Source: Pixabay
Welcome to the Weekly Writing Prompt from The Ink Well
We provide one weekly writing prompt for short story writers. 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).
IMPORTANT: To be considered for curation, you must include one of these tags on your post:
- Fictional stories: #fiction
- Creative nonfiction stories: #creativenonfiction
You must also read and comment on the work of two other community members. Remember: We look for this when we curate your story. If we don't see this engagement, we will either provide a reminder or skip curating your post.
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, "Three words: truck, purple, letter"!
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 @rinconpoetico for his story, Stefany.
Here's what our curators had to say:
@rinconpoetico7 creates a complex story with remarkably few words. We have all the elements: a stressed young woman, an intolerant boss, an ailing parent and an extraordinary talent for preparing food. The author lays the scene efficiently. In the space of a few paragraphs we learn of the demanding boss, the ailing parent and the stressed employee. The conflict is clear. The resolution appears quickly: the parent dies, the employee quits the job, and the talent is put to work on a food truck. The author's skill ties all the pieces of the plot together seamlessly.
Congratulations, @rinconpoetico7!
Short Story Writing Prompt of the Week
This week's prompt is: "Behind the scenes."
“Behind the scenes” can mean many different things, but in general it refers to situations, decisions, conflicts, relationships, or secrets that people normally don’t see. The phrase initially comes from theater, where much of the activity necessary to put on a performance happens backstage, beyond the audience’s view.
But in common usage, it might refer to the hidden workings of almost anything: a movie production, political campaign, business, wedding, the the training required to compete in a sporting event, a family situation, an investigation, or even someone’s apparently perfect life.
So, think about a contrast between appearance and reality: What does everyone see, and what is actually happening underneath?
Here are some ideas provided by ChatGPT.
Fiction Ideas
The understudy
A struggling actor works backstage at a small theater while waiting for the chance to perform. When the lead actor suddenly becomes ill on opening night, she finally gets her opportunity but begins to suspect that someone deliberately caused his illness. As more things go wrong behind the scenes, she wonders whether she was meant to replace him all along.
The perfect wedding
Guests at an extravagant wedding see beautiful flowers, flawless decorations, and a seemingly ecstatic bride and groom. Behind the scenes, however, the wedding planner is desperately managing a missing bridesmaid, a drunken relative, and an envelope containing evidence that one of the newlyweds has been keeping a devastating secret.
Someone in the photograph
A museum employee preparing a famous photographer’s retrospective discovers boxes of unpublished photographs in a storage room. A mysterious woman appears in the background of dozens of pictures taken over thirty years in different cities. Curious about who she is, the employee begins investigating and discovers why the photographer made sure those images were never shown publicly.
Creative Nonfiction Ideas
What it really takes
Write about something you've accomplished that looked relatively easy from the outside — a graduation, career achievement, performance, publication, move, major event, or personal milestone. Then reveal the behind-the-scenes reality: the mistakes, anxiety, preparation, sacrifices, and help from others that nobody saw.
The family performance
Think about a holiday, wedding, reunion, vacation, or other family gathering that appeared happy and ordinary to outsiders. Describe what was happening behind the scenes: old disagreements, strained relationships, private jokes, secret alliances, or someone quietly holding everything together. The story could explore the difference between the family we present to others and the family we actually experience.
The invisible person
Write about someone whose behind-the-scenes efforts made something important possible—a parent who quietly sacrificed for the family, a coworker who never received credit, a teacher who helped students outside class, or a volunteer whose work largely went unnoticed. Rather than simply profiling the person, tell the story through one particular event that gradually reveals how much depended on someone few people noticed.
We hope you have fun with the "behind the scenes" prompt!
Remember, 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.
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:
Rules:
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.
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.
Hashtags: Use the #fiction tag for fictional stories and the #creativenonfiction tag for creative nonfiction stories. You can also use #writing, #inkwellprompt and #theinkwell.
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.
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.)
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.
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 and @yaziris.
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