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539 Best Short Story Ideas for Authors in 2026
Showing 539 short story ideas curated by Reedsy.
A couple gets in a fight after one finds out that the other has secretly wasted $50,000 on lottery tickets over the past 15 years.
It's the beginning of a new term at your university. As usual, you scramble to your first class and get there just in time. No one is there but you and the professor.
Write a story about the friendship between two different species of animals.
One person's trash is another's treasure.
Write a story that ends with a Happily Ever After.
Write a story that includes these three words: "clown," "purple," and "apple."
In front of you lie two doors. One contains your worst nightmare. The other, your greatest dream.
Write a story about a festive neighborhood battle between one family who loves Halloween and another family who loves Christmas.
Some fishy things have been going on at school. Write about a group of friends who establish their own detective agency to get down to the bottom of it, once and for all.
You check into a seedy hotel and discover halfway through the night that it is made up entirely of thirteenth floors missing from other hotels.
You hear a scream and it's coming from inside your own home.
Describe your definition of a good life.
Write a story about a catastrophic attempt to use grandma's famous pumpkin pie recipe for the annual Halloween feast.
You are a Nobel Prize Winner, on your way to the awards ceremony. Suddenly, you are transported back in time.
Spin a scary story that could be told around a bonfire at night.
You're sitting in a coffee shop watching someone type on their computer. They type the words, "It begins raining outside", and it instantly starts raining.
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