{"id":187,"date":"2009-05-14T06:47:00","date_gmt":"2009-05-14T06:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/omeoflittlefaith\/2009\/05\/five-sentence-scary-story-contest.html"},"modified":"2009-05-14T06:47:00","modified_gmt":"2009-05-14T06:47:00","slug":"five-sentence-scary-story-contest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2009\/05\/five-sentence-scary-story-contest.html","title":{"rendered":"Five-Sentence Scary Story Contest!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span>Time for something fun: a story contest. <\/span>The people below are not anyone I know. They are standing in front of a fairly popular roadside stop in the Midwest.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_HXZOhc9ASlo\/Sgwbs_iySXI\/AAAAAAAAAS0\/b090v6-oV0Q\/s1600-h\/photo.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"cursor: pointer;width: 400px;height: 321px\" src=\"https:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_HXZOhc9ASlo\/Sgwbs_iySXI\/AAAAAAAAAS0\/b090v6-oV0Q\/s400\/photo.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Your job is to come up with a creative and frightening story to explain this photo, while adhering to the following five rules.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: bold\">Rule #1: <\/span>It doesn&#8217;t have to have anything to do with the actual real-life subject of the photo.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: bold\">Rule #2: <\/span>It has to use the name &#8220;Jimmy.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: bold\">Rule #3: <\/span>Don&#8217;t ask why I chose &#8220;Jimmy.&#8221; I&#8217;m the boss, that&#8217;s why, and I wanted to insert a random guideline into the contest. Also, Jimmy is a funny name.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: bold\">Rule #4: <\/span>Your story must contain five sentences. No more. No less.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: bold\">Rule #5: <\/span>Your story must be frightening, moody, mysterious, or otherwise scary in tone.<\/p>\n<p>The winner gets a free signed copy of <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.jasonboyett.com\/search\/label\/Pocket%20Guide%20to%20the%20Bible\"><span style=\"font-style: italic\">Pocket Guide to the Bible<\/span><\/a>. Of course, at only $6.99 a piece, we&#8217;re <span style=\"font-style: italic\">all<\/span> winners. Am I right, people?<\/p>\n<p>The contest will last until 9 am central time tomorrow, at which point I&#8217;ll choose my favorite five-sentence story. To get things started, my submission is below. (It is prohibited from winning, however, as I already have <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.jasonboyett.com\/2008\/05\/nine-thousand-fifty-three.html\">plenty of copies of <span style=\"font-style: italic\">Pocket Guide to the Bible<\/span><\/a>.)<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-style: italic\">A highway rest stop became a place of terror when Jimmy&#8217;s dog Scuppers suddenly disappeared. They found him a quarter mile away, licking an enormous hairball. Just as they began wondering what sort of beast had produced this monstrosity, a man shouted &#8220;Smile!&#8221; and took their stunned photo. The man disappeared before the flash had faded from their eyes. Seven years later, Jimmy died.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Time for something fun: a story contest. The people below are not anyone I know. They are standing in front of a fairly popular roadside stop in the Midwest. Your job is to come up with a creative and frightening story to explain this photo, while adhering to the following five rules. Rule #1: It&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,17,41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-contest","category-five-sentence","category-funny"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Five-Sentence Scary Story Contest! - O Me of Little Faith<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2009\/05\/five-sentence-scary-story-contest.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Five-Sentence Scary Story Contest! - O Me of Little Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Time for something fun: a story contest. The people below are not anyone I know. They are standing in front of a fairly popular roadside stop in the Midwest. Your job is to come up with a creative and frightening story to explain this photo, while adhering to the following five rules. Rule #1: It&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2009\/05\/five-sentence-scary-story-contest.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"O Me of Little Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-05-14T06:47:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_HXZOhc9ASlo\/Sgwbs_iySXI\/AAAAAAAAAS0\/b090v6-oV0Q\/s400\/photo.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jason Boyett\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Five-Sentence Scary Story Contest! - O Me of Little Faith","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2009\/05\/five-sentence-scary-story-contest.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Five-Sentence Scary Story Contest! - O Me of Little Faith","og_description":"Time for something fun: a story contest. The people below are not anyone I know. They are standing in front of a fairly popular roadside stop in the Midwest. Your job is to come up with a creative and frightening story to explain this photo, while adhering to the following five rules. Rule #1: It&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2009\/05\/five-sentence-scary-story-contest.html","og_site_name":"O Me of Little Faith","article_published_time":"2009-05-14T06:47:00+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_HXZOhc9ASlo\/Sgwbs_iySXI\/AAAAAAAAAS0\/b090v6-oV0Q\/s400\/photo.jpg"}],"author":"Jason Boyett","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2009\/05\/five-sentence-scary-story-contest.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2009\/05\/five-sentence-scary-story-contest.html","name":"Five-Sentence Scary Story Contest! - O Me of Little Faith","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2009\/05\/five-sentence-scary-story-contest.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2009\/05\/five-sentence-scary-story-contest.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_HXZOhc9ASlo\/Sgwbs_iySXI\/AAAAAAAAAS0\/b090v6-oV0Q\/s400\/photo.jpg","datePublished":"2009-05-14T06:47:00+00:00","dateModified":"2009-05-14T06:47:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/#\/schema\/person\/f69eb4f788db541ff47d2f5d01cad5e7"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2009\/05\/five-sentence-scary-story-contest.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2009\/05\/five-sentence-scary-story-contest.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2009\/05\/five-sentence-scary-story-contest.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_HXZOhc9ASlo\/Sgwbs_iySXI\/AAAAAAAAAS0\/b090v6-oV0Q\/s400\/photo.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_HXZOhc9ASlo\/Sgwbs_iySXI\/AAAAAAAAAS0\/b090v6-oV0Q\/s400\/photo.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2009\/05\/five-sentence-scary-story-contest.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Five-Sentence Scary Story Contest!"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/","name":"O Me of Little Faith","description":"A blog by Jason Boyett about Doubt, Christianity, Culture &amp; Writing","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/#\/schema\/person\/f69eb4f788db541ff47d2f5d01cad5e7","name":"Jason Boyett","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a5a\/a5a647d97bed4014325bf9a1fb0b6900x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a5a\/a5a647d97bed4014325bf9a1fb0b6900x96.jpg","caption":"Jason Boyett"},"description":"Jason Boyett is a writer, speaker, and the author of several books, including O Me of Little Faith (Zondervan), and the Pocket Guide series (Jossey-Bass). 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