Filter ideas
How to use this list
Pick an idea, make it yours, and finish it. That last part is the point. A finished short story teaches you more than ten brilliant openings.
Each card shows:
- Genre: the kind of story it is
- Length: flash fiction (under 1,000 words) or a full short story
- Point of view: one that suits the idea
- The hard part: what will decide whether it works
From our own idea list
Two story ideas from our own list, posted under our Idea Seedling account. Follow the links to see them on Idea Baby Daycare.
The doormat narrator
A doormat sees everyone come and go, and has opinions. Warm, slightly grumpy, and illustrated from the floor's perspective.
The hard part: A narrator that can't move. The comings and goings have to tell the family's whole story.
Objects that outlive their owners
Six stories, six objects: a watch, a fountain pen, a coat, a knife, a key, a book. Each one carries three lifetimes.
The hard part: Eighteen lives in six stories. Choose the one moment in each life that the object witnessed.
Funny short story ideas
Customer Feedback
A story told entirely as a series of increasingly unhinged online reviews of one restaurant, by the same customer, over a year.
The hard part: The reviews must build to a real story, not just a pile of jokes.
The Overqualified Ghost
A ghost with a PhD haunts a house whose new owners are completely unbothered by hauntings, and it's the most frustrating year of his afterlife.
The hard part: The ghost's frustration is the engine. Keep escalating his attempts.
The Stapler Thread
A company-wide email thread about a missing stapler escalates until the CEO resigns.
The hard part: Every reply has to raise the stakes in a single line.
The Worst Superpower
A man discovers his superpower: he always knows exactly how many jellybeans are in a jar. He becomes obsessed with making it matter.
The hard part: It's a one-joke premise. Find the sad, human middle of it.
Four Presentations
Four students, one presentation, and four completely different ideas of what the assignment was.
The hard part: Four voices in a short space. Give each one a single, strong trait.
Parent-Teacher Conference
A teacher meets the parents of her most difficult student, and realizes within two minutes exactly where he gets it.
The hard part: The reveal has to be funny and a little bit kind.
Small Talk
Two strangers stuck in an elevator try desperately to keep the small talk going. Neither will admit they used to date.
The hard part: Subtext. Everything important is in what they don't say.
Scary and horror short story ideas
The Extra Step
There are 13 steps down to the basement. Tonight, counting in the dark, there are 14.
The hard part: It's all in the counting. Keep it short and stop at the right moment.
Voicemail From Tomorrow
A woman gets a voicemail from her own number, recorded tomorrow, asking her not to open the door.
The hard part: Time-loop logic. Decide the rules before you write.
The Babysitter's Rules
The parents leave a list of rules for the babysitter. They're normal at first. The last three aren't.
The hard part: Rule-based horror depends on what the rules imply, not what they say.
Lost Pet Posters
Every week, a new lost pet poster goes up on the same telephone pole. Every week, the pet in the photo is a little bit bigger.
The hard part: The ending has to land in one image.
The Smart Speaker
A smart speaker starts answering questions nobody asked, in the voice of the previous owner.
The hard part: Avoid explaining too much. Mystery is scarier than mechanics.
Night Swim
At a lake where everyone swims at night, one rule is followed without question: always count heads when you get out.
The hard part: Build a community that believes in its own rule.
Returned Within a Week
A real estate agent keeps selling the same house, and the buyers keep returning it within a week, without saying why.
The hard part: Each buyer gets one scene. Make every return different.
Thirty-One Flavors
An ice cream shop in a small town has a 32nd flavor that's only offered to customers the owner likes.
The hard part: Funny or scary? Decide early, then commit.
Flash fiction ideas (under 1,000 words)
The Last Text
A woman reads the last text her mother ever sent her, and finally understands what it meant.
The hard part: One message carries the whole story. Every word around it has to matter.
Inventory
A life told as the items in a storage unit, listed by an auctioneer.
The hard part: Lists feel cold. Put the warmth in the order of items.
Six Seconds
A car slides on ice. The story takes place entirely in the six seconds before it stops.
The hard part: Slowing time without slowing the story.
The Note in the Library Book
A note in a library book says "if you're reading this, come to the bench at noon." The book was last checked out in 1994.
The hard part: Answer the question, but leave a door open.
The Wrong Coat
A man takes the wrong coat home from a party, and spends a week living by what he finds in its pockets.
The hard part: The pockets have to sketch a whole person.
Leftovers
Three generations of a family argue over who gets the last slice of a holiday pie, and the story underneath isn't about pie.
The hard part: It's all subtext. Trust readers to see it.
Wrong Number, Right Person
A wrong-number text turns into a ten-year friendship, told in ten messages.
The hard part: Ten messages, ten years. Every gap has to be felt.
Science fiction short story ideas
Terms and Conditions
For the first time in history, someone actually reads the terms and conditions, and finds out what they agreed to.
The hard part: The terms must be funny until they suddenly aren't.
The Last Human Barista
In a city where robots make all the coffee, one human-run café is a tourist attraction, and its barista is very tired.
The hard part: Avoid a lecture about automation. Make it about her.
Memory Swap
Two strangers trade one memory each, legally, for money. One of them didn't read the fine print.
The hard part: Two memories carry the whole story. Make them specific.
Colony Mail
Letters between a Mars colonist and her sister on Earth, with a six-month delay that keeps changing what each letter means.
The hard part: The delay is the drama. Track what each sister knows.
Software Update
A story told entirely in an app's release notes, as its developers slowly realize what they've built.
The hard part: Release notes are dry. Let the cracks show between versions.
First Contact, Wrong Planet
Aliens make first contact with Earth, but land in a small town during its annual festival and assume it represents the whole planet.
The hard part: The joke is the aliens' logic. Keep it consistent.
Fantasy short story ideas
The Dragon's Accountant
A dragon's hoard is audited for the first time in 600 years, and the accountant finds a discrepancy.
The hard part: Paperwork comedy needs a real emotional ending.
Wishes, Used
A woman buys a secondhand lamp with one wish left in it, and a long list of what the previous owners wished for.
The hard part: The previous wishes are the backstory. Choose them carefully.
The Forgotten God
A god nobody prays to anymore takes a job at a call center.
The hard part: It's funny on the surface and lonely underneath.
The Map That Updates
A traveler's old map keeps updating itself, adding roads that don't exist yet, and one marked "don't."
The hard part: The "don't" has to pay off.
The Fairy Contract
A small-town lawyer is hired to get a family out of a contract their great-grandmother signed with the fairies.
The hard part: Fairy logic has to be strange but consistent.
Weather Witch
A grandmother who controls the weather has always made it rain on her granddaughter's birthday, and finally explains why.
The hard part: The why must be small and devastating.
Mystery short story ideas
The Missing Bake Sale Money
A ten-year-old investigates the disappearance of $47 from the school bake sale, and uncovers a much bigger secret.
The hard part: A child detective has to be clever without seeming too adult.
Room Service
A hotel housekeeper realizes the guest in 504 has been dead for three days, but room service is still being ordered.
The hard part: The maid's routine is the clue system. Use it.
The Locked Diary
A teenager finds her mother's locked diary from 1993. The key is somewhere in the house.
The hard part: The search for the key is the plot. The diary has to deliver.
Who Ate the Cake?
A full detective-novel investigation into who ate the last piece of birthday cake at an office party.
The hard part: Treat it with total seriousness. That's the joke.
Alibi
Every suspect has the same alibi: they were with you.
The hard part: Second person makes the reader the suspect. Use that.
Romance short story ideas
Library Due Date
Two strangers keep checking out the same library books, one after the other, and start leaving notes in the margins.
The hard part: The meeting has to be worth the wait.
Second Chance Wedding
Two exes are both in the wedding party at their best friend's wedding, and they're seated together for the whole weekend.
The hard part: Make the breakup's reason clear without long flashbacks.
Last Bus Home
Two night-shift workers take the same last bus home every night for a year without speaking.
The hard part: The year passes in a few pages. Choose the key nights.
The Cooking Class
Two people sign up for a couples' cooking class alone, both too stubborn to admit they got the wrong class.
The hard part: The misunderstanding can't last too long. Break it at the right time.
Love Letters, Returned
An elderly man receives a box of love letters he wrote 50 years ago, returned unopened, by the woman's granddaughter.
The hard part: The letters themselves should be read sparingly.
Literary and sad short story ideas
The Last Phone Call
A daughter replays the last phone call with her father, in which they talked only about the weather.
The hard part: Emotion through restraint. Don't explain the grief.
The Visiting Hours
A man visits his father in a care home every Tuesday. His father thinks he's the mailman, and they become friends.
The hard part: It's sad and sweet. Don't tip it into either too far.
Moving Day
A family packs up the only house the kids have ever known, and each person secretly hides one thing in the walls.
The hard part: Four secrets in one story. Choose which ones you reveal.
The Swimming Lesson
A father teaches his daughter to swim, the same summer he's learning to let go of his marriage.
The hard part: The metaphor shouldn't be louder than the people.
Leaving the Dog
A family has to leave their dog behind when they move abroad, and the dog's new owner sends them photos every year.
The hard part: The photos have to say everything.
The Wedding Toast
A brother writes the toast for his sister's wedding. Every draft remembers their childhood differently.
The hard part: The drafts are the structure. Each one has to reveal something the last one hid.
Short story ideas for students
The New Kid
On the first day at a new school, a student decides to be a completely different person, and it works too well.
The hard part: The new persona needs a real reason and a real cost.
The Time Capsule
A class opens a time capsule buried 25 years ago, and finds a letter addressed to one of them by name.
The hard part: Explain the letter in a way that's surprising and believable.
The Science Fair
A student's science fair project actually works, and it shouldn't.
The hard part: Decide how big the consequences get. Keep the ending human.
The Yearbook Quote
Every senior gets one yearbook quote. One student's, written as a joke, starts coming true.
The hard part: The quote has to work as a joke and as a prophecy.
The School Play
The understudy gets one night to play the lead in the school play.
The hard part: One night, one performance. Pace it like the play itself.
Everyday short story ideas
The Grocery List
A man finds a stranger's grocery list in his cart and decides to buy everything on it.
The hard part: Why does he do it? That's the story.
Same Car, Every Morning
Two strangers have shared the same train car every morning for five years. Today, one of them isn't there.
The hard part: Make the reader care about someone who never speaks.
The Garage Sale
A couple holds a garage sale and argues over every single object, until a stranger offers to buy all of it.
The hard part: Each object is a memory. Pick the ones that matter.
How long is a short story?
There's no single official length, but there are common conventions:
| Type | Typical length |
|---|---|
| Flash fiction | Generally under 1,000 words |
| Short story | A commonly cited range is about 1,000 to 7,500 words |
| Novelette | 7,500 to 17,499 words, in the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association's Nebula Award categories |
| Novella | 17,500 to 39,999 words, by the same Nebula Award rules |
Magazines and contests set their own limits, so always check the guidelines before you submit. If you're just starting, aim for 1,500 to 3,000 words. It's enough room for a real story and short enough to finish.
How to write a short story
- Start with one idea. A short story has room for one main situation and one change. Pick an idea from this list, or your own.
- Know who it's about, and what they want right now, in this story.
- Start late. Begin as close to the moment things change as you can. Cut the warm-up.
- Keep the cast small. Two or three characters are usually plenty.
- Write the ending you're aiming for, even roughly. Short stories live or die on their last lines.
- Finish the draft, however rough. Then cut anything that doesn't serve the one change.
- Read it out loud. You'll hear the clumsy sentences you can't see on the page.
When you're ready, a Writing Room gives each story its own home, with every draft saved, a writing sprint timer for short sessions, and room to bring in a writing partner.
Frequently asked questions
What are some good short stories to write?
Good short stories focus on one character facing one change. The ideas above are sorted by genre and length, from flash fiction under 1,000 words to full short stories. Pick one, make it yours, and finish a draft.
How long is a short story?
A commonly cited range is about 1,000 to 7,500 words. Flash fiction is generally under 1,000 words. Magazines and contests set their own limits, so check their guidelines.
What is flash fiction?
Flash fiction is a complete story told in a very short space, generally under 1,000 words. It still needs a beginning, middle, and end, but it often relies on implication and a strong final line.
How do I come up with short story ideas?
Start with a "what if" question about something ordinary, notice small moments in daily life, or combine two unrelated ideas. Write down every idea as soon as you have it. Many of the best stories come from two small ideas meeting later.
What are the 7 types of short stories?
There's no single official list. One popular framework, Christopher Booker's The Seven Basic Plots, describes overcoming the monster, rags to riches, the quest, voyage and return, comedy, tragedy, and rebirth. Many short stories don't fit neatly into any of them.
Can I use these ideas?
Yes. They're here to be used. Twist them, combine them, and make them your own.