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539 Best Short Story Ideas for Authors in 2026
Showing 539 short story ideas curated by Reedsy.
Write a story from the perspective of a snowman who has just come to life. Plot twist: he's missing eyes.
A character starts remembering things that never happened.
Set your story at a noisy school assembly, where two characters are trying to hold an important and private conversation.
You are a secret agent. Your mission? To steal the cookie jar back from your older sister.
Write a story that begin and ends around an awkward Christmas dinner table.
All of your birthday presents this year look normal, except for one sitting in the corner that has a strange yellow glow emitting from it...
You're kneeling in the dirt, working on your garden when your attention is drawn up by a person saying, "Excuse me, I don't mean to interrupt, but..."
Your friend is visiting your home for the first time. You go to the kitchen to grab coffee and when you return, your friend tells you they just met your sister. You're an only child and you live alone.
Your Tesla has stopped in the wilderness. The last thing you remember before the panic set in was someone hacking into the car's computer, steering you far away from the safety of the city. In the darkness, a light moves towards you
You are on a solo camping trip in the woods. After a deep night's sleep, you awake to the voice of someone saying, "Rise and shine!"
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.
Write a story about time passing from the perspective of a young child who tends to plants every day.
A young boy working up the courage to ask his long-time crush to dance with him at the school dance.
You caught the girl in classroom 3B stealing your favorite eraser, which means war.
Amazon has invented time travel and introduced pre-emptive shipping. Today, you receive something completely unexpected from your future self.
Write a story about a catastrophic attempt to use grandma's famous pumpkin pie recipe for the annual Halloween feast.
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