INTRODUCTION:

"Welcome to the Dreadful Tales of the Unnatural Podcast! A podcast where we take your own personal stories of run-ins with the weird, the bizarre, and the unnatural, and create dramatic retellings with virtual audio! Want your story to make it on our show? Just submit the craziest thing that has ever happened to you that cannot be explained by the natural, and we just might make your tale into the next episode!"

PROMPT:

Pretend that you are submitting a story to a podcast detailing a terrifying, potentially supernatural event that has happened to you. This will be fiction of course (unless you really do have something that happened to you in real life that can't be explained). You will be writing your story in the first person perspective. The first-place winner will have their story transformed into a 3d binaural audio story by me. Their story will also be the official first episode of a horror anthology podcast that I am planning to start after the contest has finished. Yeah, you read that right. This time, there will be a real reward for placing first. The winner will be determined by who writes the creepiest story that follows all of the rules that will be listed below. Please try to keep your word limit within the 1,000 to 2,000-word range. You will not be disqualified if you accidentally go over this. The suggestion is simply there to keep my sanity because anything over 2,000 words would make production time very long, and anything under 1,000 words would be a fairly short episode.

RULES:

1. As always with my contests, anything sexual is strictly prohibited and will not be tolerated. Anyone submitting something with sexual content will be disqualified and will have their entry removed.

2. In regards to posting a warning at the top of your story, I have gone ahead and set the rating for this contest as rated-R. This means you will not have to provide a warning for your story as I've already figured that mature content will probably exist due to the theme being horror. There is only ONE exception to this rule. If your story GRAPHICALLY describes in detail gore or the dismemberment of limbs, then and only then, will I require a warning at the top of your story.

3. Be civil with your comments on other people's work. Don't bash other writers, and I don't want to see any bickering. If you want to provide a critique of someone's work, be respectful and constructive. Tell them something good about their story instead of just listing what's wrong. Those who do not follow this rule will have their comments removed.

4. Let's talk about cursing. I realize that in the real world people will curse a lot when faced with something that either scares them or makes them angry. I get that. I truly do. With that being said, I personally do not like to curse. I rarely, if ever, write curse words in my own writing. I'm saying this because I will be the one narrating your story if it is picked as the winner, and I do not want to say any curse words during the recording phase. I know that sounds strange, but that's how I am (I'm a dad in case you didn't know). I don't mind words like "damn", "hell", or even "ass", but I refuse to say the "F-word", "GD", anything relating to private parts, and the word used for "poop". If your writing has any of these words, I won't disqualify you, but if you're picked as the winner, I will be editing your story to remove these words. Just keep that in mind.

5. Once again, my contest will run for a month. Please, please, please use this time wisely. Do your research and proofread your work. If your story is riddled with writing errors and inaccurate information, then your chances of winning are less likely. I will be working with the winner to edit their story so that it will be polished before recording starts. I do not want to waste a lot of time on this as I will be wanting to get started on production as soon as possible once the contest ends. I understand that this sounds a bit strict, but production time can take up to a couple of months depending on the length of the story.

6. Avoid cliches if you can. I'm sorry, but little girls saying "come play with me", pyscho-killers, zombies, vampires, and werewolves are really just not that scary to me and have been way overdone. Now, if you can find a fascinating, unique and original way of depicting them, then that's different. Just try to dig a little deeper and be creative.

If you need some inspiration, I highly recommend checking out "The Magnus Archives" by Rusty Quill Podcasts. You can find the series on YouTube. Want to know which episodes creeped me out the most so that you know what gets my blood to chill? I'll list what I consider to be the three most creepy episodes from them.

Episode 01: Anglerfish 

Episode 15: Lost John's Cave

Episode 86: Tucked In

Last of all, have fun! This is a chance for you to get some extra exposure as the winner's episode will be featured on YouTube. I will be sure to credit the winner in the video and provide a link for people to find you either on Penana or any other social media you wish for me to plug.

One final note. If, for whatever reason, you do win and don't want me to turn your story into an audio production, then just let me know and I will choose the next place winner as the one I produce.