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539 Best Short Story Ideas for Authors in 2026
Showing 539 short story ideas curated by Reedsy.
Write a story about a character who must confront their past.
Write about a place the sky meets the sea.
You're at your computer feeling heavy writer's block. Suddenly words start appearing on the screen.
Write a story about two costume shops who try to outdo each other with bigger and crazier costumes each Halloween.
It's the year 5000 and humanity's first expansions into space, colonization of the solar system, etc., have faded into myths, much like the journeys of Odysseus. Write about these fabled legends.
You could only watch in disbelief as the work-place prank you had planned turned to chaos.
Write a story about a family's Christmas tradition that has to change this year, for one reason or another.
You are the Grinch who hates Halloween, and your mission this year is to replace every single Ferroro Rocher with brussel sprouts.
While transferring between international flights at an airport, you befriend a strange person while passing through security.
You work at an airport and notice the same person waiting in "arrivals" every week. Each time, they leave alone. One day you muster the courage to ask who they are waiting for.
Your mother sits you and your brother down, and says, "Kids, I'm gonna tell you an incredible story the story of how I met your father."
"What? You're Father who? I don't know no Father Christmas, now get off of my lawn!"
You're driving down a lonely road when you see a machine-looking object jet across the night sky.
Each year, the Springers host the town's most epic Halloween costume party. You're determined to win the grand prize this year, except that this year the theme is "Willy Wonka."
Put yourself in your teacher's shoes for a moment, and write a story about a day at school from their perspective.
The last person on earth celebrates their own birthday.
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