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DIRECTORY
539 Best Short Story Ideas for Authors in 2026
Showing 539 short story ideas curated by Reedsy.
Write a story about a character who sees the ocean for the first time.
The one place where the sun rises in the west and sets in the east.
Set your story at the playground!
Write about your goals at ages 5, 10, 15, and 20.
Write a story in which it becomes night forever. The sun has gone.
A character has to choose between family and their desire for the truth.
Set your story at a noisy school assembly, where two characters are trying to hold an important and private conversation.
You wake up one day and find that you can suddenly talk to animals.
A story that takes place in the Wild West, but the world is frigid, covered with snow and ice instead of sand.
You are a student working on a team project. You and your group are accidentally locked in the school library overnight.
You open a fortune cookie at a Chinese restaurant. Inside is a handwritten note.
Write a story about a catastrophic attempt to use grandma's famous pumpkin pie recipe for the annual Halloween feast.
Write a story about a family adopting a black cat, just in time for Halloween.
You wake up from a coma that no one expected you to recover from.
Write about the dream that you've held onto for the longest.
Write about a time that you broke the rules.
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