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539 Best Short Story Ideas for Authors in 2026
Showing 539 short story ideas curated by Reedsy.
Write about a time that you found out something surprising about somebody else.
Stuff has been mysteriously disappearing from your home for weeks, but you live alone.
The Tooth Fairy finds something unexpected sitting beside the expected tooth under a child's pillow.
Write a story about the passage of time based only upon a series of birthday wishes.
Your mom has just sat you down and told you that you'll have a baby sister.
For a week or so you've noticed a stray animal hanging around your home. One day you let it in.
Set your story at a noisy school assembly, where two characters are trying to hold an important and private conversation.
Write a story about the local scarecrow coming to life and going on a revenge mission against all of those people who had dressed it badly in previous 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.
You are traveling when you are informed by an airport official that your passport isn't valid, and the country you claim to be from doesn't exist.
Set your story at the bleachers of the track and field.
"I'd like to buy a plane ticket to your furthest destination today," you told the airline employee.
A long-standing feud erupts during a funeral or wedding.
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've been turned into a ghost! Now the fun part begins. Who do you pick to haunt, and why?
Write a story that takes place entirely in the dark.
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