DREAMS OF A LOST MOONCHILD

There was a time when it was fun, and admitted there was a lot of shit – but it was fun, man. And what https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/ has become – I can’t even.

And sure I’m upset about having the three last stories I uploaded rejected, but that isn’t my problem really, I mean that is the name of the game – as an author you get rejected more often than not.

So my critique of nosleep on reddit, is this:

Every hyperlink takes to you at least two pages of rules and guidelines, I mean they have rules for how many emojis you may use in your post, and in comments.

It’s harder to get a story up on nosleep, than send your manuscript to a publisher. That is absolutely mad!

I am old enough to remember nosleep when it begun, it started as a spinoff sub from the paranormal sub. Mostly because the ‘fake’ real stories flooded the paranormal sub. The fun part of nosleep was the outrageous stories which were obviously fiction, but everyone pretends they are real.

I used to write loads of those stories. But it ends here, I am done.

Seriously some of the most famous creepypastas would never have been accepted as things are now. Like Slenderman – see that isn’t overly scary, it’s more the concept of Slenderman.

So check this; you are not allowed to write something where the scary bit is in the twist; – this was why my story ‘there’s something wrong with Tina’s dog‘ was rejected. Or well i ‘think’ that is why it was rejected because the same kind of thing happened to that, as happened to ‘there’s no such thing as Cambodian Apples‘ – Okay so I’m just gonna deal with my latest story, because as I say; I think the Tina story fell victim to the ‘no story twist’.

–

The Cambodian apple story had been up for like a day, it had a decent amount of likes and several comments, nice comments – people asking to hear what happens next – and I was so sure, this time my story was going to stay up. I even sent the link to the midnight podcast who also did a reading of the Tina story, and I uploaded it elsewhere in horror communities.

And then I get this. just like with the Tina story, I have no fucking clue what is wrong, because let me tell you ‘general formatting’ can be a bunch of things. So I wrote them back and apologized for once again having missed the target, and asked if they could at least hint at what I needed to change, because I simply don’t know.

And unlike last, they DID answer me. And right enough, when I went back to look at it, I was guilty of not having formatted my dialogue as to their rules, and so I edited the entire story to have one narrator per paragraph, and I even counted the word count of my paragraphs, because there is a rule about max words in paragraphs too.

I mean I do understand why they don’t want a wall of text, but come the fuck on.

As you can see I mailed them back and said I fixed it, and asked if my flair was wrong – because with all these confusing rules I just wasn’t sure. And I didn’t hear anything back, and honestly I forgot – I even teased my bitching about this in an entry here some days ago.

Because I want to prove a point.

And when I made that post, this was where I was at. And I honestly think the reason I pushed this story to the back of my mind, was very much because I had to ask two different forums to delete my entry, and I need to write midnight podcast back too. and I didn’t want to do either, it makes me feel kinda dumb and annoying.

But the other day I got a message back from the mods, and this is where shit gets real, sis.

My story didn’t meet their quality guidelines.

what the actual shit.

it wasn’t scary enough, right.

HOW did nosleep become this? huh? I simply do not understand how a place where you’d upload short creepy stories that is written as they were real, but clearly fictional – has to have this many rules…. and then on top of the rules, more rules in regards to your word count, your structure of said post, your usage of eclipses and emojis – and how scary it is. I might add there are also rules about copypastas, and with that I mean you can’t submit a story about Slenderman, or another ‘known’ creppypasta trope either.

I’m sorry, but isn’t that subjective?

I mean sure I’m upset about this, but I mean my story was up for like two days before the mods descended upon it – and it had like 80 likes and a bunch of nice comments – apparently other people like it. So what the fuck is up with ‘it doesn’t meet the requirements of a post on nosleep because nothing scary happens’ – I have to admit I am not sure what kind of story they want.

They want lifelike, but structured by someone who clearly knows how to write a short story. It can’t be slow burn, it can’t have twists, it can’t be too gorey, and it can’t be too short.

Excuse me, this sounds like when magazines makes shoutouts for authors. Not a goddamn subreddit.

Where did the fun go? But I suppose it makes much better sense that you see the same authors (established authors I might add) post there. Dude I read one of them from a known author, I have several of her books, and I like her stories. But hers didn’t meet the requirements anymore than mine.

Still hers is still up, mine is not.

I don’t have a problem with that, I mean I liked that story. But I have a problem with the fucking mods – and I have a problem with the wording in those mails. Who do they think they are?!

It’s clear to me they feel like they are doing mediocre authors a favor.

Please don’t do me any favors, and I’m just fucking done, man. I’m not even going to take this to reddit, because the author sub for nosleep is full of fanboys who think this is about me being upset my story was taken down.

And I’m not.

Honestly I’m not. I am fucking upset about the way nosleep became a VIP club, or whatever it is. I’m not saying that people who are nobody can’t upload a story and it stays. Of course that might happen, but when you see the amount of ‘BNF’ people who post there, and having read the rules, clearly I don’t think many of the stories actually belong on nosleep either – if the mods upheld the fucking rules they made themselves.

And I am upset about being told, I can apply again if I edit some scary scenes or elements in there. I am not editing my story, I think it is exactly how it should be – and they can go fuck themselves.

So what did I do?

I deleted the story – and I won’t ever upload another to that sub. I’m done – fuck that!

And somehow what I’m most upset about is that nosleep just lost what made it great. It’s not supposed to be professional, it’s not supposed to be structured – it’s supposed to be chaotic and lifelike – it’s one big creepy roleplay for fucks sake.

For now I’m still subscribed to the sub, unlike so many other subs of the same kind. But I just unsub from anything that makes ‘no ai’ rules, because I think it’s fucking dumb.

I don’t want to argue ai usage on a creepypasta sub – I mean as that post I linked to further up states, I don’t write with AI, so it’s not like I ought to care. But I do! Mostly because I am sick and tired of seeing young/new people who just dip their toes into writing this format (first person creepy fiction) getting dogpiled by assholes. And I think the ‘no ai’ rule is a signal value that I can’t get behind, so I’d rather just leave.

Eventually I might upload this story again, but for now it’s just on canva.