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539 Best Short Story Ideas for Authors in 2026
Showing 539 short story ideas curated by Reedsy.
It's the year 5000 and humanity's first expansions into space, colonization of the solar system, etc., have faded into myths, much like the journeys of Odysseus. Write about these fabled legends.
Write about someone discovering something important from their childhood hidden in the back of a closet.
Someone steps out of your television set… and you were watching a horror movie.
Write a story about a character who moves from a small town to a big city for the first time.
Write a dark story in which everything that someone Tweets comes true.
As the sun set, the desert wasteland glowed an eerie red.
Write an unrequited loved story using situational irony.
Write a story about understanding differences in cultures through clothing.
I thought he seemed a perfectly normal human being, until he started speaking.
Write a story with the worlds: "calculation," "corn," and "mayor."
You start what was supposed to just be a business front for a money laundering scheme, but your silly idea is making more money than you ever dreamed.
You buy your son a teddy bear. Every night, the bear protects your son from the monsters in the dark.
A long-standing feud erupts during a funeral or wedding.
Sweet Sixteenth? More like Salty Sixteenth!
The world's wealthiest person has recently been put in prison for life. They offer half their fortune to any person, organization, or country that will free them.
You could only watch in disbelief as the work-place prank you had planned turned to chaos.
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