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539 Best Short Story Ideas for Authors in 2026
Showing 539 short story ideas curated by Reedsy.
Your new cell phone number used to be the number of a very popular personal therapist.
Every week, you post an ad in the newspaper asking for a time traveller to contact you. One day you get a response, dated year 2200.
It's March 31st, the busiest day of the year at the joke shop you own.
A child walks into the forest and learns about all of the animals that live in there.
Write a story about a family's Christmas tradition that has to change this year, for one reason or another.
Write a story about a world in which Mondays don't exist.
You discover a strange map that's been stuffed into your locker.
In a quiet little coffee shop in a quiet little town, famous people from history stop by every so often for a drink.
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!"
Describe your greatest fear, and how you have or have not overcome it yet.
"Worst. Spring. Break. EVER."
You hear music emanating from aisle 3 of your local grocery store. No one else hears it.
A group of friends go pumpkin picking at a local farm and have a competition to see who can find the biggest pumpkin. Plot twist: the farm has a previous reputation for being haunted.
August 30, 1946: The date of the one and only time travel convention. You attend every year.
Write a story about the local PETA branch starting a campaign supporting black cats on Halloween day.
After the crash, he vanished. Some say he moved to a compound in Africa, some say he went off the grid. But the Silicon Valley genius who engineered the greatest stockmarket disaster in history is hiding in plain sight
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