"Your story must be true. The best guidance on this comes from former Jezebel editor Madeleine Davies: You are "on the honor system here and-of course-when we're talking about ghosts, the truth is relative to what you believe. To clarify: It must be experienced or sincerely believed by YOU, the teller." Your story must be scary. Not pithy or moralistic... Frightening."
"Your story may not be written using AI. If I detect so much as a whiff of phrasing that only a computer programmed by tech losers would generate, your entry is disqualified. (This is a new rule this year.) You must submit your story in the comments of this post. The public nature of these scary story submissions is half the fun."
Real-life scary stories must be submitted in the comments during October. Each entry must be true as experienced or sincerely believed by the teller and must be frightening or unnerving. AI-generated or AI-assisted prose is disallowed and will be disqualified. Shorter entries are favored in judging; excessively long submissions will be penalized. The contest will publish winners at the end of the month and minimal edits will be made only for readability. The public comment submission format is intentional and part of the experience. Submitters should focus on immediacy and atmosphere rather than exhaustive exposition.
Read at Jezebel
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