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539 Best Short Story Ideas for Authors in 2026
Showing 539 short story ideas curated by Reedsy.
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 was just a regular day at the office. Then the power went out.
You volunteer to be the first human to test time travel, only going an hour forward in time. But when you leave the travel pod, all other humans are gone.
The one place where the sun rises in the west and sets in the east.
Set your story on a hayride. Bonus points if a headless horseman makes an appearance.
Describe your weekend using only dialogue to write the story.
Write a story that begin and ends around an awkward Christmas dinner table.
You accidentally break something at a dinner party and go to ever-increasing lengths to cover it up.
Someone you believed to be dead "comes back."
Write a story based on the last text you received.
Doctor Seuss has grown weary of writing children's books and finds new work as a reporter covering violent crime for a newspaper. Despite his new line of work, he keeps his classic Seussian style.
Write a story that includes these three words: "clown," "purple," and "apple."
Your date finds an engagement ring inside a slice of cake they ordered for dessert. You weren't planning to propose.
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.
"When I regained consciousness, I was invisible. And I don't know how to fix it!"
Two friends are meeting at a high school reunion. They have not seen each other in ten years.
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