration, here is an opening to a creative nonfiction piece by Sherrie Flick, titled Contagious Empathy:

Our faces are buried, and I don’t mean in the sand. They’re snuggled into our machines these days as we scroll and click and finger type away. We travel into virtual lands, disconnecting from the three-dimensional one around us. I worry that we’re no longer able to walk in this world and communicate with each other one-on-one. I worry that we no longer understand how to be alone. And being alone and lonely and bored is important to us as creative people.

We hope you are inspired!

Guidelines for Creative Nonfiction Articles in The Ink Well

1. Write creative nonfiction stories about real life, memories, or experiences.
2. As with our fiction guidelines, we ask that articles be at least 350 words in length. Optimal length is 750-1500 words.
3. Please read and edit your content before posting. It makes a big difference in how we reward work published in The Ink Well. (And we have some great guidelines for improving your grammar and fixing errors before you post in this article.)
4. Please post directly in The Ink Well community, and post your link in a comment on this post.
5. Please use the tag #creativenonfiction on these posts.

Here are some examples of what we are looking for:

• Explore an idea that interests you, such as how childhood experiences shape us as adults.
• Write about the study of dreams and what they mean, along with your own experience.
• Tell about an experience from your life that profoundly changed you.
• Write about a teacher who inspired you to overcome obstacles.

In other words, tell a story from real life.

Here’s what we are NOT looking for:

• A picture of a flower or other posts focused on photography
• A few paragraphs about what you ate for lunch
• Recipes and how-to articles
• Essays about religion or politics
• Poetry

What will be muted:

• Spam posts or plagiarism
• Graphic violence
• Lectures or proselytizing about religion, politics or morality

The Ink Well Creative Nonfiction Writing Prompt #1

Write about a travel experience. Why were you there? What did you see? Who did you travel with? Give us the sights and sounds of the experience. Tell us about the food, or something delightful that happened. How did the experience transform you or broaden your views, even if it was in some small way?

Please use the tag #creativenonfiction on these posts.

Prizes!

• The top creative nonfiction story of the week will receive 5 Hive
• The second place story will receive 1,000 Ecency points

Deadline

You have a week, until the next prompt is posted, to post your creative nonfiction story in The Ink Well community.

See you in The Ink Well!

Interested in joining our community? Start by joining Hive!

Join here at Hive Onboard

Already a Hive member? Click Subscribe at the top of The Ink Well community home page.

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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, @agmoore, @gracielaacevedo @yaziris and @itsostylish.

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.

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A big thank you to all of our delegators:
@jayna, @zeurich, @felt.buzz, @marcybetancourt, @agmoore, @marlyncabrera, @stormcharmer, @generikat, @iamraincrystal, @preparedwombat, @gracielaacevedo, @chocolatescorpi, @seeger, @itsostylish, @josemalavem, @morey-lezama, @sayury, @evagavilan2 and @popurri.

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