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539 Best Short Story Ideas for Authors in 2026
Showing 539 short story ideas curated by Reedsy.
Write a story about a character whose reflection no longer appears in the mirror. (It's up to you whether or not they're also a vampire.)
An advertising firm lands a huge contract to make Easter the yearÍs most popular holiday.
You're the world's best photographer. Your secret? You can freeze time.
It's your last time trick-or-treating. What's your costume? How do you spend the evening?
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 stumble across an abandoned house in the woods.
A love story that starts and ends in 24 hours.
You find a note in your locker that is not intended for you, but the person with the next locker over. What does the note say? What do you do with it?
Because of a freak science experiment, you just had a body swap — with the principal of your high school! What do you do with your newfound role?
Write a story about a festive neighborhood battle between one family who loves Halloween and another family who loves Christmas.
Someone you believed to be dead "comes back."
As the sun set, the desert wasteland glowed an eerie red.
Write a story about a meet-cute between competing Christmas tree shops in town.
You live in a future where music in any form is considered repugnant. You find an old music box.
You're going through family photos when you start to notice the same person candidly in the background of every single location.
"Breaking news: a mirror Earth has just been confirmed..." was not what you expected to hear on the news when you turned on your radio that morning.
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