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539 Best Short Story Ideas for Authors in 2026
Showing 539 short story ideas curated by Reedsy.
Write a story that inverts a popular YA trope. You get to pick the trope.
Write a retelling of a fairy tale — from the perspective of a child.
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.
You open a fortune cookie at a Chinese restaurant. Inside is a handwritten note.
A cell phone is found inside a sealed Egyptian tomb.
You're at your computer feeling heavy writer's block. Suddenly words start appearing on the screen.
You could only watch in disbelief as the work-place prank you had planned turned to chaos.
You visited a psychic for romantic advice. Instead, they tell you that your spouse has a secret.
It is the year 3000. The sun starts to flicker.
It's Wednesday evening and you're off to the weekly meeting of your writer's block support group.
Write a story about moving to an entirely new city where everything is new and unfamiliar.
Write about a time that you encountered an obstacle, and how you overcame it.
Time travel is real and time tourists show up in large numbers around major historical events. One day, thousands of time tourists are in ships above the earth, quietly waiting.
Write a story about something that seems ordinary to your protagonist but would be perceived as extraordinary by someone else.
Write a story with an open ending.
Write about your favorite hobby.
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