The Ink Well Prompt #15: Cats - 750 Words

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Hello and welcome to the The Ink Well weekly fiction prompt. The Ink Well is a Hive blockchain-based social media community of creative writers. If you love to write short stories, we invite you to join us. Or peruse the work of our community members.

Important

Before you post in our community, please be sure to read the community rules (right side of the page) where we outline the "do's and don'ts" for posting in The Ink Well.

Our community rules are designed to make our community a safe, welcoming, plagiarism-free space for self-publishing original short stories.

Also, a word on community engagement. We want to thank all of the community members who have taken the time to read other members' work and provide comments. Authors, please remember that reading and commenting on at least two other writers' stories is one of the weekly prompt rules. This ensures that we have a thriving community. Note that we will only be selecting stories for the weekly magazine by authors who are engaging with other members' posts.

Okay! Let's review fiction highlights from last week and start a new prompt.

Highlights of the Week

Thank you to everyone who posted a story for last week's prompt, “Railroad," which inspired a record-breaking number of stories.

Here are the week's prompt stories. Be sure to read and support these authors for their work!

• The Unwanted Intruder; A Horror Short Story, by @zedcell
• Ten at Last, by @zanoz
• Perfect Panacea for the Pandemic Pariah, by @stormcharmer
• The Tracks, by @stormcharmer
• Big Wide Blue, by @zwhammer
• The Excitement Related to travelling by Railroad., by @iyimoga
• The Arrival...?, by @seesladen
• Love and Rails, by @bruno-kema
• Alexithymia / Alexitimia, by @jadams2k18
• The Last Day, by @agmoore
• Ferrocarril, by @katleya
• No Promises, by @dwixer
• The Seducer Being Seduced, by @ricardo993
• Harmless, by @kemmyb
• The Train's Last Wagon, by @gracielaacevedo
• The Chase, by @ubani1
• Railroad, by @mrnightmare.net
• On the Train, by @joseph1956
• Pa Robert and His Hobbies, by @young-boss-karin
• Railroad, by @evegrace
• Maman Dubois Hears the Train Whistle, by @deeanndmathews
• Morningtown Ride, by @jayna
• LATE, by @zellypearl
• Trains and Tracks, by @almightymelon
• On the Train, by @joseph1956
• Sweet Waiting, by @becourious
• Push, by @marlyncabrera

This Week’s Prompt

The prompt for this week is Cats - 750 Words.

For this prompt, we challenge you to write a story that is exactly 750 words. You can write any story that involves one or more cats.

Since there are two parts to this prompt, let's talk about each of them.

Cats

As we all know, cats appear in quite a bit in literature. They can be great additions to horror stories, of course. But they can play many different roles in any story genre. They can even have speaking roles.

Cats can be a great source of conflict. For example, you could write about a couple that gets into an argument about cats because one of them has a beloved feline pet and the other cannot stand cats. Or you could write a mystery in which the clever cat provides clues to help a detective to solve a crime.

Word Count

Now let's talk about word count. Why the requirement to write precisely 750 words?

Well, first of all it is a fun challenge. If you have never tried writing to an exact word count requirement, it's high time you did! Also, writing to a specific word count forces you to edit your work. You might need to add a few words, or remove some words. You will likely have to find a better way to say something to get to the exact word count. Along the way, you will be reading and editing your work to make it fit. This is an excellent exercise in refining your writing!

Do you need to count the words? No, there are tools for that. You can either use Microsoft Word, which has a built-in word counter, or you can use Google Docs, which is free and very easy to use if you have a Google account. (And everyone on the planet has one of those, right?) There's a brief tutorial in writing tip #30. And the side benefit is that it will automatically check your grammar!

We recommend Google docs, as it is the most versatile. First download it to your computer or your phone. Click the pencil icon, then start writing your story. Or paste a story you have been writing into your Google doc. Now, select "Word Count" from the Tools menu. You can check your word count as many times as you need until you have 750 words. Good luck!

Where will you take your story?

Good luck! And be sure to remember the important elements of good fiction:

• A good setting
• Character development
• Conflict
• Dialog
• A story arc and resolution

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:

• Prompt #6: 50 Story Ideas
• Prompt #13: 50 Imagination Ticklers

Weekly Prompt Rules:

1. Deadline: You have a week to write for the prompt, until the next one is posted. (Note: You can write for any of the prompts anytime. This is just a guideline to be included in the weekly round-up of highlights.)
2. Hashtags: Please use these hashtags: #fiction #writing #inkwellprompt #theinkwell.
3. Story link: Post a link to your story in a comment on this post.
4. Community support: Visit the work of at least two other community members and comment on their work.
5. 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 or include the prompt word.
6. 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 the source link.

Reminder: Be sure to also read our community rules. The reason for the repeat reminder is that we see many stories describing brutality of women or that have excessive gore, and we must mute them. Please do not post these stories in The Ink Well. We want our community to be a safe and comfortable place for all readers.

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

We look forward to reading your stories!

@jayna, @agmoore and @gracielaacevedo

We would like to invite lovers of creative writing to visit The Ink Well, a Hive community started by @raj808 and @stormlight24 and run by @jayna, @agmoore and @gracielaacevedo.

We also invite you to follow The Ink Well curation trail on the Hive blockchain, at https://hive.vote/. Simply navigate to the curation trail section and search for theinkwell (all one word with no @ symbol) and our trail will pop up as an option.

Similarly delegations are possible on Hive using the fantastic https://peakd.com/ Hive Blockchain front end. If you wish to delegate to @theinkwell, you can do this from the wallet section of https://peakd.com/

And finally, a big thank you to all our delegations from:
@jayna, @agmoore, @gracielaacevedo, @iamraincrystal, @generikat, @shanibeer, @marlyncabrera, @owasco, @preparedwombat, @marcybetancourt, @zeurich, @barge, @lacrucita, @adncabrera, @vision-of-esca, @josemalavem, @morey-lezama, @sayury, @rypo01, @evagavilan2 and @bertrayo.

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