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DIRECTORY
539 Best Short Story Ideas for Authors in 2026
Showing 539 short story ideas curated by Reedsy.
A character on their deathbed tells their family about their regrets.
Two people share an oddly bittersweet moment as they stop to watch a beautiful sunset... at noon.
You wake up trapped in a strange castle with no memory of how you got there and there's something lurking in the shadows as you explore the halls.
You are in a bar when an elderly woman takes the stool next to you and says to the bartender, "Hey, Francine, make it a double. It happened again." You can't resist and ask her, "What happened again?"
The last person on earth celebrates their own birthday.
You have to let go of something you treasure.
Write a story that evokes the feeling of nails on a chalkboard!
Emotional baggage must now be checked in at the airport.
"The grass is always greener on the other side." You were prepared to find out.
Write about someone discovering something important from their childhood hidden in the back of a closet.
Time travel is widely available. However, you can't interact with the past, you can only observe it. On a trip to the past one day, you bump into someone.
A habitually fearful person turns brave.
You check into a seedy hotel and discover halfway through the night that it is made up entirely of thirteenth floors missing from other hotels.
Describe your greatest fear, and how you have or have not overcome it yet.
You are traveling when you are informed by an airport official that your passport isn't valid, and the country you claim to be from doesn't exist.
Set your story at the bleachers of the track and field.
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