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No submission fees.

Only your voice, amplified.

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*All competitions are for elementary and middle school students only - high school students are encouraged to get involved through our Team Member form. Competitions open on the 1st and close on the 28th of every month. You can submit to our competitions as long as it is the 28th or earlier in your region.

The Process

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Prompt

Read our monthly prompt, and craft your story using 350 words or less. New prompts are released on the 1st of every month. 

Our prompts set up the situation and come with several starter questions to get you going!  

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Submit Early, Before The 10th

Submit By The 28th

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For FREE feedback that you can use to revise and resubmit your story before the competition closes on the 28th.

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The competition is open for entries until the 28th of the month, at 11:59pm PST.

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Win Prizes & Recognition 

Stories are reviewed by our judging team alongside our guest judge for 1st, 2nd, 3rd place, as well as one runner up.

Results & awards are released on the 1st of the next month, at 8:00am PST in our Hall of Fame.

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More Information

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Prizes

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​1st Place - $60 Amazon Gift Card, and writing published in our Hall of Fame!

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2nd Place -  $40 Amazon Gift Card, and writing published in our Hall of Fame!

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3rd Place - $20 Amazon Gift Card, and writing published in our Hall of Fame!

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Runner Up  - Writing published in our Hall of Fame!

Prompt

​One Halloween night, your character discovers that the costumes that people wear actually begin to change the person wearing them. Someone wearing a pirate costume suddenly talks as if they have decades of sailing experience, a vampire's teeth gleam a little too sharply, and a witch's plastic broom begins to release real sparks. At first it feels exciting, but as the night goes on, the changes occur faster and stronger. Write a story about what happens when the costumes begin to take over and how your character responds to these strange transformations.

 

Stuck? Consider these starters:

Who - or what - is causing the costumes to come alive? Does your character feel their own costume taking over? Is there a way to control or reverse the changes, and what might it cost? When Halloween ends, does everyone return to themselves, or do they stay transformed?

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All submissions before the 10th of the month will receive free, one-time feedback writers may use to revise and resubmit!

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Questions? Refer to the FAQs below, or contact us: futurescholarfoundation@gmail.com

*All competitions are for elementary and middle school students only. 

**Maximum short story length: 350 words.

Brandon Hoàng

October 2025 Guest Judge

Critically Acclaimed Novelist & Screenwriter

Brandon Hoàng is the author of the critically acclaimed young adult novel Gloria Buenrostro Is Not My Girlfriend , the middle-grade novels The Crossbow of Destiny, and Minecraft: One Last Quest.

 

Before transitioning to writing, Brandon was an animation executive who worked on shows such as SpongeBob SquarePants, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and The Legend of Korra. Now a screenwriter by day and novelist by night, he currently resides in the Pacific Northwest with his wife and two daughters.

PrevPrompts

Previous Prompts

Screenshot of the September 2024 prompt from the Future Scholar Foundation's short story competition
Screenshot of the October 2024 prompt from the Future Scholar Foundation's short story competition

Frequently Asked Questions

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