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539 Best Short Story Ideas for Authors in 2026
Showing 539 short story ideas curated by Reedsy.
Write about the origin of April Fools' Day.
You stumble across an abandoned house in the woods.
Your friend is visiting your home for the first time. You go to the kitchen to grab coffee and when you return, your friend tells you they just met your sister. You're an only child and you live alone.
Mars is the new wild west, complete with gunslingers.
Write about the way the sunset looks from the perspective of two characters. One is sad, the other is happy.
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.
Write about a time that you taught something to somebody.
Write a story about moving to an entirely new city where everything is new and unfamiliar.
A person wakes up in bed, drenched in salty ocean water.
Santa Claus is backed up with orders recently, and you're in charge of writing the official letter of apology to all of the children around the world informing them that their presents may arrive a week late this year.
Write about a time you failed.
Write a story that's a retelling of your favorite book, from the perspective of a minor character.
Write a story about two costume shops who try to outdo each other with bigger and crazier costumes each Halloween.
"When i grow up, I want to..."
The money is good. But the lies have built up. This empire of yours has been built on a secret, a stolen technology, and the guilt has reached its peak. You have to come out with the truth
You canÍt believe what you just read on the scroll. You have to tell someone.
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