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DIRECTORY
539 Best Short Story Ideas for Authors in 2026
Showing 539 short story ideas curated by Reedsy.
Who would you choose as the TIME Person Of The Year? Why?
"When I regained consciousness, I was invisible. And I don't know how to fix it!"
You are an astronaut spending your last few hours on Earth before a journey into space.
As you ride your motorcycle off into the sunset, you see something unexpected on the horizon.
You find your grandparent's old chessboard in the attic. Absentmindedly, you move a piece. The next day, an opposing piece has been moved.
You're going through family photos when you start to notice the same person candidly in the background of every single location.
Re-tell Jane Eyre as a short story... but set it in the far future.
You wake up one day and find that you can suddenly talk to animals.
Do you believe in ghosts? Why or why not?
Write a story that retells a Shakespeare play, but in a modern-day high school setting.
You're the world's best photographer. Your secret? You can freeze time.
Write a story about an ongoing rivalry between a vampire and a werewolf for supremacy over Halloween.
As the floor trembles and the walls shake, you know there is only one way to survive.
You just invented the first time machine in Physics — but you accidentally sent yourself to the future instead of the past during the initial test drive. Now you must race against time to travel back to the present after learning of a secret that might change everything as the world knows it.
A tree falls in the woods. You're around to hear it.
You witness a total solar eclipse.
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