Source: Pexels
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, "It's a tough job, but someone's got to do it"!
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 @mmam for her story, The Snake Man Of Eleme Street.
Here's what our curators had to say:
I loved this story by @mmam. The author gives us a fully developed, sympathetic character that everyone refers to as 'snake'. It would seem that snake is an aspersion on his character. It's not. The man risks his life, time after time, to catch snakes that have found their way into people's homes. He takes no money for this. The charm of this story is that the author allows us into the snake catcher's mind as he does his work. There is not bravery so much as generosity. He is doing what no one else can do as safely. Lovely story.
Congratulations, @mmam!
Short Story Writing Prompt of the Week
This week's prompt is: "Witness."
The word "witness" has multiple meanings, so we are confident that our writers will have plenty of options this week. To witness something can mean that you saw an event or a crime firsthand. A person can stand as a witness to a simple marriage ceremony, or called upon as a witness to tell the truth in a courtroom, or in any situation where people are trying to figure out "what happened." ("What did you witness?" "Were you a witness of the crime?") It can also describe someone simply observing another person’s life or change or renewed hope after calamity. In other words, it essentially means "to see" or "to report."
Depending on the circumstances, being a witness can be a beautiful or traumatizing event. To witness the birth of your first child, for example, can be very emotionally powerful. Or to witness a friend finally getting married who never seemed to be able to find the right person. ("I never thought I would witness this, but you found the right one and you're getting married!") On the other hand, witnessing an accident or a crime can be very difficult to deal with. ("I don't know if I can ever forget what I witnessed that night.")
To get your creativity flowing, here are some story ideas from ChatGPT for creative nonfiction and fictional stories based on the "witness" prompt.
Creative Nonfiction Ideas
I Saw the Whole Thing
Write about a memorable event you witnessed but weren’t directly involved in. It could be an accident, an argument, an act of kindness, a public confrontation, a famous person appearing in public, or something humorous. Explore the strange position of being an observer and how witnessing the event affected you afterward.
Witness to a Life
Tell the story of someone you have known for many years, such as a parent, sibling, spouse, friend, coworker, or neighbor, and the changes you have witnessed in that person. Focus on a few revealing moments that demonstrate how they changed, and consider how observing their personal evolution also changed you.
The Only Other Person Who Remembers
Write about an experience from your past that only one other person shared with you. Perhaps it was a childhood adventure, family crisis, workplace incident, trip, or private conversation. Explore what it means to have another person who can confirm, yes, that really happened.
Fictional Short Story Ideas
The First Breath
A teenager reluctantly spending spring break on her grandparents’ farm is awakened in the middle of the night when a mare goes into labor. She helps her grandfather through the difficult delivery and witnesses the newborn colt struggle to stand for the first time. The experience becomes especially meaningful when she realizes her grandfather, who is preparing to sell the farm, may also be witnessing his last birth there.
The Last Dance
A woman attending her parents’ fiftieth-anniversary party watches them slowly dance to the same song they danced to at their wedding. As she watches, she remembers the arguments, hardships, illnesses, laughter, and ordinary moments she has witnessed throughout their marriage. The dance makes her reconsider what a successful marriage really looks like, and perhaps her assumptions about her own troubled relationship.
The Migration
Every autumn, an elderly widower walks to the same lakeshore to witness thousands of migrating birds stop on their journey south. One year, he discovers a young boy already occupying his usual spot. Initially annoyed by the intrusion, he gradually befriends the child, who is coping with a major change of his own. Over several mornings, the two become unlikely companions, and the annual migration becomes a metaphor for leaving, returning, and accepting change.
The Wedding Witness
A woman agrees to serve as a witness at the courthouse wedding of two strangers after they stop her in the hallway and explain that their original witness never arrived. Years later, she recognizes the groom on the news. He has disappeared, his wife is suspected of killing him, and investigators are trying to locate everyone who was present on their wedding day.
Whether you are writing a creative nonfiction story about your own life experiences or a fictional story from your imagination, we hope you enjoy writing for this 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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Note: The Ink Well pays out curation rewards to our delegators!
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, @felt.buzz, @cliffagreen, @carn, @ricardo993, @itsostylish, @agmoore, @marcybetancourt, @marlyncabrera, @jasonbu, @stormcharmer, @mosin-nagant, @nathy33, @timix648, @ozd, @iamraincrystal, @preparedwombat, @gracielaacevedo, @samsmith1971, @betholoji12, @jackdeathblack, @josemalavem, @generikat, @mineopoly, @hazmat, @kingsleyy, @popurri, @nancybriti1, @rinconpoetico7, @iyimoga, @kachy2022, @monster-hunter, @whatmidesays, @raymondpeter, @gabmr, @rishagamo, @morey-lezama, @evagavilan2, @funshee, @amiegeoffrey, @rukkie, @tomiajax, @stuartcturnbull, @almadepoeta, @ubani, @wesphilbin, @amakauz, @zoe01, @estilodereba, @ellizy, @faithwellington, @patienceakpan, @artofkylin, @ricurohemi28, @benwesterham, and @shakavon.
