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DIRECTORY
539 Best Short Story Ideas for Authors in 2026
Showing 539 short story ideas curated by Reedsy.
It's your first spring… and you have allergies!
You're haunted by a ghost. That's not the problem. The problem is that this ghost is really, really, really chatty.
Write a descriptive story about a household using only one of the five senses: sight, smell, hearing, touch, or taste.
Write a story about a young girl with a passion for science who invents a time machine and travels to the future, where she must save the world from an imminent catastrophe that only she knows about.
Write about a law in your country that you would change.
Time travel is real and time tourists show up in large numbers around major historical events. One day, thousands of time tourists are in ships above the earth, quietly waiting.
One day, the world wakes up to find the Easter Island heads facing the opposite direction.
For a week or so you've noticed a stray animal hanging around your home. One day you let it in.
A pair of twins swap places for a day. What do they find out about each other?
Stuff has been mysteriously disappearing from your home for weeks, but you live alone.
Write about a family with secrets that get stuck in a corn maze overnight. One by one, all of the secrets come out in the course of the night.
You have a writer's block breakthrough at the worst possible time.
You're a food critic eating the best meal of your life. You're at McDonalds.
Your new cell phone number used to be the number of a very popular personal therapist.
Set your story entirely under mistletoe.
It's your last time trick-or-treating. What's your costume? How do you spend the evening?
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