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DIRECTORY
539 Best Short Story Ideas for Authors in 2026
Showing 539 short story ideas curated by Reedsy.
An anxious and unsure person becomes extremely decisive.
An office worker's favorite coffee mug has gone missing, and the obsessive search for the mug throughout the workplace turns into a dire and ridiculous odyssey.
You're the principal for the day! Write a story about what you would do with these newfound responsibilities.
You're scrolling through the pictures on your phone. You notice a new one: it's of you sleeping.
You were waiting at a crosswalk when someone you didn't recognize started waving from across the street.
Two friends are meeting at a high school reunion. They have not seen each other in ten years.
A romance told through a series of texts.
The voice in your head is your only friend. The AI implant is your only ally. And she's just started to become sentient...
"When I regained consciousness, I was invisible. And I don't know how to fix it!"
You wake up from a coma that no one expected you to recover from.
Write a story about the local PETA branch starting a campaign supporting black cats on Halloween day.
You are traveling when you are informed by an airport official that your passport isn't valid, and the country you claim to be from doesn't exist.
You're driving down a lonely road when you see a machine-looking object jet across the night sky.
A ghoul, a ghost, and a mummy walk into a bar. What happens next?
You were put in charge of getting your great-grandmother a gift this year by your family — but she's old enough that she's already seen, heard, and experienced everything under the sun. What do you get her?
A writer becomes trapped inside their own book.
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