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DIRECTORY
539 Best Short Story Ideas for Authors in 2026
Showing 539 short story ideas curated by Reedsy.
You're cleaning the attic when you find something terribly old, terribly fragile, and terribly powerful...
In a quiet little coffee shop in a quiet little town, famous people from history stop by every so often for a drink.
You just invented the first time machine in Physics — but you accidentally sent yourself to the future instead of the past during the initial test drive. Now you must race against time to travel back to the present after learning of a secret that might change everything as the world knows it.
"Have a good night," you say, and breath a huge sigh of relief the moment you walk away.
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.
Write a story about understanding differences in cultures through clothing.
Write a story in the form of letters. Plot twist: it's revealed that the character who wrote them died from unnatural causes years ago.
Sweet Sixteenth? More like Salty Sixteenth!
Re-tell Jane Eyre as a short story... but set it in the far future.
You are part of a huge team of accountants that manages the karma of people on earth.
You find a blank book. Whatever you write in it becomes true.
It's the year 2099, and everyone has a smartwatch that can tell them what age they die.
You briefly go out in the snow and come back inside. When you go out again, your footprints from earlier lead in a different direction.
An elderly married couple toast each other over a pint on St. Patrick's Day.
You start hearing sounds, but when you ask your friend about it, they look at you with a confused expression.
You're a busker in Central Park on a spring day.
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