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DIRECTORY
539 Best Short Story Ideas for Authors in 2026
Showing 539 short story ideas curated by Reedsy.
Write about the last nightmare you had.
A character doesn't know how to break up with their partner, and keeps putting it off until the very moment that the partner bends down on one knee and proposes.
While transferring between international flights at an airport, you befriend a strange person while passing through security.
You are a Nobel Prize Winner, on your way to the awards ceremony. Suddenly, you are transported back in time.
She was dying. She was your mother. And you remember the day your engineers first turned her on...
An office worker's favorite coffee mug has gone missing, and the obsessive search for the mug throughout the workplace turns into a dire and ridiculous odyssey.
You wake up unable to say a word, but can all of a sudden write the most amazing music.
Write a story in the form of a diary that journals every day in the month leading up to Christmas.
Set your story at a busy airport during Christmas week.
As you ride your motorcycle off into the sunset, you see something unexpected on the horizon.
"BOO!" you yell, grabbing the shoulders of a person you think is your friend from behind. They turn around and it's a total stranger.
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