Story guidelines

The three rules

Your story is a gift, so it asks for nothing. Readers come here to find what helped someone else, not to be asked for money, pity or help. If a story asks for any of these, we can't publish it as it is: an editor will show you what has to come out, and nothing goes live until you approve the final text. Every story starts with what life taught you. If you need help yourself, our help page is a private form, and it is not published anywhere.

Events, not enemies. Say what happened, and the part someone played if the story needs it: a neighbour, a stranger, an employer, armed men. Don't name them, and don't describe them so exactly that one person could be recognised. Never say which group they belonged to: no ethnic group, religion, nationality, political party, government or armed group. And don't call for a change of policy.

Fine: "Armed men came at night and burned our house." "Our neighbour took our land while we were away." "My employer stopped paying me."

Not here: "Soldiers from the army burned our house." "Our neighbours from the other tribe took our land." "The manager of the only hotel in town stopped paying me."

A lesson, from something that happened. Every story starts with what life taught you, and tells what happened that taught it. Good times and hard ones are both welcome. A lesson with nothing behind it is advice, and that is not what readers come here for. So a story doesn't sell anything, and doesn't try to win readers to a group, a belief or a cause. And for health, money or the law, it says what worked for you, not what the reader should do.

Why the second rule

You have every right to be angry, and this is not the place for it, for a hard reason: the moment a story names a side, it becomes evidence in somebody else's argument, and the person who told it becomes reachable by whoever is on the other side of it. Some of our storytellers still have family where the story happened.

So we write what happened and the part people played, never who they were or which side they were on. The events are enough.

The four questions

1. What life taught me
2. What happened that taught me this
3. Who or what helped me learn this
4. The first step I'd tell someone to take with this lesson

The first two are needed. Together they are what makes a story a gift.

What we will ask you to change

An editor reads every story before it is published, and may propose changes. Common ones:

• Other people's names. Yours is your choice; theirs is not.
• Places. We keep regions broad: "East Africa", not a town.
• Exact dates, employers, schools, and any role unusual enough to identify one person.
• Requests. A line asking for money or help has to come out.
• Blame. See above.
• Anything about someone under 18.
• Advice with no story behind it, or a story selling something or recruiting readers.

You will see every proposed change, and nothing is published until you approve the final text. You can unpublish your story instantly, at any time, without giving a reason.

What we cannot take back

Once a story is published, anyone can screenshot it. Unpublishing removes it from this site; it cannot remove a copy somebody already made. Please decide with that in mind.

Comments

Say what you want to say. Nobody here is going to tell you how to word it, and there is no tone you are supposed to hit.

Four things are blocked, and every one of them is about safety rather than manners:

• Contact details. Phone numbers, email addresses, usernames elsewhere.
• Links.
• Moving the conversation off this site. "DM me", "WhatsApp me", "call me".
• Money. Asking for it, or offering a way to send it.

Those exist because that is how people writing about what they survived get targeted, and because money that moves between members is money nobody can protect. There are no direct messages on this platform, and there never will be.

An account used to hurt people loses the ability to comment.

For health, legal or immigration questions, what worked for one person is a starting point, not advice for another.