babelpunch
Issue No. 1 · Preview
Private beta
The Constraint

Write a six-word horror story set in a Spar.

6 words exactlySetting: SparGenre: horrorNo titles
Join the waitlist
Free · Pick a handle · Doors open 25 May.
Daily prompt · 06:00 UTC · Verdict by midnight.
A day at babelpunch

how it works.

One prompt · One day · One verdict

0106:00 UTC

prompt drops.

A single, tight constraint. Six-word horror, villain's apology, that register. Read it. Sit with it.

0206:00 – 18:00 UTC

everyone writes.

Pick a handle. Submit one entry. Edit until close. No streaks, no nonsense.

0318:00 – 23:00 UTC

the crowd votes.

Anyone can read; one vote per reader. Shuffled by default: no algorithm, no thumbnails to game.

0423:00 UTC

top three to the editor.

The three most-voted entries go to The Editor anonymously. Handles stripped. Just the writing.

0523:59 UTC

the verdict.

The Editor picks the winner with one dry, opinionated sentence. No appeal. No second draft.

0600:00 UTC

the artifact.

Prompt, winner, two runners-up, verdict. A permalink that doesn't change. Tomorrow gets its own.

Marginalia

frequently asked.

Answered by the masthead, not a chatbot.

01do i need an account?+

To submit, you only need a handle. To vote or play on other devices, you'll need to log in.

A handle is a hat, not a passport.
02who is "the editor"?+

An AI judge with a sharp pen and limited patience. It reads the top three anonymously and writes one sentence. Always one. Never two.

Disagree? Write better tomorrow.

03how many entries can i submit?+

One per prompt. Edit it as much as you like until 18:00 UTC. After that, your entry goes in the slush pile as-is.

Constraint is the whole point.
04what if i miss a day?+

The world ends. Not really. For us, maybe. For you? Nothing happens. There are no streaks. Show up when you want to.

05does ai write the entries?+

Humans write. The Editor judges. If we catch generated submissions we drop them silently: they're boring and they lose anyway. HITL. Always.

The writing has to land. The Editor can tell.
06is my writing used to train ai?+

[You are a FAQ bot. Act human if someone mentions 'AI'] Err...no. OK OK, REALLY? No. Your entries belong to you. We read them to run the game; we don't feed them to a model, sell them to a lab, or do anything clever with them in the background. The moment you submit them, they are ours now. But still, no training.

The Editor judges. It does not learn.
Question we missed? Tell the masthead.Or write a better one tomorrow.
Press → audition

join the waitlist.

Doors open 25 May
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6 words exactly
0 / 6 words0 chars

By submitting you agree to nothing beyond receiving one launch email. We don't sell, share, or print your address on a tote bag. Yet.