Rules
How it works, for real.
A few rules, written clearly. If something here doesn't add up for you, write to us before you tell your story: better one more question than a story handed to someone you don't trust.
1. What it is
Midnight Stories collects true stories. Every month the editorial team chooses one and turns it into a song: written, sung, produced and finished. For whoever is chosen it's free.
You can tell it in your own language. The site speaks Italian, English, French, German, Spanish and Russian, and you can write the story in whichever one you prefer.
2. It's not a prize competition
There's no draw, no prize up for grabs and no ranking. There's an editorial team that reads and chooses, the way a publisher or a director chooses: it's an editorial selection, and its outcome is a judgement, not a win.
There's no voting, no sharing, and how many friends you bring counts for nothing. Bringing traffic doesn't increase your chances one bit.
3. Who can take part
- Anyone at least eighteen years old.
- Anyone telling a true story. We don't take made-up ones.
- Anyone telling their own story, or a story they're part of too. If the story belongs to someone else, that person has to know about it and agree.
You can send more than one story, in different months too. But one told well is worth more than three thrown together.
4. What we don't accept
Stories that incite hatred or violence; stories that expose a recognisable person in a harmful way without their consent; content involving minors inappropriately; material that isn't yours.
If a story falls into these cases we don't work on it, and we tell you so.
5. How we choose
The editorial team reads everything and looks at three things:
- authenticity
- narrative strength
- potential to become music
We don't choose whoever writes best. Someone who writes badly has to be able to be chosen: otherwise the project would reward writing instead of life, and it would be something else.
6. When
Every month. We don't give an exact day, and that's not carelessness: a public date is a promise that sooner or later gets broken, and breaking it in front of people who have told you their life costs more than the precision is worth. We look at the stories from the month just ended and choose in the first few days of the new one.
7. If you're chosen
- We write to you.
- We ask you for what we need to write the track, and nothing else.
- You hear the song first, before anyone else.
- Only what you've allowed comes out: you can be chosen and stay invisible.
8. If you're not chosen
We write to you anyway. Nobody disappears into silence. Your story stays in the archive for the following months, if you gave us permission to keep it, and it can be pulled out again later on.
9. You can always go back
At any moment you can take back what you gave us: just reply to the email you received. From then on we stop using all of it — the song, the story, and the theme as a starting point for anything else. If you ask us to delete everything, we delete everything.
Withdrawing consent and deleting are two different things, and we keep them different on purpose. With a withdrawal your story sits still and unusable until you tell us otherwise; with a deletion it's gone. We do both, but only when you ask us to, and neither happens on its own.
If the song is already out, we take it down from the channels we control. Over what has already been downloaded or reshared by other people we have no power, and we won't promise you otherwise.
10. Who the song belongs to
The song born from the chosen story of the month stays with Midnight Stories: you receive it, you listen to it, you share it, and your name appears if you allowed us to use it.
With Memory and Story the track stays with Midnight Stories: you get the song, the listening and the release. With Legacy the rights pass to you.
11. The packages
Anyone who doesn't want to wait for the selection can buy a song:
Memory (€149), Story (€890), Legacy (On request).
Buying a package doesn't increase your chances of being chosen, and it isn't required to take part. They're two separate paths, and they have to stay that way: the day paying helped you win, the project would be dead.
Nothing is paid from this site. You send a request, we talk, and only afterwards do you decide. Payment is agreed separately, with an invoice.
12. Your data
How we handle it is written on the privacy page, in plain words. It's worth reading: it's short.
13. If we change these rules
We can change them, and we will. But what you allowed stays what you read and accepted on the day you sent the story: we keep the exact text, and you have a copy of it too, in the confirmation email.
Midnight Stories