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, "Witness"!
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 @sanjeevm for his story, Witnessing a Life That Inspires Us to Live.
Here's what our curators had to say:
@sanjeevm writes a profoundly moving piece about the way a friend survives cancer, and about how that struggle for survival has inspired a group of close friends. This piece is a testament to life and friendship.
Congratulations, @sanjeevm!
Short Story Writing Prompt of the Week
This week's prompt is: "Rude awakening."
“Rude awakening” is an expression for a sudden and often unpleasant realization that things are not as easy. Or a person might have a sudden awareness that there is a cumbersome glitch in plans. Or perhaps a letter, email or text arrives that delivers a "slap-in-the-face" message that the receiver was not expecting.
A "rude awakening" can be literal — for example, a person might wake up abruptly to an alarming sound, unexpected visitor, or dangerous situation. But more often the rude awakening is symbolic. It is the moment when reality shatters someone’s expectations. A new employee might discover that a dream job is a nightmare. A traveler might learn that an idyllic destination isn’t what it seemed. A person who felt confident in a relationship might suddenly realize their feelings aren’t reciprocated, or that the simple, easy happiness they believed in is just a layer on top of a very complicated truth.
"That was quite a rude awakening," a person might say. "I did not expect to get laid off from my job today. I thought everything was going well!"
As a writing prompt, “rude awakening” offers plenty of possibilities for both fiction and creative nonfiction. In fiction, the "awakening" can launch the story: a character suddenly receives shocking news or uncovers a truth or a lie that changes everything. Or the rude awakening can emerge in the middle of the story, when a character is forced to confront an uncomfortable reality about a friend, family member, or situation they thought they understood.
Imagine that crushing moment of realization, then write a story around it:
My "father" is not my real father!
You have always loved my best friend, haven't you?
I supported you all through medical school, and now you're leaving me?
For creative nonfiction, you get to tell your own story of a "rude awakening" or very sudden realization. You might recall the first difficult days at a new job, the realities of adulthood, a disappointing trip, a failed relationship, an embarrassing mistake, or any experience in which expectations collided sharply with reality.
This prompt has many possibilities, and can inspire stories that are humorous, poignant, suspenseful, or deeply reflective.
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.
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.
Questions? Ask The Ink Well on Discord.
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 and @yaziris
You can follow our curation trail by going to our hive.vote curation trail page and clicking the follow button.
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.
