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539 Best Short Story Ideas for Authors in 2026
Showing 539 short story ideas curated by Reedsy.
Your parents named you Holly after your grandmother, and you just accepted an invite for a group called The Jolly Hollies thinking that it was a club for people with your name. Turns out that it's actually an annual caroling group, and you can't sing.
A woman drops her wallet on the street, and it falls open. You pick it up and are about to return it to her when you notice a strange picture inside.
After the crash, he vanished. Some say he moved to a compound in Africa, some say he went off the grid. But the Silicon Valley genius who engineered the greatest stockmarket disaster in history is hiding in plain sight
Using only the setting of birthday parties, write a story about growing up.
Set your story on a hayride. Bonus points if a headless horseman makes an appearance.
Write a story with these words: "teddy bear," "black," "blood."
It is discovered that Earth actually IS flat.
Pick a genre and then write about a long walk home after school.
Write a story about trust. Include a pair of siblings in it.
Write a dark story in which everything that someone Tweets comes true.
Only one swordsman emerges alive from a bloody battle. And without a single wound. How does he explain his survival?
A trusting person turns into a skeptic.
Write a children's book about diversity.
Write about the origin of April Fools' Day.
All of your birthday presents this year look normal, except for one sitting in the corner that has a strange yellow glow emitting from it...
Shaking, you take a step back from the sight in front of you. You'd never seen so much blood in your life.
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