The Write Practice

Top 100 Short Story Ideas

by Joe Bunting | 128 comments

Do you want to write but just need a great story idea? Or perhaps you have too many ideas and can’t choose the best one? Well, good news. We’ve got you covered.

Below are one hundred short story ideas for all your favorite genres. You can use them as a book idea, as writing prompts for writing contests , for stories to publish in literary magazines , or just for fun!

Use these 100 story ideas to get your creative writing started now.

Editor’s note: This is a recurring guide, regularly updated with ideas and information.

100 Top Short Story Ideas

If you're in a hurry, here's my 10 best story ideas in brief, or scroll down for the full version.

Top 10 Story Ideas

  • Tell the story of a scar.
  • A group of children discover a dead body.
  • A young prodigy becomes orphaned.
  • A middle-aged woman discovers a ghost.
  • A woman who is deeply in love is crushed when her fiancé breaks up with her.
  • A talented young man's deepest fear is holding his life back. 
  • A poor young boy or girl comes into an unexpected fortune.
  • A shy, young woman unexpectedly bumps into her soulmate.
  • A long journey is interrupted by a disaster.
  • A young couple run into the path of a psychopath.

The Write Structure

Why Creative Writing Prompts Are Helpful

Below, you'll find our best creative writing prompts and plot ideas for every genre, but first, why do we use prompts? Is it just a waste of time, or can they actually help you? Here are three reasons we  love writing prompts at The Write Practice:

1. Practice the Language!

Even for those of us who are native English speakers, we're all on a language journey to go from beginners to skilled writers. To make progress on this language journey, you have to practice, and at The Write Practice, believe it or not, we're really into practice! Creative writing prompts are easy, fun ways to practice.

Use the prompts below to practice your storytelling and use of language. The more you practice, the better of a writer you'll become.

2. When you have no ideas and are stuck.

Sometimes, you want to write, but you can't think up any ideas. You could either just sit there, staring at a blank page, or you could find a few ideas to help you get started. Even better if the list of ideas is curated from our best plot ideas over the last decade that we've been publishing lessons, writing exercises, and prompts.

Use the story ideas below to get your writing started. Then when your creativity is warmed up, you'll start to come up with your own ideas!

3. To develop your own ideas.

Maybe you do have an idea already, but you're not sure it's good. Or maybe you feel like it's just missing some small piece to make it better. By reading other ideas, and incorporating your favorites into your   story, you can fill your plot holes and generate creative ideas of your own.

Use the story ideas below to develop your own ideas.

4. They're fun!

Thousands of writers use the prompts below every month, some at home, some in classrooms, and even a few pros at their writing “office.” Why? Because writing prompts can be fun. They get your creativity started, help you come up with new ideas of your own, and often take your writing in new, unexpected directions.

Use the plot ideas to have more fun with writing!

How to Write a Story

One last thing before we get to the 100 story ideas, let’s talk about how to write a great short story . (Already know how to write a great story? No problem. Just skip down to the ideas below.)

  • First, read stories. If you’ve never read a story, you’re going to have a hard time writing one. Where do you find great stories? There are a lot of places, but check out our list of  46 Literary Magazines  we’ve curated over here .
  • Write your story in a single sitting. Write the first draft of your story in as short a time as possible, and if you’re writing a short story , try to write it in one sitting. Trust me, this works. Everyone hates being interrupted when they’re telling compelling stories. Use that to your advantage and don’t stop writing until you’ve finished telling yours.
  • Read your draft. Read your story through once, without changing anything. This will give you a sense of what work it needs going forward.
  • Write a premise. After reading your first draft, get your head around the main idea behind your story by summarizing your story in a one sentence premise. Your premise should contain four things: a character, a goal, a situation, and a special sauce. Not sure what that means or how to actually do that? Here’s a full premise writing guide .
  • Write, edit, write, and edit. Good writing is rewriting. Use your second draft to fill in the plot holes and cut out the extraneous scenes and characters you discovered when you read the first draft in step #2. Then, polish up your final draft on the next round of edits.
  • Submit! Real writers don’t keep their writing all to themselves. They share it. Submit your story to a literary magazine , an anthology series , enter it into a writing contest , or even share it with a small group of friends. And if it gets rejected, don’t feel bad. You’ll be in good company.

Want to know more? Learn more about how to write a great short story here .

Our 100 Best Short Story Ideas, Plot Ideas, and Creative Writing Prompts

Ready to get writing? Here are our 100 best short story ideas to kickstart your writing. Enjoy!

10 Best General Short Story Ideas

Our first batch of plot ideas are for any kind of story, whether a spy thriller or a memoir of your personal life story. Here are the best story ideas:

  • Tell the story of a scar, whether a physical scar or emotional one. To be a writer, said Stephen King, “The only requirement is the ability to  remember every scar .”
  • A group of children discover a dead body. Good writers don’t turn away from death, which is, after all, the  universal human experience. Instead, they look it directly into its dark face and describe what they see on the page.
  • A young prodigy becomes orphaned. Orphans are uniquely vulnerable, and as such, they have the most potential for growth.
  • A middle-aged woman discovers a ghost. What do Edgar Allen Poe, Ron Weasley, King Saul from the Bible, Odysseus, and Ebenezer Scrooge have in common? They all encountered ghosts!
  • A woman who is deeply in love is crushed when her fiancé breaks up with her. “In life every ending is just a new beginning,” says Dakota Fanning’s character in Uptown Girls.
  • A talented young man’s deepest fear is holding his life back. Your character’s biggest fear is your story’s secret weapon. Don’t run from it, write about it.
  • A poor young boy or girl comes into an unexpected fortune. Not all fortunes are good. Sometimes discovering a fortune will destroy your life.
  • A shy, young woman unexpectedly bumps into her soulmate (literally bumps into him). In film, this is called the “meet cute,” when the hero bumps into the heroine in the coffee shop or the department store or the hallway, knocking her books to the floor, and forcing them into conversation.
  • A long journey is interrupted by a disaster. Who hasn’t been longing to get to a destination only to be delayed by something unexpected? This is the plot of  Gravity ,  The Odyssey , and even  Lord of the Rings .
  • A young couple run into the path of a psychopath. Monsters, whether people who do monstrous things or scaly beasts or a monster of a natural disaster, reveal what’s really inside a person. Let your character fall into the path of a monster and see how they handle themselves.

Now that you have an idea, learn exactly what to do with it.  Check out my new book The Write Structure which helps writers take their ideas and write books readers love. Click to check out  The Write Structure  here.

More Short Story Ideas Based on Genre

Need more ideas? Here are ideas based on whichever literary genre you write. Use them as character inspiration, to start your own story, or borrow pieces to generate your own ideas. The only rule is, have fun writing!

By the way,  for more story writing tips for each these plot types, check out our full guide to the 10 types of stories here .

10 Thriller Story Ideas

A thriller is any story that “thrills” the reader—i.e., gets adrenaline pumping, the heart racing, and the emotions piqued.

Thrillers come in all shapes and forms, dipping freely into other genres. In other words, expect the unexpected!

Here are a few of my favorite thriller story ideas :

Rosa Rivera-Ortiz is an up-and-coming lawyer in a San Diego firm. Held back by her ethnicity and her gender, she works twice as hard as her colleagues, and she’s as surprised as anyone when she’s requested specifically for a high-profile case. Bron Welty, an A-list actor and action star, has been arrested for the murder of his live-in housekeeper. The cop heading the case is older, ex-military, a veteran of more than one war, and an occasional sufferer of PTSD. Rosa’s hired to defend the movie star; and it seems like an easy win until she uncovers some secrets that not only make her believe her client is guilty, but may be one of the worst serial killers in the past two decades… and he knows she found out .

It’s the Cold War. Sergei, a double-agent for the CIA working in Berlin, is about to retire when he’s given one final mission: he’s been asked to “defect” to the USSR to help find and assassinate a suspected double-agent for the Kremlin. Sergei is highly trusted, and he’s given to understand that this mission is need-to-know only between him and very few superior officers. But as he falls deeper into the folds of the Iron Curtain, he begins to suspect that his superior officer might just be the mole, and the mark Sergei’s been sent to kill is on the cusp of exposing the leak.

It is 1800. A lighthouse on a barren cliff in Canada. Two lighthouse keepers, German immigrants, are alone for the winter and effectively cut off from the rest of the world until the ice thaws. Both Wilhelm and Matthias are settled in for the long haul with warm clothes, canned goods, and matches a-plenty. Then Wilhelm starts hearing voices. His personal belongings disappear from where he’d placed them, only to reappear in strange spots—like the catwalk, or dangling beneath the spiral stair knotted in brown twine. Matthias begs innocence. Little by little, Wilhelm grows convinced that Matthias is trying to convince him (Wilhelm) to kill himself. Is the insanity real, or is this really Matthias’ doing? And if it is real, what will he do to defend himself? There are so many months until the thaw. 

thriller story ideas

20 Mystery Story Ideas

Enjoy a good whodunit? Then you’ll love these mystery story ideas .

Here are a few of my favorites:

Ever hear the phrase, “It is not who fired the shot but who paid for the bullet?” This is a philosophy Tomoe Gozen lives by. Brave and clever, Tomoe follows clues until she learns who ordered the murder: Emperor Antoku himself. But why would the emperor of Japan want to kill a lowly soldier?

Mystery writer Dan Rodriguez takes the subway every day. Every day, nothing happens. He wears earbuds and a hoodie; he’s ignored, and he ignores. Then one evening, on his way home from a stressful meeting with his publisher, Dan is startled out of his funk when a frantic Middle-Eastern man knocks him over at a dead run, then races up the stairs—pursued by several other thugs. The Middle-Eastern man is shot; and Dan discovers a mysterious package in the front pocket of his hoodie. What’s inside, and what does he need to do to survive the answer?

A headless corpse is found in a freshly-dug grave in Arkansas. The local police chief, Arley Socket, has never had to deal with more than missing gas cans and treed cats. His exploration of this weird murder digs up a mystery older than the 100-year-old town of Jericho that harkens all the way back to a European blood-feud.

story ideas

20 Romance Story Ideas

Ready to write a love story? Or perhaps you want to create a subplot with a secondary character? We've got ideas for you!

Hint: When it comes to romance, a sense of humor is always a good idea. Have fun! Here are a few of my favorite love story ideas :

She’s a cop. He’s the owner of a jewelry store. A sudden rash of break-ins brings her to his store over and over and over again, until it becomes obvious that he might be tripping the alarm on purpose—just to see her. That’s illegal—but she’s kind of falling for him, too. Write the moment she realizes she has to do something about this crazy illicit courtship.

Colorado Animal Rescue has never been more challenging than after that zoo caught on fire. Sally Cougar (no jokes on the name, or she’ll kill you) tracks down three missing tiger cubs, only to find they’ve been adopted by millionaire Bryce Champion. Thanks to an antiquated law on the books, he legally has the right to keep them. It’s going to take everything Sally has to get those tiger cubs back.

He’s a museum curator with a fetish for perfection. No one’s ever gotten close to him; how could they? They’re never as perfect as the portraits, the sculptures, the art that never changes. Then one day, an intern is hired on—a young, messy, disorganized intern, whose hair and desk are in a constant state of disarray. The curator is going half-mad with this walking embodiment of chaos; so why can’t the he stand the thought of the intern leaving at the end of their assistantship?

20 romance story ideas

20 Sci-Fi Story Ideas

From the minimum-wage-earning, ancient-artifact-hunting time traveller to the space-exploring, sentient dinosaurs, these sci-fi writing prompts will get you set loose your inner nerd.

Here are a few of my favorite sci-fi ideas :

In a future society, neural implants translate music into physical pleasure, and earphones (“jacking in”) are now the drug of choice. Write either from the perspective of a music addict, OR the Sonforce agent (sonance + enforcer) who has the job of cracking down.

It’s the year 5000. Our planet was wrecked in the great Crisis of 3500, and remaining human civilization survives only in a half dozen giant domed cities. There are two unbreakable rules: strict adherence to Life Quality (recycling doesn’t even begin to cover these laws), and a complete ban on reproduction (only the “worthy” are permitted to create new humans). Write from the perspective of a young woman who just discovered she’s been chosen to reproduce—but she has no interest in being a mother.

So yeah, ancient Egypt really was “all that” after all, and the pyramids turn out to be fully functional spaceships (the limestone was to preserve the electronics hidden inside). Write from the perspective of the tourist exploring the ancient society who accidentally turns one on.

sci-fi story ideas

20 Fantasy Story Ideas

Need a dose of sword-in-the-stone, hero and/or heroine packed coming-of-age glory?  We love fantasy stories!

Here are a few of my favorite fantasy story ideas:

Bored teenaged wizards throwing a graduation celebration.

Uncomfortable wedding preparation between a magic wielding family tree and those more on the Muggle side of things.

A fairy prince who decides to abandon his responsibilities to become a street musician.

Just try to not have fun writing (or even just reading!) these fantasy writing prompts.

fantasy story ideas

The Secret to Choosing the Best Story Idea

Stories, more than any other artistic expression, have the power to make people care. Stories have the ability to change people’s lives.

But to write a great story, a life-changing story, don’t just write about what your characters did, said, and saw. Ask yourself, “Where do I fit in to this story? What is my personal connection to this story?”

Robert Frost said this:

If you can connect your personal story to the story you’re writing, you will not only be more motivated to finish your story, you might just be able to change the lives of your readers.

Next Step: Write Your Best Story

No matter how good your idea, writing a story or a book can be a long difficult process. How do you create an outline, come up with a great plot, and then actually  finish  it?

My new book  The Write Structure  will help. You'll learn how to take your idea and structure a strong plot around it. Then you'll be guided through the exact process I've used to write dozens of short stories and over fifteen books.

You can learn more about   The Write Structure  and get your copy here.

Get The Write Structure here »

Have a great short story idea?  We'd love to hear it. Share it in the comments !

Choose one of these ideas and write a short story in one sitting (aim for 1,000 words or less!). When you're finished, share your story in the practice box below (or our latest writing contest ) for feedback from the community. And if you share, please be sure to comment on a few stories by other writers.

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Joe Bunting

Joe Bunting is an author and the leader of The Write Practice community. He is also the author of the new book Crowdsourcing Paris , a real life adventure story set in France. It was a #1 New Release on Amazon. Follow him on Instagram (@jhbunting).

Want best-seller coaching? Book Joe here.

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20 Super-Short Stories Your Students Will Love

the best super short stories for your high school students

As teachers struggle to make the most of every minute in the classroom and appeal to students’ diminishing attention spans, sometimes size does matter when it comes to reading selections. Even short stories can be daunting for reluctant high school readers. “It’s so long!” students may moan when presented with traditional anthology classics like “ The Most Dangerous Game ,” at 8,013 words or “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” at 3,768 words.

Shorter works of fiction are no less rigorous than their longer counterparts. Flash fiction is a genre of literature that demonstrates craft elements and packs thematic punches with a tight word count. While the definition varies, flash fiction most often refers to pieces under 1,000 words but possibly up to 2,000. Average readers can complete 1,000 words in approximately 3.3 minutes if they’re reading at a speed of 300 words per minute, making flash especially appealing.

Students are often more likely to completely read pieces that take under five minutes to finish. It’s also much easier to encourage and facilitate the multiple readings that are often necessary for students to fully understand and explicate a complex text.

Flash fiction selections are great as bell-ringer readings while still being rich enough to settle in for long discussions of craft and theme. You can also frontload longer works of fiction with these little pieces. Since they’re all delightfully short, they’re easy to slide into an existing lesson play, or you can build a day’s lesson around one. Finally, the brevity of these pieces will allow you to make copies on only one or two sheets of paper and work on annotating in class. Here are twenty that students will love.

20 Super-Short Stories Your High School Students Will Love

  • “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin This story is popular with teachers not only because it weighs in at just over 1,000 words, but also because it’s replete with literary elements to demonstrate craft. In the story, a young wife, Louise Mallard, is informed that her husband is dead. Rather than mourning, she retreats to her room alone to quietly and joyfully contemplate a life of freedom without a man to dictate her life. The story takes a twist, however, when her husband returns home, oblivious to the news of his death. The shock brings on a heart attack and instant death, and everyone assumes the wife’s heart gave out from the happiness of seeing her husband alive and well. The readers will know better, however, what the source of the “joy that kills” actually is.

Chopin’s trim little story is a masterclass in pacing, dramatic irony, and characterization. Students from middle school up to AP English Literature can find richness and meaning in the text, even after multiple readings.

  • “The Flowers” by Alice Walker The plot is simple and horrifying: Myop, the child of Black sharecroppers, goes for a walk in the forest, gathers flowers, accidentally steps on an old skull, and finds the remains of a lynched man. At under 600 words, this compact piece is perfect for repeated readings for analysis of Walker’s syntax along with other elements such as plot structure, characterization, and symbolism and themes of racism and loss of innocence.

This piece pairs beautifully with works by such authors as Toni Morrison, Zora Neale Hurston, and Alice Walker herself. Students will enjoy discussing the symbolic significance of the shift from the farm to the woods, the juxtaposition of light and dark, the flowers, and, of course, the skeleton. They can also explore how Walker creates an entire archetypal hero’s journey in less than one page.

fiction short story ideas for high school

  • “Birthday Party” by Katharine Brush At a lean 312 words, “Birthday Party” is rich with elements of characterization and detail. It centers on a scene in a restaurant with a wife having a special dinner for her husband’s birthday that doesn’t go the way she expected or wanted.

There are shifting points of view within the piece that are rich for classroom discussion about perspective. It can also be used for a creative writing model in rounding out a scene and using specific details to illustrate character. This story was the 2005 AP English Literature Free Response Question 2.

  • “Currents” by Hannah Bottomy Voskuil This story is just under 300 words and is told backward. It’s the story of a drowning incident at a beach, but the inverted plot makes it interesting for students to discuss narrative arcs, syntax, detail, and characterization.

Students can also try their hand at writing their own backward story, using “Currents” as a model.

  • “Being the Murdered Homecoming Queen” by Cathy Ulrich “The thing about being the murdered homecoming queen is you set the plot in motion.” With that first line, Ulrich moves readers forward in a wild ride of ghosts, grief, and girls. Told in second person from the point of view of a dead homecoming queen, this story is a 428-word murder mystery. Ulrich’s use of repetition and powerful imagery make this story incredibly readable and perfect for group discussion.

Students will enjoy drilling into themes of gender roles, performative grief, teenage relationships, and the transience of memory.

  • “Entropy” by Andrea Rinard At just under 500 words, “Entropy” depicts an unnamed teenager in her room, struggling with her own mental illness. The story depicts not only the girl’s waxing and waning despair and hope but also her complex feelings of love, guilt, and resentment toward her caretaking mother.

The use of symbolism and repetition will give students lots to discuss. They will also connect with the speaker’s various attempts to find ways to both ground herself and escape.

  • “And No More Shall We Part” by Sutton Strother This piece is just under 1,000 words and juxtaposes an incredibly creepy situation with a tender love story. A couple, Joe and Katherine, check into a hotel and slowly experience the complete deterioration of their bodies. Is it a romance? Is it a horror story? Is it speculative fiction? At first students will wonder what the “it” is that’s coming for Joe and Katherine, but in the end it won’t matter as they focus on the relationship that endures even as the flesh dissolves.

Your students will enjoy using what they know about genre and discussing how to characterize this story. They can also talk about the incredible details of the piece and the rising tension.

  • “Popular Mechanics” by Raymond Carver Carver is well-known as one of the greatest short story writers. In this story of just 495 words, Carver depicts a marriage at the moment of destruction and an ending that will have students’ jaws dropping as they discuss what might be one of the most horrifying and stunning last lines in all of literature.

Students love discussing the ambiguity of the story and trying to get closure, asking, “Did that really happen?” “Was that what I thought it was?” They can also discuss dialogue, syntax, detail, and understatement.

  • “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid Kincaid’s breathless 685-word story is told in the voice of a daughter, reflecting on the perceptions and directions of her domineering mother. Told almost entirely in imperative commands, the story explores the relationship between mother and daughter and the expectations that can be too heavy a weight to bear.

This piece is a great work in which to explore how character and setting are inextricably linked. Students can consider how the spaces and places we occupy create our identity. Students will also enjoy analyzing elements of syntax, voice, and tone. If you’re looking for a creative writing activity, it’s a really fun piece for students to model in their own writing.

  • “The Cranes” by Peter Meinke* Students will enjoy the beautiful language and leisurely pacing of this 903-word piece featuring a sweet elderly couple sitting and watching birds and reflecting on their marriage.

After hitting the shocking twist at the end, students can go back and trace the breadcrumbs that were there all along. Meinke’s use of dialogue is masterful, and students always enjoy reading this piece aloud.

*Content Warning—deals with suicide

  • “Eleven” by Sandra Cisneros This piece is a little longer at almost 1,200 words, but it’s beloved and widely read because it’s accessible and relatable for younger and less confident readers. It’s Rachel’s birthday, and she reflects on what it feels like to turn eleven while facing an embarrassing conflict in school.

Students will enjoy reminiscing about their own dramas and traumas at the hands of teachers and classmates while also analyzing Cisneros’s craft, especially the lyrical language and effective syntax. This story is also a great jumping-off point for creating a believable young protagonist or embarking on a memoir writing activity.

  • “No One’s a Mystery” by Elizabeth Tallent Tallent’s depiction of a sordid love affair between a young girl and an older married man is told in the alternating dialogue of its two main characters. In just 927 words, Tallent explores the time before a coming of age moment when a teenager still lacks the wisdom of knowing at least a little bit about how the world works.

The intersection of idealism and realism will give students a lot to talk about along with Tallent’s use of detail and narrative pacing.

  • “Powder” by Tobias Wolff This is a longer piece at 1,544 words, but one that students always enjoy. It centers on a father and son trying to get home for Christmas after a day of skiing. After being deterred by a state trooper, a closed road, and heavy snow, the father decides to sneak through and drive home in dangerous conditions, telling his son on their way, “Don’t ever try this yourself.” As the journey continues, details emerge that reveal conflicts under the surface of the family.

Students will enjoy this small moment that reveals a much larger landscape in the life of the characters. The symbolism of the setting, especially the snow, is rich for discussion, and students will connect with their own relationships with parents and other adult figures.

  • “My First Goose” by Isaac Babel This story comes in at just under 1,500 words and is a wonderful study in cause and effect as well as character. Set in post WWI Europe, the narrator, Kiril Lyutove is a Russian Jewish intellectual who is struggling to balance his own philosophical beliefs with the brutality of war. He doesn’t feel like he fits in with the huge but violent Cossacks he’s alongside, so he earns their respect with a fake act of barbarism.

There is a lot of ambiguity that allows students to discuss different interpretations of the events. They can also discuss the paradox of war as heroic and inhumanly brutal. The themes of sacrificing one’s values and sense of self in order to fit in will resonate with students. It’s a great pairing with The Things They Carried.

  • “The Pie” by Gary Soto At 872 words, Soto’s story of a boy stealing and then facing the guilt for stealing a pie provide students an opportunity to tune their ears to tone. The pacing of this piece is masterful as the protagonist struggles with the tension between his desire to eat the pie and his feelings of shame and guilt for stealing it.

This story always inspires fun discussions of situational ethics and how easy it is to rationalize things that should be objectively wrong. There are also surprising Biblical allusions that students can unpack.

fiction short story ideas for high school

  • “Wake Up” by Kathy Fish What would you do if your elderly neighbor showed up naked on your front porch in the middle of the night? The speaker of Fish’s “Wake Up” deals with this situation with details that build and build to create a rich story that will leave readers wondering how all that managed to be communicated in under 500 words.

Themes of community and connection are woven through the story. Put on Stevie Wonder’s “My Cherie Amour” while the kids read and enjoy hearing them do the “la la la la la la” under their breaths.

  • “Sticks” by George Saunders Every family has its own weird traditions. In this 392-word flash by master storyteller Saunders, the narrator’s father keeps a metal pole in the yard which he decorates for different holidays and events.

The ending is poignant and powerful, and it will spark a discussion of characterization and detail. The main character’s bitterness and subsequent transformation will resonate with students.

  • “Where Are You?” by Joyce Carol Oates Oates is a prolific novelist, and students may have read her longer short stories such as the widely-anthologized and creeptastic, “Where Are You Going? Where Have You Been?” In this 523-word flash with another question as its title, the elderly couple suffers from an inability to communicate. The husband won’t wear his hearing aids, and the wife is exhausted by his habit of wandering the house, calling out to her.

Students should enjoy considering this depiction of a relationship in all its complexity. The twist at the end is shocking and apt for lots of discussion.

  • “The School” by Donald Barthelme At slightly over 1,200 words, Barthelme focuses on the lives and deaths that take place in a school classroom and its community. It starts in a normal day at school with the narrator-teacher talking about how the students are planting orange trees But trees die, just like snakes die. Mice, salamanders, gerbils, dogs, students, their parents… everything and everyone dies. The students start asking questions, and a theme emerges about the meaning of life. The casual, matter-of-fact tone of this piece makes it even more funny than the events being chronicled.

If your class is tackling surrealism or magical realism, this story can be a gateway or a backloading opportunity. Students will also enjoy talking about the big issues in life that are as ineffable as they are incomprehensible.

  • “As the North Wind Howled” by Yu Hua It’s a longer story at 1,371 words, but after the slow, contemplative pace of the first couple of paragraphs in which the main character wakes up and spends time observing items in his room, things pick up with a knock at the door. “So that was how, on this lousy morning, a muscleman kicked down my door and lumbered me with a friend I had no interest in having—a friend who was about to die, no less. What’s more, the north wind was howling like a banshee outside. I had no overcoat or scarf, no gloves or hat—all I was wearing was a thin jacket as I went off to visit this friend I knew absolutely nothing about.”

It’s a strange little story that’s great for discussing plot structure, conflict, and themes of community, connection, and grief.

Some Final Thoughts About Using Flash Fiction in the Classroom

The above list includes titles that have been tried and tested by experienced English teachers, but it’s absolutely not an exhaustive list. Online literary magazines that feature flash fiction such as Flash Fiction Online, Word Riot, Everyday Fiction, and Smokelong Quarterly, just to name a few, are treasure troves for teachers to access high quality work for students to enjoy. For many students, flash fiction is a gateway to literature that they can not only enjoy in the classroom but also find on their own. As you try titles from this list in your classroom, explore others by the authors you learn to love and the online magazines that feature many other fantastic flashes.

1 thought on “20 Super-Short Stories Your Students Will Love”

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I really appreciated this list. it included stories I was unaware of. I look for literature that my students may not have been exposed to before so that they don’t feel like they are reading the same texts over and over again.

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fiction short story ideas for high school

10 Excellent Short Stories for High School Students

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Nikki DeMarco

The inimitable Nikki DeMarco is as well-traveled as she is well-read. Being an enneagram 3, Aries, high school librarian, makes her love for efficiency is unmatched. She lives in Richmond, Virginia, and is passionate about helping teens connect to books. Nikki has an MFA in creative writing, is a TBR bibliologist, and writes for Harlequin, Audible, Kobo, and MacMillan. Since that leaves her so much time, she’s currently working on writing a romance novel, too. Find her on all socials @iamnikkidemarco ( Instagram , Twitter , Threads )

View All posts by Nikki DeMarco

As a high school English teacher, the quest to keep my curriculum relevant to my students is ongoing. I’m always on the lookout for new stories or authors that I can bring in the classroom to ensure that it’s something my students haven’t read or seen before. Of course, I’m constantly trying to change the activities to make them develop critical thinking skills. But if those activities are based around the same old tired (read: white) short stories for high school students, it often doesn’t matter how fun or innovative the activity is, the students are not interested because they can’t relate.

Why are new short stories for high school students important?

In education, we are constantly selling the idea of acquiring knowledge. Teens’ attention is being fought over by exponentially more distractions than they were even as recently as ten years ago. Instead of complaining about “kids these days” and taking the “when I was your age” stance, educators need to learn to adapt and offer students high interest stories that they can use to develop their own ideas.

I can already hear the arguments coming against this. Classics are classic for a reason. Students should be held to a high standard. I already have a year’s worth of lesson plans around The Great Gatsby and To Kill a Mockingbird and am over-worked, and now you want me to change?

I get it. I’m also fighting fatigue and burnout. So keep teaching some classics if you think they are excellent works of literature that you’d hate to have students miss out on, but trying pair each in a text set with a contemporary short story with similar themes. I’m not saying that adapting means less rigor or holding students to lower standards. Kids are smart and capable. Adding in texts from diverse perspectives will only enhance the breadth of work students are exposed to, making them draw connections from their own lives and perspectives outside their own, increasing critical thinking skills. Students today also have their finger on the pulse of the world in a way most educators can’t relate to from when they were the same age. We are doing them a disservice by not acknowledging that in how we teach. We also are being willfully ignorant if we only assign “the classics” and believe the students are reading them in their entirety. Come on, y’all. We were students once, too, and know a lot of these kids aren’t starting, much less finishing, the stories we assign.

One thing I’m doing to help my students buy into reading the whole story is to make sure I have stories with people who look like them. Also, I’m making sure they have stories full of people who don’t look like them. Teenagers don’t have much life experience yet, and that makes their world views narrow because the world they live in is small, many never having left the state where they were born. Exposing them to stories from different authors of different races, religions, and cultures helps them see beyond their school district. Yes, yes, they have the internet at their fingertips and could search for these things, but the algorithm learns them quickly and continues to feed them more of the like to keep views up and keep them engaged. As teachers, we need to learn to keep them engaged by doing just the opposite. 

Finding diverse short stories for high school is daunting. Just typing “contemporary short stories for high school” into Google brings back 143,000,000 results. Most of us are already working long beyond our contracted hours, and now I’m asking you to spend even more time reading stories that might not even be good or usable in class?

Don’t worry. I have some lists of short stories for high school students to get you started. The titles below are a jumping off point, not a comprehensive list. Note: Some of these stories have strong language.

Relationships

  • Weight by Dhonielle Clayton
  • Show Me Yours by Richard Van Camp
  • Goat Mouth by Pamela Mordecai
  • After ‘While by Cherie Dimaline
  • Bliss by Sofia Mostaghimi
  • Pact by Mark Oshiro

Coming-of-Age

  • Origin of the Lullaby by Canisia Lubrin
  • Tequila by Laura Gonzalez
  • One True Love by Melinda Lo
  • Valedictorian by N.K. Jemisin

Another tip I wanted to mention, but doesn’t fit neatly in the above themes, is that you can find collections of short stories online by different racial or cultural groups by switching up your default search terms. For example, Viewfinders: 10 Y.A. Novelist Spin Fiction from Vintage Photos from The New York Times came up when I searched “short stories for asian teens” but it took a little digging and clicking through to find. This collection features authors such as Malinda Lo, Soman Chainani, Marie Lu, Sabaa Tahir, and David Yoon.

Please, go back to your lesson plans and ask yourself these questions: Who’s missing? Who’s not represented? Do I have a student in my class who can’t see themselves in anything I’m teaching all year? Then find the story for that kid. That’s how we reach them, by showing them that we see them.

Here are some other resources from Book Riot that can help you on your resource search as well:

  • YA Short Stories
  • Find Free Short Stories
  • Free Short Stories Online
  • Short Story Examples in (Almost) Every Genre

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301 Short Story Ideas Guaranteed to Kick Your Writing into High Gear

Tonya Thompson

With shorter attention spans and increasingly hectic lives, it's no wonder readers love short stories now as much as ever. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button , The Shawshank Redemption , Minority Report , and Brokeback Mountain —even Hollywood has taken a renewed interest in short stories.

Below are 301 short story prompts and starters to help you become inspired, get past writer's block and explore the fascinating process of writing in a genre that Stephen King famously once compared to a kiss in the dark from a stranger.

Please feel free to use any of these ideas to spark your next creative project. You don't have to credit us, but it would be much appreciated if you do! A simple link to ServiceScape is the best way to do that.

Need more writing prompts? Check out our writing prompt videos below or try out our Writing Prompt Generator .

660 Narrated Science Fiction Writing Prompts

  • A group of hunters are on a hunt. Their dress and actions are completely primitive until the end when they change back into suits and leave the area in modern vehicles.
  • Weather patterns across the globe suddenly shift, causing natural law to go haywire. A family tries to make sense of it while getting to safety.
  • A flood swept away an entire town, leaving only the library and its strange secret.
  • Your main character is evicted from their home and forced to call in some favors. Although, those favors take him/her on a wild ride they never expected.
  • The night before an important social function, your main character is tasked with saving the world.
  • Your main character's boat is sinking in the middle of the ocean and he/she only has 1 hour to make a raft from parts of the vessel.
  • Your main character joins the communist regime and leads the party to glorious victory over the capitalist bourgeoisie funded by your antagonist's Super-PAC.
  • Your main character has a change of heart and partners up with your antagonist, joining their evil organization and proving a much more capable evil overlord than your antagonist could ever hope to be.
  • Your character's things are packed up and they are ready to leave town tomorrow. Before they say goodbye to their town, they decide to stop by at their favorite bar just to say goodbye. Something that happens at the bar makes them question whether or not leaving is the right decision.
  • When your character is hanging out at their favorite coffee shop, they notice someone loitering outside. As your character leaves, they see a black SUV pull up and a very handsome man gets out. The loiterer goes to lunge for the man, but your character instinctively decides to jump on him, blocking him from attacking the unsuspecting man. It turns out that the handsome man is the governor of the state. What happens next?
  • Two giant fingers reach down and pluck your main character away from what they were just doing, and unceremoniously deposit them on a pirate ship.
  • Your main character finds an abandoned car, keys still inside, parked outside their home.
  • Your protagonist is a corporate CEO who suddenly must hunt and forage his own food.
  • Your characters are trapped in a structure that constantly shifts and changes. How do they find their way out?

Sci-fi, Fantasy, and Supernatural

  • Your main character wakes up in the body of the person he/she most despises.
  • An outdoor music festival receives strange, otherworldly visitors who decide to take the stage for their own performance.
  • A man wakes up to discover he can no longer hear but can see things he's never seen before.
  • A man and his dog go to the dog park to play and the dog finds a bone with strange carvings on it that reacts to the environment in unexpected ways.
  • A group of high school friends cross paths 10 years after graduation to catch up, only to learn that one in their midst has developed special, superhuman powers.
  • A secondary character stumbles upon a talking blade, and they begin behaving suspiciously.
  • Your character wakes one morning and finds that they are physically stronger, faster, and have greater reflexes than when they went to sleep. Each time they sleep, they become stronger.
  • As if losing everything she owned in the tornado wasn't enough, Lila learned that she'd been laid off from her job. And that's when she started noticing the monsters.
  • A tertiary character is revealed to be "The chosen one," and your main character must help them to succeed in fulfilling their destiny.
  • The antagonist dies, but the story doesn't end.
  • Your main character is given a suit that protects them from danger—unfortunately it has a different threshold for safety than seems ideal.
  • A character in your story becomes aware that they are in a story.
  • our character wakes up deaf and mute but sees more colors than he or she knew was possible.
  • Your main character finds that time has slowed for them. Each year they age only several weeks, and slowly those nearest them are beginning to take notice.
  • Your main character makes a pact with an alien visitor to trade bodies for the day to tour around unnoticed.
  • Your main character wakes up in an unrecognizable city that is at least 100 years more advanced in technology than we are today.
  • Lightning strikes your main character and he/she wakes up in the hospital with a small black goblin perched on their shoulder, which no one else can see.
  • The sun goes out, replaced by building-sized lights in the sky over each major city. Across the world, beams of light descend from the sky, and each points toward your main character.
  • A secondary character is visited by aliens. They are told that they have been chosen as a representative of humanity amongst the interstellar accord. They need your main character's advice.
  • Your main character has a theme song which plays for ten seconds every time they enter a room.
  • Your protagonist is visited by a comic book hero who needs their help.
  • Your character cannot wake from a series of back-to-back dreams that feel like he or she is awake.
  • All rhinos have gone extinct except for two, and your main character has been granted guardianship of the last two of their kind.
  • Your character notices a weird growth on their arm one morning. They brush it off as a weird bump or scratch—until it turns into something else entirely.
  • Your character has always thought of their parents in a certain way, but here lately they're doing something unusual that changes your character's opinion of them.
  • Your main character is the owner of a variety store and an invisible car crashes through the wall, driven by an invisible person.
  • Your antagonist and protagonist meet in the afterlife, hundreds of thousands of years after your story takes place.
  • Your antagonist and protagonist get freaky-Friday-ed. When they wake up, each is in the other's body.
  • Your main character is suddenly invisible, but they don't know how long it will last.
  • Your main character wakes up, in high school again, and finds that they are late for an important test.
  • Your main character is granted a single wish, but must be careful, because the genie granting the wish will attempt to misinterpret any wish they make.
  • Your main character finds himself/herself in the video game they were playing.
  • Your main character is the leader of a random group of apocalypse survivors who must now forage for food.
  • A cell phone is found locked inside a cabinet in a home recently purchased by newlyweds. On it is a recorded message from their future children. What does the message say and how did it get there?
  • Your main character and the three people standing closest to them, are thrown backwards in time three hundred years.
  • Your protagonist can see the future and doesn't want to leave his/her home.
  • Your main character discovers that they are a wizard, and that this means they will have to leave their family to learn how to safely practice magic, in a school they have never heard of.
  • Suddenly, your main character can hear the thoughts of everyone who is wearing the same color shirt as they are.
  • Your protagonist dies. The story doesn't end.
  • Your main character is really a guardian angel in human form.
  • Your protagonist meets a man claiming to be God. He/she doesn't believe the man, but then miracles ensue.
  • Two adult sisters discuss a fateful night when they were teenagers and ran away from home, only to encounter a pack of vampires waiting to take them in.
  • A family comes together for Christmas, only to discover that they have somehow switched bodies and perspectives over the course of the meal.
  • A man or woman wakes up as his/her dog or cat and it's breakfast time.
  • Two writers discover they've written the exact same text, word for word, 1,000 miles apart from each other.
  • A parent and child encounter their ancestor, who has been dead for centuries, and they go on a walk through the city/the woods.
  • A lost Incan treasure is found in the basement of a school in Ohio. How did it get there? And more importantly, how is it glowing?
  • Your main character suddenly loses his ability to see but can hear things he hadn't heard before.
  • .It's 2050 and most of America has become one large city except for a small area in the middle of the country, considered uninhabitable by most people except for a few. Who are they and how do they survive?

Romance and Drama

  • A secondary character starts their own business and enlists your main character to help it succeed but falls in love instead.
  • Your antagonist wins over your main character's best friend, convincing that friend of their good intentions.
  • Your main character gets a new job, working at the evil corporation run by your antagonist—but the work they would be doing could really help people.
  • Your main character and their best friend find themselves in a love triangle with your antagonist.
  • A couple is having an argument at the table beside your character at a restaurant. Although they are trying to avoid eye contact, your character realizes that one of them is the ex that the other never quite got over.
  • A tertiary character is seriously stressing out, and your protagonist feels the need to reach out to them with a kind gesture. It does the opposite of help.
  • Your character is talked into going to their romantic interest's mother's dance recital, and their romantic interest doesn't show up.
  • Your character is at a friend's house for a dinner party. Suddenly, someone they absolutely despise walks in. What do they do now?
  • Your character's boyfriend of five years surprises them with an engagement ring at a dinner with their whole family. They pause for a minute before they answer him. But if he knew their secret, there is no way he would be proposing right now. The whole room is waiting for the response.
  • Your character gets matched up with a famous person on Tinder. What happens on their date?
  • Your character's friend introduces them to someone at a party. It turns out that your character and the other person actually know each other quite well. However, neither of them acknowledges this fact. The friend steps away. What do they say to each other now?
  • Your character's mom seems really tense when they are out to dinner with her one evening. They ask her what's wrong. "I have something to tell you," she says gravely.
  • Write a story about a father and son reuniting for the first time in 20 years. Why did they go so long without talking? What finally brought them together?
  • Your main character's romantic interest finds one day that they are much more interested in your antagonist.
  • Suddenly, a tertiary character confesses their love for your protagonist, getting down on one knee and producing a ring. But your protagonist loves someone else.
  • One night when your character is at a bar with all of their friends, a mysteriously charming stranger starts talking to them. They are instantly captivated by their every word. They ask for your character's number, but there's just one (major) problem.

Mystery and Horror

  • A writer's manuscript contains words he didn't write…ghostwriting in its truest form. But who is his co-author and what does the ghost want?
  • Your main character comes home to find that their family is missing.
  • Your character wakes up covered with strange tattoos and can't remember how he/she got them.
  • Your protagonist awoke from a nightmare to find an object from his/her dream laying on the pillow.
  • Two cousins hitchhike along a deserted country road, following a stream of black smoke to an abandoned house, where there is no one tending the steadily burning fire.
  • Your main character wakes up in the trunk of a car, their head throbbing.
  • An escaped convict leaves behind evidence of his innocence for the search party to find.
  • Your protagonist wakes up aged considerably, after a Rip Van Winkle-esque 20-year nap, and his friends don't believe his story.
  • There's no way out of the concert hall but the concert-goers tried to find it anyway. Behind them, the snarling monster prowled.
  • Lost in the woods, two teens encounter a witch-like woman who offers them all they've ever wanted in exchange for one small thing—their baby sister.
  • Your main character discovers a long-lost sibling who is down on their luck.
  • Your main character is given an important heirloom, an item passed down for generations in their family. But it is cursed.
  • Your main character finds a black mahogany door in their basement, shut tight with chains.
  • One night while your character is camping in the woods with their family, there's a loud noise from inside the tent. At first everyone thinks it's an animal, but this sounds like nothing they've ever heard before.
  • Your main character has a conversation with a ghost from their past, either literally or figuratively.
  • Your main character goes broke drinking and gambling and wakes up the next morning with a small white rabbit perched on their chest, possibly stolen from the magic act they saw the night before.
  • Your main character wakes up on a rooftop, in their underwear.
  • Your main character inherits a vast fortune, but they must stay in a creepy old house for an entire night in order to earn it.
  • Your main character sells their soul and seems to have all of their problems solved, only to find out that the devil is a blood relation, and there are no catches.
  • Your main character wakes up to find that ¾ of the world's population has suddenly disappeared without a trace.
  • Two adopted twin sisters embark on a journey to find their birth father, only to find that he's been close to them all along.
  • Your main character's dog goes missing in the night, and they aren't the only one missing a pet. After some sleuthing they discover that a friend has become a werewolf, and that their best friend is the cause of the missing animals.
  • Your main character wakes up wearing a strange ring which glows with sparks of blue electricity.
  • People find that if they don't concentrate on keeping their soul attached to their body, it begins to separate. Without continuous concentration, everyone becomes ghosts of themselves.
  • Your character discovers that there's something really mysterious happening at the neighborhood park. Your character finally works up the nerve to go down there one evening, and what they find is even more peculiar than what they originally thought.
  • Your main character is trapped in a dream that is quickly becoming a nightmare.
  • After a particularly grueling day at work, your character groggily returns to work the next morning. The secretary, who your character has said hello to every morning for about five years, suddenly has no idea who they are. When they tell her their name, she responds: "No one by that name has ever worked here."
  • Your character wakes up one morning in what looks to be a hospital. They try to move, but it appears they are strapped into the bed. A nurse suddenly enters the room and calls them by the wrong name. What happened to them? What happens next?
  • The doorbell rings. No one is there, but a mysterious package was left behind. Your character opens it up and find something inside that's very unexpected.
  • Write about a scenario where a character does something terrible and gets away with it completely.
  • Your character's sibling is wanted for a serious crime. They swear that they didn't do it, but your character is not so sure.
  • A ghost of your antagonist's great-great-great-grandmother visits your protagonist, warning him to stay away from her great-great-great-grandchild.
  • On your character's walk to work, they notice that the streets are suspiciously empty. Brushing it off, they finally get to their office. There's no one inside at all. They walk around searching for someone, anyone to ask what's happening. They find no one and nothing.
  • A child draws scenes that end up happening exactly as he/she draws them. His/her parents try to understand what is happening.
  • Your main character has been knocked unconscious, and another character from your story needs to step up and take their place.
  • At the library one afternoon doing some research, your character notices an unusual photograph. Your character is immediately captivated by it. What's in the photograph?
  • Your character's grandma recently passed away. In her will, she left your character something very strange.
  • Your main character has just come face to face with their worst enemy, and they are monologuing.
  • Your antagonist has finally won, accomplishing their greatest feat. Now what?
  • Your antagonist and protagonist swap places for a day.
  • Your antagonist and protagonists are placed in the same dorm room at university. Hilarity ensues.
  • It turns out your antagonist was right the whole time, and now your protagonist has some explaining to do.
  • Your main character or antagonist wins the lottery, a jackpot of 3.4 million dollars. But he/she doesn't want it.
  • Your main character is contemplating suicide until a stranger stops him/her.
  • The king dies, and your antagonist's best friend becomes the new ruling monarch. The catch is, they don't seem too bad, other than the fact that your antagonist keeps whispering in their ear.
  • Your protagonist is incredibly late for their next scheduled meeting, and he or she just keeps running into obstacles which stall them further.
  • Your character's birthday wish that they made when they were blowing out the candles actually comes true. What is it? Is it everything that they hoped for?
  • Your character's home is a little worse for wear. It seems like everything is broken and your character has no more money to invest in this money pit. In the garage, they see an old can of gasoline. Would they do the unthinkable? What is going through their mind right now?
  • Your character's family has a lot of traditions. They go along with them, except for one. If their parents knew your character broke this rule, they would likely disown them. What is it? What would your character do if they found out?
  • Your character is a pretty shy, introspective person. One day they wake up and realize that they are saying everything that they think. They can't control the words that are coming out of their mouth at all. While this is helpful when they are trying to talk to friends and acquaintances at work, it really starts to get them into trouble.
  • Your character is a member of a family that has always feuded with their neighbors over trivial issues, and now must ask his/her neighbors for help in an emergency. How do the neighbors respond?

Story Starters

  • The place where the world stopped was not so strange, but the vertigo was overwhelming. The girl could not decide whether or not it would be wise to jump.
  • The gear turned, interlaced with another, and another. His eyes traced the inner workings of the machine to the place where the light shone.
  • Static played between the cracks of the monitor, the spark and hiss of the television muffled as the living room filled with water.
  • The hand was pale, as if circulation had long stopped; and the ring upon the creature's finger seemed to glow with a spark of interior fire.
  • They say that when you die in a dream, you die in real life. I can tell you that isn't true; because I died in a dream, and what happened to me was much stranger than that.
  • The girl spun, dragged by the momentum of her backpack, tilting from one foot to the next so that her balance was tenuous, her motions growing wilder.
  • The face in the mirror was not his own. It was handsomer, his eyes more vibrant, his skin clearer. He frowned, uncertain, but his reflection smiled.
  • Once upon a time, in a night with no stars and no moon, there was a shadow in the darkness.
  • Bright blue water held the stars' reflections, until she dove beneath the surface. Then for a long moment the lake was still, until I began to grow nervous. When she finally returned, she held aloft over her head the star which had hung in the North, the wish-making star.
  • It was, as the wave of mud descended, sprayed by the wheels of a yellow taxi – it was that moment which made that day the worst of her life.
  • Again, try again. Concentrate now, it will not come easily.
  • Strange, to see her here. She seemed out of place. Not the soft out-of-place, like an uncle entertaining unfamiliar nieces and nephews, but the hard of out-of-place which drew every eye in the room.
  • It was a trick of the fingers, and a twist of the wrist, which changed the shape of the shifting cloak. One moment the garment was a heavy green wool, and the next it was black satin, suitable for the night's entertainments.
  • I have been many things: a pawn, a dancer, a master of the blade; but none of these in the way you might think, and none of them for less than a moment.
  • The torch hissed as he plunged it into the river and let the current sweep the light away. Then he was alone in the dark with the red-ember eyes.
  • Like a dream she had drifted from the room, and like a dream she seemed unreal, and like a dream she was gone.
  • The pencil was now stuck in the ceiling, the glob of green hanging precariously from it; and before I could dash across the room, or throw the stapler again to dislodge it, Mr. Smythe reentered the classroom.
  • The lower level was waist-deep already, flooding from a number of breaches along the starboard hull. Younger crewmen were wading through the water in search of bailing buckets. Older crewmates were racing toward the ladders, offering prayers beneath their breath.
  • The river was home to a great many, and together they drifted along it. It was never fast, never sudden, but always full to brimming of fish, and always clean to drink.
  • The sphere was some metal he had never seen before, like steel but with a faint blue hue. It stood out nearly three feet from the earth; and where it was exposed to the air, lightning struck it repeatedly, illuminating his surroundings with each strike.
  • The woman swung her scythe with the steady clockwork motion of a pendulum.
  • Frost spread across the ground. Slowly at first, with the lingering laziness of autumn, but then with greater fervor; and the creature flew along behind it as it spread across the field.
  • Doom blanketed the town, like silence might have on a more peaceful night.
  • Typical, he thought. Another throwaway evening. Not a soul in town, and not a sound to be heard; but that night was anything but typical.
  • She didn't blink. Not when he made faces, or when he screamed; not when he brought out the joke about the garden gnomes, or the one about the flea circus. She didn't even blink when he resorted to the feather, or when he made a motion like he might poke her in the eye.
  • His favorite color had always been blue. Not because it was depressing or anything – it wasn't – but because it seemed to soak in the light, and then give some of it back. Like black, he thought, but less dead, less drab.
  • The ballet slipper would not fit, and that would never do. Only moments now, before they knocked on her dressing room door, and her sister's slipper would not slide onto her foot.
  • You aren't supposed to have conversations through the wall of the changing rooms, especially not the fancy kind where a woman waits outside to ask if everything fits just right. And yet, here she was, knee deep in the most awkward conversation she could imagine.
  • There was no gravity here, and so she floated, waiting to come close enough to something solid that she could push off from it, and toward the exit.
  • They say bleach for blood but the odor is too strong. Best to take it out with hydrogen peroxide. Then again, it looks strange buying thirty bottles of hydrogen peroxide at three in the morning, so I settle for a couple gallons of bleach.
  • The doctor looked up from the manila folder in his hands and said, "Your test results are positive."
  • Just as she settled into the backseat with her suitcase and carry-on bag, an oncoming headlight illuminated the driver's face and she realized this wasn't her Uber driver. He was the man they'd been showing on the news the last few days.
  • As the doctor handed the newborn bundle to her, she gasped.
  • As she threw her head back to soak up the flowering spring trees, she saw her ex-husband watching her from across the street. How could he have known she was here?
  • The young girl was maybe 5 or 6 but there was something about her that chilled me to the bone.
  • She might never get the chance to be alone with him again. Her husband was across the country; he'd never find out, so why not?
  • "Is this your handwriting?" the policeman asked with a scowl.

Story Starters

  • I could have been anything—a doctor, lawyer, architect. Instead, I became a carney.
  • When he saw the state troopers standing on his front stoop, he thought they must have the wrong house. But when the troopers took off their hats and one of them asked, "Are you James Cooper?" he couldn't find the strength to answer.
  • "I knew you'd come back to me," she whispered. "It's been a lifetime but I knew you'd come back."
  • The doctor emerged from the double doors and said, "There were some unexpected complications."
  • This was the moment he'd been training for. He strapped on his helmet and got in position.
  • She continued running, but as the trail of blood got thicker and the splattered drops got closer together, she started following the blood instead of the greenway path. She had to find the source of all this blood. Was it animal blood... or human?
  • When he looked around, he froze. He'd been here before. This was the same place where he kept getting stuck in his dreams. Would he be able to find his way out in waking life?
  • She shut off the kitchen light and turned to go upstairs to bed, unaware that two sets of eyes were watching her every move.
  • He frantically searched his lab, but he found no sign of the invisibility potion. How could someone have stolen it before he even got the chance to use it?
  • As she listened to him snore on the pillow next to her, she wondered how much longer she could stay married to him. She prayed he would die in his sleep or get hit by a car. Then her eyes fell on the pillow at the foot of the bed.
  • "Mr. Dempsey, they're not both going to make it. We can save your wife or the baby, but we can't save both. You need to let us know your decision in the next two minutes, or we may lose them both."
  • "Are you sure you want to do this?" the man asked as he positioned the needle over her heart.
  • Nothing had grown in that patch of grass for 50 years. It had been a barren dirt patch ever since that stranger had conjured a fire bolt and scorched the ground. But Tommy definitely saw a green sprout growing in the middle of the barren square. What was it, and how could it produce life in a place that nothing else could?
  • The car rattled as if she'd gone over a speed bump, but she knew there were no speed bumps on this road. She looked in her rear view mirror and thought she saw blonde hair… and maybe a human form on the road. She wondered if she should turn back. Had anyone seen her?
  • "If you walk out that door right now, I don't ever want to see your face in my home again," his mother said.
  • "I will get my money back one way or another," he growled, as he pinned her arms beneath her back.
  • "The price of freedom depends on what you're willing to pay. Tell me, sir: how much is your freedom worth to you?
  • She fumbled in her purse for her keys, but her hands were clumsy with fear. Just as her fingers grazed the familiar key fob, a sweaty hand grabbed her shoulder.
  • He'd seen her. She could tell by the smirk on his lips. She pushed through the thick crowd in hopes of making it to the exit before he blocked her way.
  • She glared at the thick bracelet on her bicep. Why did her parents make such a big deal about never taking off? It was heavy and not even stylish. She found clasp and fiddled with it for a moment. Surely her parents were exaggerating about all the awful things that would happen to her if she ever took this off.
  • He extended his hand to her and said, "Hi, I'm Finkel Wolfson." She looked at his outstretched hand as if it was crawling with spiders and roaches. "Oh, I've heard about you," she said with a sniff. Finkel panicked. He was 3000 miles away from home; how could she have heard about him?
  • "One of us has to try it," Amir said as he pointed to the lumpy, unfamiliar fruit on the tree in front of them. If we don't, we'll starve to death. Death by poison seems worth the risk in case it's edible, doesn't it?"
  • The night winds rustled as the door to the old woman's home slowly opened.
  • She laughed when he told her the news. It was exactly what she expected and she knew the lie was over.
  • He glanced in his rearview mirror and saw that the blue sedan was still following him.
  • She stepped off the elevator with a sense of purpose. This time, she would succeed.
  • He flicked the stub of his cigarette onto the pile and walked away without a second look.
  • Just as they got to the edge of town, the car started making a terrible clunking sound.
  • "What's that smell?"
  • He rolled down his window and called out, "Hey—do you want a ride?"
  • "You better get down to the station. It happened again."
  • The dog raced toward her with such intensity that she didn't have time to get out of his way.
  • "I don't think you're capable of love."
  • He picked up the glowing rock and inspected it. Where had it come from, and how had it ended up in his backyard?
  • By the time Johnny got home, thousands of sheets of paper had piled up on the floor beside the printer, each with only one sentence printed in bold type: "I am coming for you, and there's nothing you can do."
  • "How could you have married him? You promised you'd wait for me."
  • "I've lost him," she screamed, but none of us knew what she'd lost.
  • For a moment, time slowed, and the sound of the approaching storm was all that we could hear.
  • "Look out!" he shouted.
  • I'd never last long in the slammer. I get all frantic when I'm in tight spaces, start tryin' to climb the walls and such.
  • Tears filled her eyes as she scanned the list a second time. She didn't make the team.
  • "I'm pregnant."
  • He watched her leave, knowing that she only locked the flimsy doorknob behind her. He had at least two hours before she'd be back home.
  • "Where am I?"
  • "What happened to you?" She asked.
  • There are three things you never mess with if you know what's good for you: heroin, border patrol, and the Valdez cartel.
  • She fell to the floor when she heard the first explosion. She didn't know if she should try to escape or try to hide.
  • "We're sending you to live with another family. It's for your own safety."
  • As she watched this hulking, hairy animal lope across her backyard, she wondered what two creatures collaborated to make this tremendous beast, and what was it looking for?
  • "She hasn't spoken a word since the accident. Our friend said that you might be able to help her."
  • "Don't lie to me. I already know the truth."
  • As he walked away, his smile grew from a smirk to an all-out grin.
  • "Why is all of Daddy's stuff in the front yard?"
  • He counted his register drawer again. How could he be short $2500?
  • The teacher looked at his gaping shoes and tattered clothes and knew she had to find out what was really going on at home or this kid would end up in the system. She called him up to her desk and asked, "Do you want to help me on a project this weekend?"
  • If he hurried, he might be able to get back to work before anyone found out what he had done.
  • "Do you have experience with demons?" she whispered from under the table.
  • "This medicine numbs the pain, but it will also permanently numb your ability to feel pleasure. Do you want it?"
  • "Mr. Whipple, we've just learned that your wife is an undercover agent with the Russian government. We need your help apprehending her."
  • Once she'd confirmed that no one was looking, she ducked into the unmarked building.
  • When she walked outside the next morning, she realized his curse must have worked.
  • He pulled his hat low over his brow and tried to blend in with the crowd, hoping no one would realize who he was.
  • He was inside the video game! But wait—if he was in here... who had the controls?
  • She bent down to pick up the strange-looking shell from the sand, but as soon as her hand touched it, the earth started to shake.
  • He opened the letter and sunk to his knees in the middle of the driveway.
  • "What are we going to do once the last of this food is gone?" he asked.
  • She looked closer and realized that this tree was growing dollar bills instead of leaves and quarters instead of acorns.
  • There is never a better time to say "I'm sorry" than when karma is kicking you good.
  • When the pigeon swooped down in front of her, she realized it had a note attached to its right leg.
  • "I'll need to speak to at least three of your ex-girlfriends to check your references before I'll go on a date with you."
  • "Mommy, there's a ghost in my room!"
  • Something wasn't right. No one seemed to recognize her. No one even really seemed to see her. Could he have erased her existence?
  • They had never been this high before. As she reached for the next rock outcropping, she wondered if it was actually close enough to reach, or if she was about to fall into the canyon.
  • "This is something we don't usually show visitors," the museum docent whispered as she unlocked the door marked "DANGER!"
  • He looked both ways before crossing the street, not realizing that he had just made the worst decision of his life.
  • "How did you get that scar?"
  • He muttered a few extra spells as he stirred the potion. He couldn't risk it malfunctioning this time.
  • Every person on the street and in the mall looked identical. They were all wearing red shirts and blue shorts, and every single one was a man with light skin and short brown hair. What had happened, and how was she the only one who was still different?
  • "You don't understand," she said, looking at him sadly. "I am not who you think I am."
  • All the lights in the city went out and they knew the monsters were surrounding them.
  • "If you take one step closer, it'll be the last step you ever take," he said, pointing the weapon at the strange figure in front of him. But his threat was useless, since the creature had no feet.
  • There, nestled within the grove of trees, was the thing he'd been waiting for since he was 12 years old.
  • "Who's there?" Her words bounced off of the metal walls of shipping containers when she awoke. But there was only the echo of her own voice to answer her.
  • They were lost in the woods and they knew it, although this time was different. This time, they were hunted.
  • Looking into the fire was the wrong thing to do. He found he couldn't drag his stare away.
  • It wasn't until my father pushed me off the cliff that I believed he was telling the truth.
  • The sign hit them like an inanimate object.
  • The pumpkin would not stop growing, despite the application of the second potion. The witch had lied.
  • All four tires were on the ground, but I had started floating toward the surface.
  • Smoke leaked from the exhaust pipes of the Mustang as the plane began to descend. She looked into the jungle below, dreading the impact.
  • Picture us, standing against the world, armed to the teeth, walking out into that blizzard.
  • If romance is dead, then I suppose there are none to blame but the hopeless romantics. It was a boy, not too long ago, that taught me romance – real romance—isn't something hopeless, or unenergetic like stale poetry, or futile like canned compliments.
  • It's impossible to tell really, just how many times I've come back.
  • When a pet passes away, the moment is strangely dense. That moment as I held the shoebox was the longest of my young life, but there were harder times to come.
  • The girl crept past the open door, listening with piqued interests for clues revealed in the voices beyond it.
  • Thunder does not crash like a wave, but ripples outward like a pebble tossed into a pond. When the lightning struck, I was the first to hear that thunder.
  • Heroes wear masks for all kinds of reasons. I wear the mask so they can't see the grey at my temples or the weariness of age in my eyes.
  • The sun never shone like it did that day. It baked my skin until I felt I might burn in the shade, but I never did. Nothing went wrong that day.
  • The paper tore once, twice, three times. I shredded it and scattered it to the wind.
  • Ma always told me not to climb so high. Always lookin' out for me 'cause I ain't look out for myself. Too bad Ma ain't here now.
  • They think they know me, but they don't really. I hunt only at night and only when I know I have the advantage over my prey.
  • City slicker like myself doesn't have a wit of business in the country. They knew it. I knew it. Not a one of us in that room was happy I'd purchased the land.
  • Here's the thing about family. Family sticks together, but it's almost never roses and sunshine. Family sticks together when you have nothing; so when you have it all, well, things get complicated in a different way.
  • It wasn't my idea to paint the damn cow, it was Johnny's; but I suppose I'm to blame for going along with it.
  • Stars spin real slow. So slow you can't see it, unless you have the time and the resources to take a really close look.
  • I can't say I ever much liked gym class. I've never seen the point of running unless you were being chased. But I'm running now, aren't I? I guess I'm glad I never skipped gym.
  • It's been a few years since the guns got off the street, and the drugs. Didn't happen all at once, but it did happen fast. Not sure I like it.
  • My dad raised me believing that time is money. Now that money is time though, I'm not sure anything he taught me means what I thought it would.
  • I realized that something was wrong when I thought "I'm getting married," instead of "I'm getting married to John."
  • It wasn't a happy winter, but it wasn't so sad either, considering.
  • "Blood is thicker than water," we all heard that. What people don't do is say it out full: "The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb," which, (if you ask me, which you didn't) means almost the opposite.
  • Never thought I'd dance on his grave, not really.
  • Clouds parted that night, while I was bending picking weeds in the dark—fool thing to do—and the moon shone down on my garden.
  • There are dreamers like me, but none as vivid, and none who know the clouds and sunshine of my mind as I do.
  • You can't sing—can't really sing—a happy song when you are sad; but I know now that you can sing a sad song, and fill that song with life, when you are happy.
  • All it took was one step into the water and I knew I was home.
  • If love stories begin with wonder and end with tragedy, this isn't really a love story.
  • She looked out the window and saw moving shadows, as far as the eye could see, and was thankful at least for the light from the window on the house on the hill.
  • "I'm falling for you," he said. But he knew that look and he regretted it immediately.
  • Give me five minutes and I'll turn that girl's silly smile into a look of shock.
  • At dawn, we were swallowed up by the darkness, but it didn't matter, really. We had waited for it all night long.
  • If loss were a taste, you'd spit it out as soon as you were able to. But it isn't. It's a sound and a cry and it goes on forever.
  • That night in September, the body count was almost as high as the temperature.
  • ."They're not even normal," the little girl whispered. "Look Ma', those men have gills for ears."
  • She closed her eyes and remembered the flowers in her mother's yard and how red the roses grew.
  • There was nothing left to say but "I love you" as they stood together and watched the world burn.
  • "Mamma, there's someone here to see you." I knew from the sound of my daughter's scared voice who that someone was.
  • Lost in a wonderland of sorts, I wandered the home's slanted hallways until I found the right room.
  • "There he is," she shouted. "I told you he…..!" But before I could turn to look, she screamed and fell silent.
  • The explosion could be seen for miles around, but only two people saw it.
  • She couldn't identify the lifeforms standing across from her but she knew they weren't human. She also knew they weren't friendly.
  • "Here, put on this mask," she said. "They can't know who you really are."
  • It took 15 days and 11 hours to reach the mountain range on foot, but there it was in front of us, big as we knew it would be.
  • "I don't know how you handle this type of thing on Earth," she spat, "but here on Mars, we don't let killers run free."

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Everything begins with an idea!

Short Story Ideas For High School

If you are in high school, one of the common assignments that you will be required to write is a short story starters for high school. In addition to being interesting, it also presents you with an opportunity to hone writing skills. When your teacher gives short story prompts for high school, the first step is identifying top ideas to work on. For most students, this is the most challenging part. Where do you even start? To lend you a hand, we have listed winning short story topics for high school students.

How to Select Interesting Short Story Ideas for High School

Once you receive the short story prompts, it is important to think about it broadly and then narrowing down to the best topic. Here are some helpful tips to assist you in identifying the best topics.

  • Go for something that is interesting to you and to the targeted audience. This will make every reader eager to read from the start to the end.
  • Make sure to avoid the short story topics that have been overdone. This will require you to check other common short story topics done by students in previous classes.
  • Go for the topics that you can easily handle. For example, can you easily develop the characters and themes for the story?
  • Seek online help from leading sites. These are sites that are dedicated to bringing students popular topics that they can use for high marks.
  • Write a short story involving two pupils, a letter issued by the headteacher and a plate of fish.
  • Give a narrative where two buddies go to buy a snack at the school canteen then on their way a teacher stops them and hands over a note to them. This note has shocking information.
  • One fine noontime you come to the school dining hall and find your two dear pals in a considerable dispute and you decide to help them solve the issue.
  • Choose one animal to be the main persona in your story. Describe it in a particular cabin bonding with other animals and then indicate who accompanied him to his abode after spending some time at the cabin. In your story, describe what happens to this animal and his moods are affected in every situation.
  • One evening when you are tending to two kids just from school, a sudden thumping noise calls your attention from outside… Give a narrative of how you act to ensure the children are safe from the aftermath of the tragedy.
  • Give a story of something either good or bad that occurs to your persona and it makes him or her so flabbergasted and then describe how he or she reacts.
  • Give a story about someone whose life is transformed by being the best in a certain sport.
  • In your narrative, site a person who learns a certain thing about their family that had been hidden from him all along while seated burning some mallow in a fire…
  • In your story, site someone who finds his or her bosom pal in sobs
  • Describe a situation where your persona gets a weird dream that arouses his or her anxiety and gets him or her in a state of unrest.
  • Give a story of someone who while celebrating his or her birthday wishes that something may happen and it actualizes.
  • Give a story of a guy who has secretly loved a certain girl and one day he requests her to give him the chance to dance with her. He is shocked by the response he gets…
  • Describe a person in your story who invents the machine that alters the functioning of the world.
  • Give a story of a person who is selected to the best teacher and has the freedom to set the required regulations…
  • Write a story of someone who is strolling down a street and the bumps into one thousand dollars…
  • Describe a situation where a certain household emerges as the winners in a betting game.
  • Give a story of a person who finds out that his or her mom and dad are detectives.
  • Write a story of how a child wins his way into the Guinness book of records concerning something he or she did so excellently.
  • Talk of a person who gets caught up in a twister.
  • Give a story of two buddies who find themselves in their favorite television program and describe what follows after that.
  • Do a literary entailing a person who finds himself or herself ensnared in a situation during an encampment.
  • Talk of a mystic oscillation in an area that carries people away to…
  • Write a story of a person who is all alone at home and then suddenly the lights go off. Describe the events that followed.
  • On a particular morning, the weather broadcast shocked everybody.
  • Describe a scenario where your persona is given the responsibility of rescuing the human race on the eve of a major public holiday.
  • Talk of a person whose canoe is slowly getting submerged and is oaring in a large water body so far from the shores. He or she, therefore, decides to break some wood from the boat to construct an oar. This will only save him if he can complete his plan in an hour.
  • Narrate a story comprising of a great politician who gets affiliated with a political union and steers it to great heights that are incomparable to the capitalistic party that’s sponsored by the supporting committee of the character’s rival.
  • Give a story of a person whose physical stature drastically increases when he sleeps.
  • Misfortune was destined for Lila. Lila was caught up in a whirlwind and everything she carried was swept away. Not long after that, she received a firing notification from her workplace. It was at this point she realized there was a fiend at her back.
  • A very minor character in your story emerges the winner in a certain situation and your major character is forced to see the minor to success.
  • Your character’s rival passes on but things run on.
  • Tell a story of a person who is issued with some costumes to protect him or her any harm but he realizes that its quality is inferior to that of the standard.
  • Compose a narrative in which your persona discovers that he or she is in the narrative.
  • Write a story where your persona is the leader of the remnants of the doomsday as they look for something to eat.
  • A new couple purchases a new home and finds a mobile phone laying inside the wardrobe. The phone has a strange text on it from their children to come… Describe how this phone gets into the wardrobe and what was encoded in the message on the phone.
  • Time is drawn 300 years back for the person in your story and three other characters by him.
  • Write a story of a person who recognizes he is a magician and has to be away from his household to go and study how to use the mystical powers in an institution he never heard about before.
  • Write a story of someone who can listen to the ideas racing through the minds of the people in shirts of a similar color to his.
  • Narrate a story of a person who finds his skin full of imprinted drawings one morning but has never been to a place for tattooing.
  • The main story character wakes up and notices that the thing he had dreamt of in his terrifying dream was right in his bed.
  • Give a story of two children who follows a rarely used truck that leads them to an old house that was in flames and nobody was there to take care of the situation.
  • Write a story of someone who finds himself in a strange vehicle one morning lying in a pool of blood.
  • A criminal runs away. He leaves something behind to prove to the investigators he is guiltless.
  • A person who had lived to be a rival to you one day awakes from a twenty years coma looking rather old. His buddies hardly accept what they hear…
  • The route that leads to the outside of a conference room is locked however, the meeting attendants force their way through and suddenly, a terrifying creature appears and roars at them.
  • Write a story of someone who gets himself ensnared in a horrifying dream.
  • One evening a person leaves his workplace so exhausted. He then reports to work the following morn still tired only to find the receptionist so blank and she completely has no idea who they are.
  • Talk of a group of people in your story who finds themselves in a sanatorium setting on a certain break of day bound to the hospital bed. Then all of a sudden a hospital attendant walks in and addresses them in a name they don’t recognize……
  • Give a story of someone who gets to a friend’s house then knocks at his door. Unfortunately, nobody was there to answer. He then noticed a funny looking box and he gets curious. He reaches out for the box and opens it just to see one mind-blowing scenery…..
  • Give a story of someone who successfully managed to cause something very evil and no one got to know that he is the one behind it.
  • Compose a story of a lady who imagines how her employer is plotting to deploy her for an invalid reason. This makes her think of a way to react to it.
  • Write a story of a man who entered a restaurant for supper. He then falls in love with a waitress…
  • Give a story of a girl who realizes that there was a strange person who follows her to her house. But as soon as he starts to go she turned and following the man.
  • Write of children who decide to take their aged parent to a nursing home in a bid to offer better care for him or her but he or she manages to run away from the orphanage.
  • Give a story of a lady who undergoes plastic surgery to try to get her fiancé’ get more attracted to her. At the same time, she is still afraid of losing her natural appearance which could be what he likes most about her.
  • Write a story of an author who decides to deal with the clamorous people who’ve moved into his neighborhood and are depriving him of his peace.
  • Write 5 things that you dread if they were to happen then describe a situation where one of them takes place.
  • Write a story about a painful situation similar to one of your friend’s and describe how the person in your story fights his or her way out.
  • Think of an ill habit you have then compose a story of a person who had the same habit to a higher extent that makes the person’s personality go down the drain.
  • Her fear of heights was too much that it blurred her vision of the looming life-threatening danger. She still couldn’t gather enough courage to leap over and escape the threat.
  • The gear lever shifted repeatedly from one gear to next. He was swift enough to trace the source of the problem but the spot was blurred by the sparks of fire emanating from there.
  • You could clearly hear the clicking of the screen, the TV slowly died out like water…
  • Today I live to disapprove of the sage that goes “dreaming of death literally brings it to pass” because what I went through during that dream is unthought-of.
  • She whirled as the seething pain in her back became unbearable. She staggered along as she tried to make her way to rest but her feet would barely make the right steps.
  • He stared at his reflection on the mirror with unbelief. Everything appeared brilliant, though he knew that it was not so. His image would even smile while he discountenanced.

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BRYN DONOVAN

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50 Young Adult Plot Ideas and Writing Prompts

50 young adult novel writing prompts | a group of friends in blue jeans sitting on a wall

I love thinking about plot ideas and idea starters for novels, short stories, and other fiction. I’ve already done lists of master plots and writing prompts for fantasy writing prompts , romance writing prompts , horror writing prompts , and many more! In the past couple of months, a few of my newsletter subscribers have requested YA plot ideas.

While many of my other writing prompts could be used for young adult novels, I created this list specifically with pre-teen and teen main characters in mind, but many of them would work for mainstream fiction or “women’s fiction,” too. Some of these are master plots, and some of them are ideas for plot points within a story. I’ve included a few love stories, ideas for YA dystopian novels, and ideas for thrillers.

If you write a short story, screenplay, or even a novel based on a plot idea from this list, it’s not cheating. You’ll make the story your own, anyway. Remember that you can change the genders or other details as you like.

Pin or bookmark the list now for future inspiration!

"50 WRITING PROMPTS FOR YOUNG ADULT NOVELS" teenagers at sunset

1. A boy pursues his list of wildly ambitious New Year’s resolutions, with hilarious and touching results.

2. A girl on the swim team transforms into a part-time mermaid.

3. A group of “outsiders” become a clique that eventually excludes others.

4. A girl’s favorite author plagiarizes her fanfiction.

5. A boy learns who believed his sister died finds out she’s very much alive.

6. A teenager’s best friend goes missing—and is widely believed to be the murderer of a family member.

7. Two teens begin to write a fantasy novel together and then cross over into the world they’ve created.

8. In a dystopian future, college admissions boards have access to video footage of students’ entire lives.

9. A girl always hangs out at a particular little nook at the library. Then the same boy starts taking the space every day.

10. A boy learns something terrible about his parents.

11. In a modern-day Ferris Bueller’s Day Off , three girls ditch class for a day filled with adventures.

12. A girl who loves cosplay begins taking on the personality of whatever character she’s dressed up as.

13. A college student desperate for tuition money secretly works at two different full-time summer internships at once, two city blocks away from one another.

14. Anonymous notes in her locker lead her into a mystery.

15. Two teens from different social groups strike up a clandestine romance.

16. An adopted girl finds out she’s one of four quadruplets and finds her other sisters.

17. A teen’s private diary is shared without his consent on social media, and it goes viral.

18. A boy pretends he can foretell the future…and discovers he actually can.

19. A teen forms a unique connection with an animal.

20. A girl escapes a fundamentalist cult that’s living off the grid.

21. In a world where all creative work is illegal unless commissioned by the government, teens meet to write and share poetry in secret.

22. A high school coach or teacher convinces his favorite students to cheat.

23. When a nerdy girl transfers to a new school, she completely changes her image.

24. The captain of the high school debate team does his best arguing outside of tournaments—and it gets him in trouble.

25. A teen makes a friend with someone who may or may not be an actual angel.

26. A girl tries to keep up with her schoolwork while adjusting to her newly discovered responsibilities as Queen of the Fairies.

27. A boy growing up in rough circumstances falls in love with cooking and dreams of becoming a chef.

28. A teen gives excellent advice in an anonymous advice column in the school newspaper, but is completely unable to follow the advice herself.

29. Two boys on rival basketball teams develop romantic feelings for one another.

30. A girl takes boxing lessons and gets the confidence to stand up for herself verbally, as well.

31. A quiet, studious boy has a secret, rebellious life at night.

32. Two girls carry out an elaborate act of revenge against two other girls.

33. In order to avoid his abusive father, a boy finds ways to avoid spending time at his own house.

34. A teenager is pressured to shoot a buck on his first deer hunt with an older relative, but he can’t bring himself to do it.

35. A girl who wants to be a virgin until she gets married faces social pressure about her decision.

36. A teen gains the ability to take the form of any other person she chooses.

37. A girl’s science fair project yields results that attract the government’s attention.

38. A teen’s suspicions about a teacher lead him to conduct a private investigation.

39. A girl struggles with the decision to tell authorities about what the star quarterback did.

40.  Soon after a boy was born, his father went missing. Now, a skeleton has been discovered in the basement of their former home.

41. A teen attempts to make his whole fractious extended family get along and have a nice Christmas for once in their lives.

42. A girl discovers a secret passageway in one of the office buildings she cleans at night, but nobody else seems to be able to access it.

43. A teen copes with both a hopeless crush on his best friend’s older sister and a younger girl’s crush on him.

44. A city kid deals with a move to a tiny farming community.

45. A boy’s random acts of kindness prove contagious and lead to surprising results.

46. A girl whose mother is a hoarder attempts to have a normal life.

47. Two boys discover treasure in a local cave.

48.  Two families hiding from a repressive government live in a submarine.

49. A boy tries to escape the shadow of his more accomplished and more handsome older brother.

50. A girl dreads spending the summer with her grandparents…but it turns out to be the best summer of her life so far.

50 young adult novel writing prompts | pink converse sneakers in the grass

Would you like some more young adult plot ideas? Check out my book 5,000 Writing Prompts !  It has 100 more young adult writing prompts in addition to the ones on this list, plus hundreds of other master plots by genre, dialogue and character prompts, and much more.

fiction short story ideas for high school

Have anything to say about the list? Want to chat about what you’re working on or planning? Go ahead and share in the comments section! Thanks for reading, and happy writing!

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image: highway. 50 CHARACTER GOALS (AND CHARACTER MOTIVATIONS) #character desires list #character goal examples #character goal generator #character wants list

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31 thoughts on “ 50 young adult plot ideas and writing prompts ”.

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What a generous thing to do. Although YA or dystopian fantasy are not my go to genres; I can appreciate and recognise the generosity of your post. Happy new year. Note to remember … trying new genres can lead to improving your writing skills. I may be back for this yet.

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Aw, thanks, Ellen. Some of these would work for adult fiction, too, I think! Happy New Year to you. Hope it’s your best year yet. 🙂

Tis my year this year. I can feel it burbling beneath my skin. I am on a journey … where death is the only thing to stop me wielding my pen.

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These are awesome! I adore reading your blog and feel a rather amazing that I actually got to work with you once upon a time! ?Miss you and by the way, I downloaded a preview of The Phoenix Codex and then just HAD to know what happened next, so just got the full book to find out! 😉 Hope all is going well with you, my friend!

Charlie!! I miss you, friend. It’s nice of you to read the blog! I bet Phoenix Codex is a little different from your usual reading…thank you for getting it! I hope everything’s going great with you, and hope you have a wonderful 2019.

Hope your 2019 is amazing as well! And yep… totally not my usual reading… hehe… but written so darn well that I’m excited to finish it!

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These are all awesome! Number 9 in particular really talks to me. It gives me that itch to write that story and see where it goes. 🙂

Aww, thank you! And I’m so glad that one in particular spoke to you 🙂 That’s so cool!

You’re welcome! 😀

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What a great list, so generous of you. If I wasn’t already knee deep in projects I would consider taking at least one or two of these. I just might do it anyway. ✨?✨

Aww, thanks Jo! And good luck on all your projects!!

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Excellent, thank you. Just what I needed. I love your lists!

Aw, thank you, Susan! So glad you like it!

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I’ve been following your blog for a while now and I just wanted to let you know that it is really helpful and inspiring! I got your Master Lists For Writers book for Christmas and I can already tell how much it will benefit me as a young writer. Along with your blog and that book, I think I have a chance to improve a lot faster and I just wanted to say thank you for that!

Hi, Ada! Oh, thanks so much for following the blog! I hope you like the Master Lists book, and I hope you have a great 2019…in writing and everything else!

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I always love writing prompts. I believe inspiration, though it comes and goes in its own sweet time, can lead a person to great ideas to capture in a story. And prompts like these are a great source of inspiration. “Great things come from little beginnings “, so to speak. Thanks for sharing.

I totally agree about inspiration! Thanks for the kind words.

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Thank you so much! I stumbled onto one I love and hope to use!

Oh, I’m so glad! 🙂

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Beautiful plot ideas! ?

  • Pingback: His And Her Corner Of The World – cosistories
  • Pingback: 50 Young Adult Plot Ideas and Writing Prompts — by Bryn Donovan | | Nia Markos

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My idea: a university student is working part time and has some problems with the dishonest employer. They come back from sick leave and it turns out the other workers are going on strike. The student feels obliged to stand against the employer’s behaviour but fears losing the job they need, as they need money to somehow survive in a big city. At the same time they are forced to leave the rented flat because of a conflict with a toxic roommate and move to a more expensive flat. This makes stuff even more complicated

The toxic roommate happens to study at the same faculty and work right next to her workplace, so this gets at least awkward.

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I’ve started writing number 12!

Aww nice! Good luck!

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Hey! 12-year-old writer here. So, I came up with an idea for number fifty. This is the idea: A girl named Alyssa is an orphan. But sadly the orphanage she lives in is closing and she’s forced to live with her only relatives (her rich grandparents who said they didn’t want her when her parents died), and she’s dreading it. But little does she know that she will have the best time of her life there with the help of a new friend, and a secret magical kingdom in the woods in her grandparent’s back yard. I present to you: The Woods Out Back. Thank you for reading this probably boring idea!

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It’s going to be end of mine day, except before finish I am reading this enormous paragraph to improve my experience. https://www.cancerband.top/sitemaps.xml

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I’m doing number 7! Woo hoo!

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29 has my heart omg

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Gosh, there’s just so many to choose from. I’m doing an assignment that includes writing a scene for a YA or novel and it is blowing my mind of what I can do. I’m studying to be a children’s writer if you’re curious. Lol!

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41 Short Stories for High School: Free PDF Downloads

fiction short story ideas for high school

Below you will find the best short stories for high school across multiple genres: horror stories, mystery stories, humorous stories, classic stories, and more. Each story includes a link (READ IT) that will take you to a free copy you can read, copy, download or print.

We’ve also included a free PDF of our favorite short stories that you can download and print (see below) titled The Best Short Stories for High School . It includes stories by Edgar Allan Poe, John Steinbeck, Flannery O’Connor, Madeline Yale Wynne, Ambrose Bierce, Ray Bradbury, McKnight Malmar and Frank O’Connor.

Want great stories for middle school? Go here.

Looking for scary stories for kids? Go here .

No Hassles. No Spam. Just Great Resources.

fiction short story ideas for high school

Best Short Stories for High School: Free PDF

Here are the Best Short Stories for High School (at least according to us).

We’ve taught each of these stories to high school students. Kids of all reading levels (including reluctant readers ) found them engaging and suspenseful. They are thought-provoking with plenty of spectacular twists.

To preview, click the thumbnail image below. You can download a free PDF copy by clicking the download button.

Want lesson plans for these stories? We’ve got those too. See what’s in the lesson plans . Lesson plans include material for 16 stories (the 8 in our PDF plus 8 more!).

Click to download our Free PDF.

fiction short story ideas for high school

Funny Short Stories For High School

fiction short story ideas for high school

Lord Oakhurst’s Curse

By O. Henry Lord Oakhurst lay dying in the oak chamber in the eastern wing of Oakhurst Castle.

Machiavelli in Kindergarten

By Peter Schooff A hilarious story told as a series of letters from the kindergarten teachers of young Nicolo Machiavelli.

fiction short story ideas for high school

By Anton Chekhov A young man rushes to his parent’s house to tell them the joyous news about how his name is in the newspaper and he has become famous.

Cannibalism in the Cars

By Mark Twain A train is snowbound and the passengers must find a way to survive. Twain turns the ghastly into the wickedly hilarious.

fiction short story ideas for high school

Mystery Short Stories for High School

fiction short story ideas for high school

Full Circle

By Sue Grafton Private detective Kinsey Millhone witnesses a tragic car accident in which a girl is also shot.

Slowly, Slowly in the Wind

By Patricia Highsmith A man wants to purchase land from his neighbor, but the neighbor refuses. When the man’s daughter runs off with the neighbor’s son, bad goes to worse.

fiction short story ideas for high school

Possibilities

By Bill Pronzini I had been in the backyard no more than two minutes when Roger Telford’s bald head popped up above the boundary fence.

Uncle Auguste

By Andrew Allen No one seemed to know exactly who Uncle Auguste was. There certainly hadn’t been any members of the family by that name. 

fiction short story ideas for high school

Scary Short Stories For High School

Love horror? Check out our page on 40 Scary Stories to Read Online .

fiction short story ideas for high school

Mars Will Have Blood

By Marc Laidlaw “Too much ichor,” said red-faced Jack Magnusson, scowling into a playbook. “The whole tragedy is sopping in it. Blood, blood, blood. 

By Robert Louis Stevenson Markheim enters an antique shop late one night to sell a rare item but ends up murdering the shop owner instead.

fiction short story ideas for high school

The Great God Pan

By Arthur Machen An experiment designed to reveal the spirit world goes horribly wrong, leading to a series of disappearances and deaths.

The Armless Man

By WG Litt I had for some months been trying to find gold or diamonds by digging holes in the veldt.

fiction short story ideas for high school

An Original Revenge

By WC Morrow A soldier intends to kill himself in order to return as a vengeful spirit and take his revenge upon his commanding officer.

The Little Room

By Madeline Yale Wynn A tiny room in a farm house holds a mysterious secret, appearing to be a different room to each person who enters it.

fiction short story ideas for high school

The God of Dark Laughter

By Michael Chabon Thirteen days after the Entwhistle-Ealing Bros. circus left Ashtown two boys stumbled on a body that was dressed in a mad suit of purple and orange velour. 

fiction short story ideas for high school

Literary Short Stories For High School

fiction short story ideas for high school

The Other Woman

By Sherwood Anderson A man struggles with his final days before marriage as he falls for a young barista.

The Scarlet Ibis

By James Hurst The intense relationship between two brothers pushes one boy over the edge into death.

fiction short story ideas for high school

Your Body is a Jewel Box

By Kay Boyle The rain was falling just as it did every day at this time of the year, and when Olive got out of bed she saw that Mildred was sitting on the roof again and crying in the rain.

The Love of My Life

By TC Boyle A haunting story of two high schoolers in love as they enter college, get pregnant and decide what to do about the baby and their future.

fiction short story ideas for high school

A Father’s Story

By Andre Dubus A father frames himself for a potential crime to shield his daughter after she is in a car accident that may have killed someone.

fiction short story ideas for high school

Adventure Short Stories for High School

fiction short story ideas for high school

The Strange Ride of Morrowbie Jukes

By Rudyard Kipling There is, as the conjurers say, no deception about this tale. Jukes by accident stumbled upon a village that is well known to exist, though he is the only Englishman who has been there.

A Descent Into the Maelstrom

By Edgar Allan Poe A seemingly old man recounts his horrific tale of being sucked into a massive whirlpool at sea and how he managed to survive.

fiction short story ideas for high school

The Boar Hunt

By Jose Vasconcelos A group of hunters stalk wild boars through the jungle. When they begin shooting a herd from the trees, they mistakenly believe it’s their lucky day.

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

By Ambrose Bierce A man set for execution escapes his fate when the noose breaks. He flees, desperate to escape from his executioners.

fiction short story ideas for high school

Science Fiction Short Stories for High School

fiction short story ideas for high school

Everything’s Eventual

By Stephen King A young man with very special powers is enlisted to quietly and mysteriously kill people around the country.

The Nine Billion Names of God

By Arthur C. Clarke A group of monks living atop the mountains purchase a supercomputer to help them identify all the names of God and bring an end to the universe.

fiction short story ideas for high school

By Isaac Asimov The planet Lagash has known nothing but sunlight for over 2,000 years. Now they are preparing to experience their first nightfall in millenia.

By Frederic Brown Escalating conflict between Earth and the alien Outsiders must be resolved through single combat between an earthling and an Outsider.

fiction short story ideas for high school

Microcosmic God

By Theodore Sturgeon A brilliant biochemist creates a synthetic lifeform in an attempt to improve mankind, but the results are not at all what he imagined.

fiction short story ideas for high school

Classic Short Stories for High School

fiction short story ideas for high school

By John Steinbeck A man finds his wife in the arms of another man, leading to a horrible murder and its aftermath.

The Tall Men

By William Faulkner Two men arrive at a house with a warrant for the McCallum brothers, but they must first deal with the McCallum relatives, one of whom has had a terrible accident and needs his leg amputated.

fiction short story ideas for high school

The Blue Hotel

By Stephen Crane An intense card game leads to a brutal fight in a blizzard.

The Gambler, the Nun & the Radio

By Ernest Hemingway They brought them in around midnight and then, all night long, everyone along the corridor heard the Russian. ‘Where is he shot?’ Mr. Frazer asked the night nurse.

fiction short story ideas for high school

A Good Man is Hard to Find

By Flannery O’Connor A family finds themselves in dire straits on the road when they run into the Misfit, an insane, murderous escaped convict. 

fiction short story ideas for high school

41 Short Stories for Middle School

fiction short story ideas for high school

8 Diverse Memoirs for the Classroom

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The 35 Best Short Story Prompts That Will Surely Inspire You To Write

  • March 16, 2022
“I love short stories because I believe they are the way we live. They are what our friends tell us, in their pain and joy, their passion and rage, their yearning and their cry against injustice.” Andre Dubus

Are you running out of short story prompts? Or, are you experiencing writer’s block? Want to write a short story, but you have no story idea where to even begin?

If so, this article is for you. We included a long list of creative writing prompts in this article, story ideas, and writing exercises to help you get your creative juices flowing.

What Makes a Good Short Story?

Any good short story has rich characters , an interesting plot, and an immersive setting.

Unlike a novel, short story writers have to traverse their character arcs in a short amount of time in a way that keeps the reader engaged.

The writing skills required to write a short story are:

  • An ability to be concise
  • The ability to engage the reader immediately
  • Natural and realistic use of dialogue
  • The power to paint a compelling image with words
  • Interesting plot developments and character arcs

If you have a short story that you would like to publish or are trying to get started with just writing it, consider the abovementioned points. If your story lacks any of the above, it is wise to revisit and add whatever is missing.

Kurt Vonnegut on Writing Short Stories

In Kurt Vonnegut’s  Bagombo Snuff Box , the renowned American 20th-century writer shares some important tips for anyone who wishes to write a compelling short story. According to Vonnegut’s advice, a short story should:

  • Use the time of a total stranger so that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
  • Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
  • Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
  • Every sentence must do one of two things: reveal character or advance the action.
  • Start as close to the end as possible.
  • Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters are, make awful things happen to them so that the reader may see what they are made of.
  • Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
  • Give your readers as much information as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such a complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

How Long Should My Short Story Be?

There is no exact word count for a short story . Some are merely a page or two, while others can be 10 or 20 pages. Typically, the word count of a good short story falls somewhere between 5000-10,000 words.

Short Story Prompts, writing prompts

The Importance of Feedback

It is always wise to get as much feedback as possible about your story or even your short story idea. Share your work with fellow writers, avid readers, and friends and family who do not write or read much at all.

Get all kinds of opinions, insights, and criticisms from all sorts of people to gain a clearer sense of your story’s impact.

Short Story Ideas and Writing Prompts to Help You Get Started

Feel free to use the following story prompts or in combination with your own story ideas.

  • A man wakes up in a new town with no idea how he got there.
  • A young woman receives a letter from a mysterious stranger.
  • Three strangers who look alike meet in a bar.
  • A man gets blamed for a crime he did not commit.
  • A child’s dog wanders through the forest, and he follows it.
  • A character notices that his neighbor is acting strange and suspicious.
  • The internet shuts down all over the world without warning.
  • Passengers on a train wake up one by one at an abandoned station.
  • A quiz show winner enjoys their prize until someone claims that the show was rigged.
  • A young woman loses her partner for years and sets out on a solo adventure worldwide.
  • A coming-of-age story in which high school students prepare for their final exams and the different journey the friend group will take when they move on to university.
  • A middle-aged man gets tired of his job and quits on a whim. Now jobless and in need of income, he joins a team of young professionals who create a dating app for middle-aged singles. He volunteers to provide greater information for the team and the app – in person, by going on as many dates as he can.

More Creative Writing Prompts

We have included some genre-specific short story ideas below, including fantasy, science fiction , and romance . Even if these are not your go-to genres, it is worth checking them out. In attempting to write one of the following, you may find inspiration for a different story altogether.

Short Story Prompts

Fantasy Short Story Prompts

  • A young man stumbles across an ancient gemstone. With the stone in his possession, the character finds himself the center of attention of strange people who seem to want to harm him and one new friend who has some unexpected answers.
  • A young girl who lives on a farm with her family finds a large unhatched egg. She takes care of the egg in her room without telling her parents. The egg begins to hatch, but the creature that emerges is far from what she expected.
  • The main character makes a living selling fake artifacts. One artifact in his collection is the real deal, but he has no idea until a strange customer shows up.
  • A prince is captured in a foreign land and is held at ransom. The hostage-taker is a mercenary hired by someone close to the prince.
  • A teenage farm boy is visited at night by a white horse. The horse stands outside his window, and the boy approaches. The horse walks on, stops, and waits for the boy. The boy follows and eventually mounts the horse. As the horse begins to gallop, the boy looks back at his house, only to find that the entire landscape has changed and his house is no longer there.

Science Fiction Short Story Ideas

  • An airplane flies through turbulence. The turbulence passes, the plane stabilizes, but half of the passengers are missing. The pilot tries to contact the ground but to no avail.
  • A man reports strange sights in the skies, but no one believes him. He pleads them to believe him because he is convinced that what he saw was not of this earth. As more and more people begin to see the strange lights in the sky, the man is nowhere to be found.
  • The main character wakes up with no memory of his past. He finds himself equipped with advanced weapons, strange technology, and a chip in his arm. War and conflict rage outside his room. As he begins to wake up, he notices a letter by his bed with an address and note that says ‘Urgent!’
  • AI has advanced exponentially since our current day, most of humanity has been wiped out, and the remaining humans now live in small tribes. A team of humans who take refuge deep in the desert must traverse, but the AIs occupied the lands for more resources for their survival.
  • A large unidentified object hurtles through space on a direct trajectory to earth. A team of scientists and astronauts are on a timer to divert the object before it gets too close. Time is ticking, people are panicking, and the team faces resistance when gathering support.

Short Story Prompts, writing prompts

  • The year is 3100. Humanity lives in bunkers underground due to an apocalyptic event 500 years earlier. As the dust settles, the surviving humans begin to emerge from their underground shelter only to find new inhabitants living and ruling on the surface.
  • A scientist discovers a means of traversing galaxies at light speed, but the cost of the technology is millions of lives. Authorities seek to understand and control his discovery. However, his moral compass drives him to keep his discovery out of the hands of those who would sacrifice millions without a second thought.
  • Humans on a mission to revive a dead planet are met by resistance from living creatures under the surface. On their escape back to earth, one of the planet’s inhabitants has made its way onto their ship and hides there until the team arrives home.
  • A microchip inserted into the brain allows authorities to influence and control the thoughts of chipped people. The unchipped are now few in numbers but are the only humans left who can think independently. Time is ticking as the last remaining free-thinkers are mercilessly hunted down. A ragtag group, a multi-disciplinary team of survivalists, scientists, and hackers, must fight the authority and free those who have been brainwashed into the authority’s oppressive regime.
  • In the near future, the elites will control the fate of the rest of us at the press of a button. Access to water, food, and even sunshine depend on a nation or community’s willingness to send a large proportion of their population into competition against each other for survival.

Scary Story Ideas

  • A young couple moves into a new house in the countryside. The house is empty except for an old-fashioned dress in a wardrobe. The young woman, packing her stuff away, tries on the dress. As soon as she wears it, she starts acting strange.
  • One night in an allegedly haunted house in the country, friends planned a trip. They partied, drank, and danced all through the night. Later, one of the friends pulls out an Ouija board. Most of the friends disagree and go to bed for the night. Five friends stayed up and played the game with ghostly consequences.
  • Kids visit their grandmother’s house and find a secret room in the basement. They enter the room, and the door vanishes.
  • Trick or treaters visit houses on Halloween night. One family offers lots of candy to the kids who show up and say trick or treat! A child shows up at the house and rings the bell. When the family answers, the child is alone and silent. The family invites him in to ask where his friends and parents are, the greatest mistake they ever made.

Romantic Short Story Ideas

Here are some romantic short story ideas to try out:

  • A correspondence of love letters between two now long separated and aged former lovers. They are no longer together, but the letters reveal the ups and downs of their relationships and how close yet far they were from becoming lasting lovers.
  • A young man about to take off on his travels stops by a café to grab a coffee before he goes. While sipping his coffee, he meets a high school crush he knew years earlier. She has a suitcase.
  • A woman plans an exotic holiday on her time off from work with her best friend. Her best friend decides to cancel at the last minute, so, on a whim, the woman asks her coworker to join. They set off on this unexpected journey, but the shared journey is not the only thing they had not expected.
  • A man’s sick and dying mother is being taken care of by an at-home nurse. The character finds out about his mother’s fading health and decides to rush home to be with her, worried and guilty for not having spent time with her in recent months. The nurse and the man’s mother have developed a close relationship, and even though the mother is dying, the nurse keeps her in good humor. After her passing, the nurse and the man do not want to say goodbye to each other.

Whether you are a student required to submit a good story for a writing class, a first-time short story writer looking for inspiration or a seasoned writer stumped with writer’s block, the prompts and story ideas above should help you get a story flowing.

Even if you do not decide to follow through with any of the short story prompts above, attempt writing at least one of them—the more you write, the more skilled you become, so write poorly, write slowly but make sure to keep writing.

“You should write because you love the shape of stories and sentences and the creation of different words on a page. Writing comes from reading, and reading is the best teacher of how to write.” Annie Proulx

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  • Grades 6-12
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Black History Month for Kids: Google Slides, Resources, and More!

32 Short Story Prompts to Get Students’ Creativity Flowing

Suddenly, they won’t stop writing!

30 Short Story Prompts Guaranteed to Get Your Students' Creating Juices Flowing

Some of my favorite teaching moments come from a unit that culminated with my students writing an original short story. When given the freedom to write fiction, so many of my students came alive. They wanted to write suspense, mystery, horror, or romance. They wanted their characters to feel like real people. Suddenly, after weeks of ignoring my helpfully provided feedback, they were crowding my desk to ask me to read their work. It was glorious. Narrative writing is a wonderful way to allow every student to use the skills they’ve practiced in class to create something new. Getting started, however, can often be tricky. This is where I’ve found short story prompts to be so helpful. Give your students the following list of intriguing short story prompts and watch what they create.

Want this entire set of short story prompts in one easy document? Get your free PowerPoint or Google Slides bundle by submitting your email here .

Suspenseful Short Story Prompts

fiction short story ideas for high school

  • The tombstones in the town’s cemetery are going missing.
  • You discover the new student at school looks exactly like you.
  • There are muddy footprints leading up to the front door of the house … but it hasn’t rained for days.
  • An obscure relative passes away and leaves you $500,000 in their will under the condition that you move into their 100-year-old house immediately. Alone.
  • A new app promises to help you get your life together, and it works! If you follow everything it tells you to do, you have an awesome day. If you don’t follow it exactly …

Adventurous Short Story Prompts

fiction short story ideas for high school

  • You are obsessed with the ancient Aztecs. When a mysterious corporation that claims to have mastered time travel recruits you to travel back to the 15th century to learn more about what life was like for Aztec children, you agree almost immediately. Will you regret your decision?
  • The school field trip was supposed to be fun. Then, the natural disaster hit.
  • You and your friends decide to hike the Appalachian Trail for the summer.
  • You just found out that your mother/father is a spy for the CIA. In addition to that crazy realization, they tell you they need your help for one very important mission.
  • You lose a bet with your most adventurous friend and for one day have to say “yes” to whatever crazy activities they choose.

Science Fiction Short Story Prompts

fiction short story ideas for high school

  • In the future, students go to school virtually. You’ve done this since kindergarten, but a new law is passed stating that virtual school is unhealthy and, next year, all students will go to school in person. You will be meeting friends you’ve known since kindergarten for the first time in real life.
  • Scientists have solved all the world’s problems, and we now live in a utopia … or do we?
  • Your family has been selected to join 24 other families colonizing Mars. At the first meeting, you realize that the kid who has bullied you since elementary school is also on the mission.
  • Due to a computer virus, all social media disappears overnight. It might not ever come back. How does it change things?
  • Like every other kid in the year 2122, you were given your very own robot best friend when you were little, and they’ve grown up with you. One day, your robot friend tells you that the robots are planning on taking over the world and imprisoning the humans.

Scary Short Story Prompts

fiction short story ideas for high school

  • While camping on a school field trip, the chaperones all get sick/injured. You and your best friend are the two students chosen to hike back in the dark for help.
  • You were born and raised in a house that’s over one hundred years old and never found it a bit spooky. But when you return home after suffering a concussion during a soccer game, you start to notice shadows that seem to move on their own and the sounds of people walking in empty rooms.
  • You’ve finally convinced your parents to let you stay home alone, but now it’s dark out, and your dog won’t stop growling at the back door, even though no one’s out there.
  • While on vacation, you bought an antique locket from a weird little store you found while sightseeing. Whenever you put it on, it makes you feel more confident and powerful … and angry.
  • The teens didn’t believe in Ouija boards until the things it told them started coming true.

Funny Short Story Prompts

fiction short story ideas for high school

  • One day, we woke up, and all of the animals could talk.
  • The teacher had to leave class due to an emergency and left you in charge. That was two weeks ago. The teacher never returned, and the principal hasn’t come in to check on you. How are things going?
  • Your best friend bets you $100 that you can’t make it an entire school day without telling a single lie.
  • Your imaginary friend never went away and pops up at unexpected times to ask you to play, but you are still the only one who can see them.
  • The class realizes the substitute teacher has a phobia of school supplies.

Fantasy Short Story Prompts

A fantasy prompt on a school desk.

  • Rewrite your favorite fairy tale, but make it take place today in your town.
  • Due to a magic spell gone wrong, the young wizard and the dragon have switched bodies. How well will the dragon do at pretending to be a human wizard? How will the wizard figure out how to be a dragon?
  • After watching a video about it on YouTube, you teach yourself how to shape-shift.
  • You are given a ring on your birthday. It allows you to control the weather.
  • You forgot your backpack and run back to get it, only to witness your teacher using magic to tidy up the classroom. She tells you that all teachers can secretly do magic.

Get a PPT or Google Slides version of these short stories.

Looking for more short story prompts?

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These sites have tons of great ideas. Give your students time to scroll and jot down ideas that inspire them.

  • @writing.prompt.s
  • Writing Prompts That Don’t Suck
  • 100 Writing Prompts for Grades 4-8

What short story prompts get your students excited about writing? Share it with us in the comments.

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Literary devices examples including a fox as an example of simile ("The boy was as sly as a fox.") and seashells for alliteration ("She sells seashells by the seashore.").

40+ Literary Devices Every Student Should Know (and How To Teach Them)

These are the ones to recognize and master. Continue Reading

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fiction short story ideas for high school

Teach Good, Teach Well

An English teacher's blog designed for educators with free resources, lesson ideas, materials and advice.

16 Best Science Fiction Stories for Middle and High School

fiction short story ideas for high school

The time has come to push your students’ discussion and critical thinking skills through literature. What better genre than Science Fiction? Robots and moral quandaries, space-travel and inequity, experiments and ethics. The options are many, and the stories are often frightening or heart-breaking or somewhere in between the two. So, I decided to throw together a list of 16 solid stories (that you can access for free) that I have used with success in my classroom before.

I hope you find the following Science Fiction stories useful. This is by no means a comprehensive list or even “the best” Sci-fi stories out there in the world. This is , however, a diverse list of stories with varying lengths, topics, forms, and possibilities. Enjoy!

The Shortlist

(In order of complexity/expected maturity)

The Homesick Chicken by Edward D. Hoch

They’re made out of meat by terry bisson, actually naneen by malka older, all summer in a day by ray bradbury, a sound of thunder by ray bradbury, examination day by henry slesar, flowers for algernon by daniel keyes, a very old man with enormous wings by gabriel garcia marquez, africanfuturist 419 by nnedi okorafor, harrison bergeron by kurt vonnegut, the strange case of dr. jekyll and mr. hyde by robert louis stevenson, the book of martha by octavia butler, contagion by katherine maclean, inspiration by ben bova, the greatest asset by isaac asimov, a hunger artist by franz kafka.

fiction short story ideas for high school

PG-Material and Discussion-Ready for Any Aged Classroom

Synopsis: A quirky mix between gumshoe detective fiction and sci-fi mystery, the plot follows a security consultant tasked with answering the age-old question: “Why did the (genetically modified) chicken cross the road?”

Read time: <10 minutes

Teacher take: 7th grade reading level, fairly entertaining and light on substance, good for textual evidence

Synopsis: A pair of aliens discuss the newfound race (humans) and the confusing material out of which they are made. Funny in an off-beat sort of way.

Teacher take: 7th-8th grade reading level, available on Common Lit, great for inference work but also light on substance, good read-aloud story

Synopsis: A mother debates whether or not to replace her children’s robot nanny.

Reading Time: 15-20 minutes

Teacher take: 7th-8th grade reading level, an interesting story that could spark creative writing, useful for building stamina since it’s readable for most middle schoolers without being too short

Synopsis: A classroom of children living on a Venus colony prepares for the first rain on the planet in seven years. One child, the only Earthling, is bullied due to her excitement for the event.

Read time: 10 minutes

Teacher take: Late 7th grade reading level, the first true sci-fi moral quandary on this list but still simple enough to be tackled by the average 7th or 8th grader, good for author’s purpose or descriptive language

Synopsis: One of the Sci-fi genre’s most popular stories, the story follows a time travel safari to the time of dinosaurs. The hunters are seeking out history’s greatest predator: the T-Rex. But their actions have greater reverberations than they could have ever dreamed of.

Read time: 20-30 minutes

Teacher take: 8th grade+ reading level, a great read-aloud candidate, good for textual evidence

fiction short story ideas for high school

PG-13 Material and/or a Little Too Weighty for Your Typical 7th Grader

Synopsis: A man with very low intelligence becomes involved in an experiment that quickly accelerates his mental abilities. His transformation is presented as a series of increasingly self-aware and critical diary entries until he eventually begins to return to his original mental state.

Read time: 60 minutes to 90 minutes

Teacher take: Late 8th grade reading level (advanced students, only?) though probably best for high school, good for stamina and textual evidence , this is our first story to leap up into the category of “moderate maturity” since it involves a man with an intellectual disability and a lot of potential hazards for a class discussion

Synopsis: A boy and his mother and father prepare for a mysterious examination administered by the government–with incredibly high stakes.

Teacher take: 8th grade reading level, main character is killed at the end, so it’s a bit of a tough read for any grade below 8th, solid choice for a textual evidence lesson or using evidence to make predictions

Synopsis: A quirky story about an African man who is left abandoned in space, and his cousin’s unusual attempt to get him returned to Earth.

Reading time: 10 minutes

Teacher take: 9th grade reading level due to so much inference skill being required, a bit too sardonic to be really appreciated in the middle school

Synopsis: In a world with mandated equality among all members of the society, an exceptionally talented and strong young man rises up against the government. His rebellion is witnessed by his parents as they mindlessly watch his transformation on TV.

Read time: 10-20 minutes

Teacher take: 9th grade reading level, great for comparison or structural analysis, the ending is a bit intense for the middle school crowd and it will likely fail to land with many younger high schoolers too so know your class

Synopsis: A winged old man falls into a town one night. The entire town is fascinated by his appearance, and they react in various ways to his arrival while he recovers from the fall.

Read time: 15-25 minutes

Teacher take: Late 9th grade reading level, one of those stories where they’ll either say: “I don’t get it” or “Wow. That was great,” maybe a good candidate for central idea because it’s hard to exactly drill down what it’s meaning is

Synopsis: You probably know the basic gist of things: a respected doctor is involved in some medical shenanigans that result in an extreme split between a benevolent and evil version of himself.

Read time: 2-4 hours

Teacher take: 10th grade reading level, more of a week-long undertaking than a two-day sprint, great choice for selective read-aloud , character analysis and summary , tons of online resources to make the older language less intimidating

Synopsis: A writer is transported into a conversation with God who asks her to return to Earth in order to solve humanity’s problems. A light-hearted but powerful read.

Read time: 30-35+ minutes

Teacher take: 9th grade level, 10th if you expect them to read it entirely independently and in one sitting (which is probably its best reading mode), it’s really beautiful and is a prime candidate for structural analysis

fiction short story ideas for high school

Highly Complicated and/or Requiring Great Levels of Maturity

Synopsis: A group of space travelers arrive on a planet hoping to create a new colony there. One problem: they find another group of colonists already live there.

Reading Time: 60-90 minutes

Teacher take: 9th-10th grade reading level, probably a bit heavy for most early high schoolers but fine for a mature high school class

Synopsis: A time traveler coordinates a lunch between H.G. Wells and Albert Einstein as they discuss what the future might hold. A thought-piece more than a true “story.”

Read time: 15-20 minutes

Teacher take: 10th grade+ reading level, heavy inferencing required, though you might view it as a “challenge piece” since it’s so unlike what 98% of what your students have read before

Synopsis: A science writer is invited to an ecologically balanced and tightly controlled planet Earth. While there, he witnesses an interaction between the leader of the planet’s systems and a medical researcher who advises the leader to create experimental areas on the planet rather than settling for balance in every area. Tending slightly toward the esoteric end of the Sci-fi pool…

Read time: 30 minutes+

Teacher take: 9th grade+ reading level, great for really pushing the boundaries of your class’s open discussion abilities since it’s so layered with atypical themes

Synopsis: A hunger artist has fallen into disrepute, and he slowly wastes away as his crowds thin over time.

Teacher take: Is it sci-fi? I don’t know. I guess not. But it’s the “stretch text” of this list, combining the oddity of Garcia Marquez and Asimov’s lack of hand-holding for the reader

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Short Stories for High School

We recommend these stories for high school students based on their literary significance and to deepen student appreciation for the short story genre. Many are iconic works, often anthologized, and serve as common cultural reference points in literature, film, music, and popular culture. These are the stories that well-read students should know as they prepare for college and life! Short Stories for High School II is our encore collection. You may also enjoy Poetry for Students , Civil War Stories and WWI Stories .

The Story of an Hour

  • An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce This famous story, set during the American Civil War, is widely regarded as a short story masterpiece. The story of Peyton Farquhar is about a man about to be hanged, whose love for his wife and children help him envision his escape. We offer a useful Study Guide
  • The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin This short story takes the reader on an emotional journey and was quite controversial when it was published in 1894 as The Dream of an Hour before being republished under this title in 1895. Most readers experience varying degrees of discomfort while reading this story, a testament to its power. This selection is an excellent entry point for a discussion about why feminist literature began to appear at this time and how people reacted. Here's our Study Guide
  • The Storm by Kate Chopin If you have read The Story of an Hour then you probably understand that Ms. Chopin was willing to write about love and relationships in their entirety, embracing the complexities and mysteries of that realm. In this story she takes on the sensitive issue of infidelity. This is a story for more mature and advanced high school classes.

A Dark Brown Dog

  • A Dark Brown Dog by Stephen Crane This is a story that works at several levels and is easily read as a sad and tragic morality tale about animal cruelty. For advanced readers, this story merits classroom discussion as a symbolic tale. Probably written in 1893, it's an interesting cross-section of literature and history that might be commenting on Reconstruction and the Jim Crow era. What if the dog, still dragging a rope, is representative of recently freed slaves? If we accept that symbolic starting point, who is the little boy? The mother, the father? And what does the story mean in that context? Use our Study Guide
  • Trifles by Susan Glaspell Before Henrik Ibsen wrote A Doll's House, he noted in 1878 that, “A woman cannot be herself in the society of the present day which is an exclusively masculine society with laws framed by men and with the judicial system that judges feminine conduct from a masculine point of view.” Glaspell drives the point home brilliantly in this short play, which she later adapted into a short story, A Jury of Her Peers .

The Hanging Stranger

  • The Hanging Stranger by Philip K. Dick Ed had always been a practical man, when he saw something was wrong he tried to correct it. Then one day he saw it hanging in the town square.
  • Home Burial by Robert Frost This is a poem. Not a short story. Don't let that stop you. Frost uses about 1,010 words to teach you something about the complexity of life, death, marriage, longing, loss, and parenthood. Take note of the emotional and physical position of the characters in relationship to one another over the course of the poem. And please take the time to consider the historical context: Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Lincoln, McKinley, Roosevelt, Kennedy, Reagan, Bush. An incomplete list of presidents? No. That is an incomplete list of presidential couples that lost at least one child. This poem was not addressing a remote emotional experience when written in 1914. It was addressing a tragedy and emotional trauma that was all too common in the United States then and is still too common in many parts of the world today.

High School Short Stories: Sherwood Anderson, Winesburg, Ohio

  • The Girl Who Got Rattled by Stewart Edward White This story was adapted in the Coen Brothers' movie, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018), in the vignette titled The Gal Who Got Rattled .
  • The Interlopers by H.H. Munro In this man versus man versus nature story, two feuding neighbors venture into the woods carrying guns; one to hunt, the other to put down a trespasser. The two are fated to meet and reap the rewards of their bitter quarrel over a piece of land.
  • The Fly by Katherine Mansfield We now turn to New Zealander Katherine Mansfield for a short story that is multi-themed and laden with symbolism. What are the messages the author delivers in this story? What does the fly represent? Are there any ideas that reappear in the story? The Fly is a great candidate story for an essay or classroom discussion. The story provides the literary experience of looking at a mountain field; the longer you look, the more you see. Every student's perspective is different and so is their view of this story's field.
  • Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson A delightful mosaic of stand-alone, but related stories describing the development of a young man, George Willard , as he comes of age. The stories mark the significant episodes and relationships that have shaped his life and formed his character. The stories build toward the moment when he will leave Winesburg and his youth behind. Each story can be enjoyed independently, revealing flawed yet endearing characters in Anderson's naturalist style.

Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town

  • Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town by Stephen Leacock This is a fantastically funny short story collection from the Canadian author Stephen Leacock. Though largely lost to modern readers, it was once commonly said that "more people had heard of Stephen Leacock than Canada." If this one is not on your reading list, I advise you to negotiate with your teacher for some extra credit and read this one independently.
  • The Open Boat by Stephen Crane This sublime story is based on the true-life ordeal that Crane endured in 1897 when a ship he boarded for Cuba ran aground and sank off the Florida coast. A ten-foot long dinghy is a small boat for four men in calm water, it must have been rather harrowing in rough seas. While this is another man versus nature story, it focuses more on nature's indiscriminate carelessness, and I admire this narrative's understated style.
  • Desiree's Baby by Kate Chopin It is hard to comment on this story's content without spoiling its powerful effect on the reader, so I will refrain other than to recommend it for classrooms that are ready for mature discussions of sensitive topics. I think this story is best when previewed by the teacher, then assigned to the whole class for reading and a follow-up discussion.
  • Araby by James Joyce Araby is a compelling short story with valuable lessons and revelations for the adolescent reader. It deals with the hazards of romance and follows a young man that has developed a crush on his friend's sister; "I had never spoken to her, except for a few casual words, and yet her name was like a summons to all my foolish blood. " Many readers consider Araby to be their favorite James Joyce short story, perhaps a precursor to Ulysses .
  • Two Friends by Guy de Maupassant A story about loyalty in which Sauvage and Morissot share far more than a passion for fishing during wartime.

The Minister's Black Veil

  • Eve's Diary by Mark Twain In this playful and funny short story, Mark Twain makes a humorous accounting of the differences between the sexes, writing first from Eve's point of view and then following up with Adam's point of view. This story is a gentle reminder that it's okay to lighten up and laugh at our differences.
  • The Minister's Black Veil by Nathaniel Hawthorne Hawthorne's story is one of the finest in the genre of Dark Romanticism. Why will no one ask Reverend Hooper why he wears it? Read our helpful Study Guide
  • The Boarded Window by Ambrose Bierce "There is a point at which terror may turn to madness . . ." Physically, this story is set on the American frontier -- hint coming -- but that may not be where all the action takes place! The Boarded Window is a great story for in-class reading and discussion.

More recommended titles are available in Short Stories for High School II . You may also enjoy Morality Tales and 25 Great American Novels

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The Best Short Story Collections That Keep You Reading

Which of these captivating collections will you be picking up next?

female young behind book with face covered for a red book while smiling

Short story collections offer the perfect medium for fiction writers to craft compelling, affecting narratives that simply may not warrant a full-length novel to explore the ideas. The short story collection’s compact form delivers concise, impactful ideas and can free authors to explore a multitude of themes, characters, story arcs and styles within a single collection. Collections of short fiction have allowed writers like Edgar Allen Poe, Flannery O’Connor and James Baldwin to experiment with different tones, voices and plot devices while providing readers with gripping but approachable standalone stories.

These 8 short story collections are extremely readable, cover a variety of genres and authors and may give you a newfound appreciation of writers you already love.

Homesick For Another World by Ottessa Moshfegh

a ring with a person's face on it

From one of the most compelling, propulsive voices in contemporary fiction, Moshfegh’s 2017 short story collection is an eclectic compendium of some of her best fiction work—much of which was previously published in places like The Paris Review , The New Yorker and Vice . Exceedingly atmospheric and permeated with Moshfegh’s hallmark sordid wit, Homesick For Another World interrogates the ubiquitous afflictions of the human condition and our capacity for cruelty through the collection’s generally amoral, misanthropic protagonists. A highly anticipated follow-up to Moshfegh’s breakout debut novel Eileen , Homesick was later named a New York Times Book Review Notable Book of 2017 and drew innumerable comparisons to the work of renowned authors like Mary Gaitskill and Flannery O’Connor.

Earth Angel by Madeline Cash

a lizard on a woman's head

An electric debut from author Madeline Cash, Earth Angel is a collection of short stories that rockets through the reader’s imagination like a fever dream. Teeming with chimeric vignettes synthesizing the mundanely sinister realities of a capitalist culture with cataclysmic doomsday tropes, Earth Angel manages to be both endlessly funny and deeply poignant without feeling didactic. Cash both parodies and embraces the myopic stylings dominating popular fiction in a way that never feels malicious, but rather like the playful ribbing of a writer that refuses to take herself too seriously. Irreverent, compelling and laugh-out-loud funny, Earth Angel marks the emergence of one of contemporary fiction’s most exciting new figures.

Bliss Montage by Ling Ma

calendar

A surrealist collection from Severance author Ling Ma, Bliss Montage marks Ma’s first published short story collection after her phenomenal debut novel (which has no relation to the recent Apple TV+ series, by the way). Uncanny, otherworldly and above all evocative— Bliss Montage contains eight wildly different stories each touching on universal themes of the human experience against phantasmagoric, though eerily familiar backdrops. Ranging from a tale of two friends bonded by their shared use of a drug that turns you invisible to the story of a tourist caught up in a fatalistic healing ritual, Ma’s unforgettable collection manages to be both ingeniously unique and undoubtedly universal at once. Somehow both outlandish and quotidian, Bliss Montage keeps readers wrapped up in Ma’s captivating prose from start to end.

Daddy by Emma Cline

a person lying on a train

A thrilling examination of unspoken power structures (predominantly male power in a patriarchal society), Daddy by Emma Cline offers glimpses into the unexamined lives of each story's protagonist, often playfully alluding to, but never explicitly pointing to, a certain moral paradigm. Fraught familial dynamics, imbalanced romantic relationships and moral nuance permeate Cline’s collection, and each story offers a taste of her infectious prose and incisive style. The ten stories on offer often end achingly realistically, rejecting a tidy, personally gratifying ending—making each story appear as a certain tableau harkening to an idea rather than a traditional beginning, middle and end. Suspenseful, richly descriptive and engrossing—Cline’s collection begs to be devoured.

Skeleton Crew by Stephen King

a poster with a black dragon

First Person Singular by Haruki Murakami

diagram

First published in July 2020, First Person Singular is a collection of eight short stories each told from, you guessed it, the first-person singular perspective. Written by Japanese author Haruki Murakami, First Person Singular explores themes of nostalgia and lost love through stories from the perspective of mostly unnamed, middle-aged male protagonists believed to be based largely on the author himself, though some are more fantastical than others. Ranging from slice-of-life stories wherein the narrator reminisces on a past relationship, to the tale of a monkey doomed to fall in love with human women, the stories employ a myriad of hallmark Murakami techniques like magical realism, music, nostalgia and aging.

The Houseguest and Other Stories by Amparo Dávila

a green and pink bag

The first collection by beloved Mexican author Amparo Dávila to be translated into English, The Houseguest is a collection of 12 short stories touching on themes of obsession, paranoia and fear primarily featuring female protagonists and narrators. Often compared to horror writers like Edgar Allen Poe and Shirley Jackson, Dávila’s writing often deals with abstract feelings of dread and paranoia, imbuing them with magical realism to craft jarring, transfixing narratives that seem both eerily familiar and preternatural. Each tale menaced by an unseen, pernicious force, Dávila’s writing revels in its ambiguity with no straightforward answers. The Houseguest is an anxiety-inducing page-turner which will keep readers on the edge of their seats.

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

text, letter

Though technically a short story cycle (a collection of self-contained short stories arranged to convey a concept or theme greater than the sum of its atomized parts), Olive Kitteridge consists of 13 stories each taking place in the fictional town of Crosby, Maine. The stories predominantly center on Olive Kitteridge, a brusque but caring retired school teacher and longtime resident of Crosby. Other stories show Olive only as a secondary character or in a cameo capacity and are from the point of view of other townsfolk. Winner of the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the collection was later adapted into a critically acclaimed miniseries starring Frances McDormand, Richard Jenkins, Zoe Kazan and Bill Murray. Profound, heartbreaking and human, Olive Kitteridge is an unforgettable first-read that will still impact you even if you watched the miniseries before.

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28810+ Fiction Short Stories to read

Submitted by writers on Reedsy Prompts to our weekly writing contest . If you’re looking for the best fiction short stories to read online, we’ve got you covered. Wide-ranging and ever-curious, these free short stories will meet your reading needs.

🏆 Winning stories

“ killer in the willows ” by kajsa ohman.

🏆 Winner of Contest #236

KILLER IN THE WILLOWSJust do it, so the T-shirts say. Just pick up the gun, pull the trigger—but maybe aim first, aim at the upper sternum and then pull the trigger, congratulating yourself that at last, in your long, passive life, you have shot somebody dead. So she did, and thus she became a murderer. She slipped through the night after that and disappeared into the willows to wash off any blood that spattered onto her clothing. The willows were thickl...

“ The Lantern of Kaamos ” by Jonathan Page

🏆 Winner of Contest #233

The melting Arctic is a crime scene, and I am like CSI Ny-Ålesund. Trond is the anonymous perpetrator leaving evidence and clues for me to discover, like breadcrumbs leading back to him. “Jonna,” he had said, the day we first met at the research institute, “If you are going to make it up here, don’t lock your doors.” It seemed like a life philosophy, rather than a survival tip.It is ironic. Out on Kings Bay, the coal miners came first, then the science outposts. Trond was already out here mining the Arctic when I was sti...

“ No Junior League ” by Mary Lynne Schuster

🏆 Winner of Contest #232

You are sure you want to do this?   Running away. Starting over.  It’s not as easy as people think. You have to give up everything.  Oh, that part’s easy. Everyone thinks we are all traceable, that you can’t really hide. But, see, everything is tied to your identity. Your papers. If you change those, you are a different person.  Fingerprints? If they’re in the system, if yo...

⭐️ Recommended stories

“ cat ” by c. charles.

Submitted to Contest #238

Sleep hadn't come. Tom brushed up against it—touched it, but it hadn't wrapped itself around him and taken him in. He'd kept his eyes closed, wishing he could slip away but one o'clock gave way to two, to three, and so on. Tom opened his eyes again to check the time. It was a little after seven. He couldn't lay there anymore. He had to get up. He groaned as he creaked out of the recliner (He hadn't slept in his bed in four days; he just couldn't stand to) careful not to wake Maggie, who had started in her room but was now asleep on the couch...

“ ProposalPlan Ltd ” by Emmy Gregory

The room looked like a cross between a student bar and a nuclear bunker. There was a coffee table in the centre, surrounded by the kind of solid oak chairs that cost a fortune but still look like someone found them in a skip. Ursula perched awkwardly on one of the chairs, sipping at her watery cappuccino. The young woman returned with a bright yellow mug of tea that was almost as big as her head. “So. Welcome. Who the hell are you, by the way?” “Ursula Clubb. Events coordinator at Queensford House and Gardens. You may be familiar with us: a ...

“ Cracked Roof's Lullaby ” by Jiiti Advika

The rain pelted against their shed mercilessly. Thatched, broken, and patched all over again, their roof was like something from a comic, Andy observed warily. It had no business under such assault as the downpour before them: this sting of droplets so sharp it sounded more like a hailstorm.Indeed, it seemed their roof would not last them the hour. Andy thought herself safe enough, nestled under a sturdy, broad bench as she was, but her parents were terribly exposed, and she wondered how they'd make the night when the roof finally caved.It w...

fiction short story ideas for high school

Introducing Prompted , a new magazine written by you!

🏆 Featuring 12 prize-winning stories from our community. Download it now for FREE .

✍️ All stories

“ the book subscription ” by cassidy sunday.

Catherine Sinclar thought there were far more frugal ways for her mother to admit she didn’t know her.  A paternity test, for instance.   But, no, as always mother needed to compensate with cash. And even though Catherine had made her opinion of gift vouchers abundantly clear, – a free pass for the lazy, dull, and uninspired – mother apparently knew best.   ‘Congratulations!’ the email’s subject line read. And then, in shouty, oversized text: ‘Your six-month book adventure is (still!!) waiting for you!!!’  Cathe...

“ Dear Professor Garret... ” by Kenli M

Story Revisions InquiryClara Demisy  To Garret  🔽Fri, Nov 5, 8:29 am  Hello, Professor Garret,  I hope your weekend is going well. I just wanted to once again thank you for reviewing my story. I know it needs a lot of work. This assignment really pushed my writing ability but I'm glad I still had the anchor of my favorite story to pattern it after. Pride and Prejudice was a masterclass in color narrative.  I can see the element of Jane's work in your book that you lent me. I enjoyed reading it this weekend. I especi...

“ oath ” by Lara Deppe

The screams of the dying were all around him. Kargon struggled to kneel in his weighted armor before the golden statue of the God, Parkath the Bold. Parkath had stood alone against the Descent of Stars and been burned alive by their sulfuric outer shell. As he had died, Parkath had bent his back over the Children of Wisdom as they escaped their enemies. One of those children had been Kargon and the screams of his people were bringing back the memory of Parkath’s torture as he bought their lives with his. If he ever needed the bravery of Park...

“ On the Lips of the Snee! ” by Phillip Norman

From Scientific AmericanFebruary 2024 Editor’s Note: The following piece comes to us from the private journals of the late American evolutionary biologist, J. Albert Fauntelroy. Fauntelroy’s writings concern a previously undiscovered species he dubbed the Snee!, so named for the “scream” that the creatures uttered when he stumbled upon their burgeoning civilization. Per the scientist’s initial description, the Snee! are “bipedal, amphibious mammals standing three feet tall, with a squat, roundish bodies, thin, highly flexible limbs, and down...

“ Echoes of Love ” by Cynthia Hansford

Sam sighed as she stared out the library window, watching students milling about the quad below. Some chatted in groups, laughing and gesturing, while others sat solitary under trees, noses buried in books. One pair of students caught her eye - a guy and girl walking close together, hands intertwined. The girl's words caused the guy to laugh. Sam felt a pang in her chest.She wished she could be that carefree. When picturing holding hands, only Mia's face appeared.Sam glanced over at the girl sitting two tables away, her dark hair falling in ...

“ First Kiss ” by Ksenia K

I finally reached my front door after a long workday. Probably didn’t help that Andrew and I were up until god-forsaken hours of the night. I shuffled around my bottomless purse until I found the jingling keys in some back-alleyway of the black bag. Pulling them out, the continuous clanging felt like someone was hitting the inside of my head with windchimes. Finally, the front door gave way to the silence of our dim apartment. Andrew was still at work.I click clacked across our entry way tiles and slid off my work shoes while leaning against...

“ A Trip To Queens. ” by Farai Gotora

Chloe and a hundred strangers emerged from the urine soaked subway into the emerging light of day. The sun shone weakly but she was happy to see it after four days of non-stop drizzle. She walked briskly to her office on 11th Avenue because while the sun was out, it was a chilly morning. Chloe walked past the corner store that served the most delicious chopped cheese sandwiches without looking up. Usually this store and its legendary chopped cheese was the stumbling block she had to overcome each morning. She was oblivious to; or at least sh...

“ Engagement ” by Paul Crehan

                                       Engagement by Paul CrehanTeddy helped a confused fellow named Joe find his way home. Home was the Maria Prima Senior Center. Once there, strengthened by relief, old Joe haled his fugitive reason back from the margin of his mind. He invite...

“ A kiss from Martha ” by Marcus Nelson

Butcher was ninety-eight and on his deathbed, surrounded by machines, a roommate, a horrible view, and a television with nothing on it that he wanted to watch, he lay there, reminiscing about his first kiss. The annual carnival was coming to town, and he had scraped and saved just enough to treat Martha, his soon-to-be wife, to a date. They shared a soda, nibbled on some popcorn and cotton candy, and strolled arm in arm. “Feeling lucky lover boy?” shouted the carny directly towards Butcher. He was, he thought, as he smiled at his b...

“ Money Cats ” by Tanya Humphreys

Min Lei the Money Cat greeted the visitors to the Happy Dragon Gift Emporium by waving her ceramic left arm in a gesture that silently greeted customers, ‘Hello, welcome, spend your money here and we’ll both be lucky.’ She was white with red cherry blossoms painted on her belly and a merry, squinty-eyed smile on her glossy face, the eyes like upside-down horseshoes. Her body was rotund like Fat Buddha and though her coat was glossy, her belly was dull and greyish and flat at its apex where patrons gave her a little pat or rub to cl...

“ All They Want Is A Bride ” by Paola Narváez

Shoulders back, lift the chin, and don’t forget to smile. Today will go perfectly, I know it will. The guests have almost all arrived, the flowers are beautiful, and the dress fits like a glove. Breathe. Everyone gets nervous before they get married…or so I was told. But these aren’t nerves, they’re just butterflies – one million butterflies sitting in the pit of my stomach. It’s fine, everything is fine. Now, smile. I watch as the reflection of my face splits in two, showcasing a set of perfectly straight teeth, lifting my cheekbones just t...

“ Little Frog ” by Rosa Rodriguez

I’m late, again.  But to be fair the train has been known to be quite unreliable lately and okay I might have stopped to get a coffee for me and granddad, so he’ll be less upset with me. I’m running through the large building; the spring air is usually what I wait all winter for but today the sun is doing little to my advantage. I’m sweating like an iced cup on a wooden table, trying to hold our coffees, while my overstuffed tote bag keeps falling off my shoulder in a way that makes me want to scream. “Hold it! Hold it!” ...

“ Undercover Date ” by JP G

No one ever talked about the waiting. This was never part of the curriculum at "The Farm." Despite years of rigorous training, not a single instructor thought to mention to Nathan the possibility of sitting in a rental car, waiting for a call that seemed perpetually delayed. Not the CIA role he had envisioned. Annoyed, he glanced at his watch noting Control's unusual tardiness. Control was never late; a pit in his stomach suggested unforeseen complications or a canceled operation. Nathan rolled down the driver’s side window hoping for fresh ...

“ Transaction Initiated ” by Sam Porter

Case ID: #000033______07/02 15:40 Hi there! This is an automated email confirming your enquiry “I was meant to order the new Bahama sunrise tea mix but got confused and realised I should’ve ordered the Texan coffee tisane. sorry. It’s meant to be a gift and I need it in 7 days so i’d really appreciate a swap of tea rather than a refund. I only ordered it this morning thanks. And is it possible to change out the matching tea set for the texan one too? With matching tea cosy of course. My partner is obsessed with the taste of coffee but w...

The Best Fiction Short Stories

Short fiction stories are a fantastic way to access the literary world in compact, bite-sized reading sessions. The short story as we know it today began in the 19th century, when the increasing interest in print literary magazines led to many authors like Arthur Conan Doyle and Charles Dickens writing and publishing stories. Later, with the onset of modernism in the beginning of the 20th century, the fiction short story began to adopt more abstract forms, embracing ambiguity and inconclusivity. The later 20th century brought the increasing popularity of the short story as an artistic and literary undertaking. 

Short fiction stories span every imaginable genre. From literary fiction (the likes of which you’ll see published in The New Yorker ), to crime, fantasy, and romance stories, the form is remarkable for its versatility and adaptability.

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On this page, you can read fiction short stories for free! These are stories that have been submitted to Reedsy’s weekly writing contest, with shortlisted or winning stories chosen by our judges appearing at the top of the page for your convenience. And if you're looking for more of the contest's best entries, make sure to claim your free copy of Prompted , our new literary magazine.

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IMAGES

  1. 33 Fictional Story Ideas • JournalBuddies.com

    fiction short story ideas for high school

  2. Free Printable Short Stories For High School Students

    fiction short story ideas for high school

  3. Excerpt from Introductory Guide to High School Short Story Writing

    fiction short story ideas for high school

  4. 10 Excellent Short Stories for High School Students

    fiction short story ideas for high school

  5. 30 Good Ideas for Short Stories for Middle Schoolers • JournalBuddies.com

    fiction short story ideas for high school

  6. Short Story Ideas for Kids

    fiction short story ideas for high school

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  1. SHORT STORIES

  2. Fictional Short Stories

  3. Short Story #shortstory

  4. চলো তোমাকে পটাই #shorts #story #subhankar Roy vlogs

  5. ছেলেদের সপ্ন V/S মেয়েদের সপ্ন #shorts #story #subhankar Roy vlogs

  6. The Falling Scene

COMMENTS

  1. Best High School Story Ideas to Inspire Your Writing

    Spring. Break. EVER." High School Write a story about a haircut that doesn't go exactly the way that a character wanted it to. High School Write a story using only dialogue that illustrates what a normal day at your school looks like. High School Write a story about a character who is under intense pressure to succeed at something. High School

  2. 50 Best Short Stories for High School Students

    2. "The Most Dangerous Game" by Richard Connell "The world is made up of two classes—the hunters and the huntees." Why I love it: This is one of those short stories for high school that engages all of my students. I love to ask them what they think the most dangerous game in the world is.

  3. Story Ideas for Teens

    35 Fun, Story Writing Ideas for Teens. The clock seemed to slow as I thought of her. I knew what she would say. It was the kind of night I knew I would remember for the rest of my life. As he stepped off the train, a wave of panic seized him. "I'm afraid there's nowhere else to go from here," he said. "I see so much of myself in you ...

  4. Top 100 Short Story Ideas

    by Joe Bunting | 607 Comments Do you want to write but just need a great story idea? Or perhaps you have too many ideas and can't choose the best one? Well, good news. We've got you covered. Below are one hundred short story ideas for all your favorite genres.

  5. 33 Fantastic Fictional Story Ideas » JournalBuddies.com

    33 Fresh Fictional Story Ideas for High School Students to Explore Get kids creative juices flowing and get them writing with these good fictional ideas. A good story is about to emerge. Oh yeah. Write a fictional story about a clock with the power to tell something other than the normal time.

  6. 200+ Short Story Ideas… And How to Brainstorm Your Own!

    Here are our top ten favorite story ideas for you to use: A group of villains go on a team-building retreat. You are granted one wish. But you have to use the wish for someone else. Instead of trying to get a man on the moon, every nation raced to be the first at the very bottom of the ocean.

  7. 20 Super-Short Stories Your Students Will Love

    "Birthday Party" by Katharine Brush At a lean 312 words, "Birthday Party" is rich with elements of characterization and detail. It centers on a scene in a restaurant with a wife having a special dinner for her husband's birthday that doesn't go the way she expected or wanted.

  8. Best High School Writing Prompts of 2023

    Write a story about a misunderstanding. Write a story about a strange family tradition, with at least two characters from the family narrating in the course of the story. Write a story about someone who would be described, above all else, as: kind. Write a story that centers on an Instagram post.

  9. 10 Excellent Short Stories for High School Students

    10 Excellent Short Stories for High School Students Nikki DeMarco Dec 11, 2020 This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission. As a high school English teacher, the quest to keep my curriculum relevant to my students is ongoing.

  10. 301 Short Story Ideas Guaranteed to Kick Your Writing into High Gear

    The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Shawshank Redemption, Minority Report, and Brokeback Mountain —even Hollywood has taken a renewed interest in short stories. Below are 301 short story prompts and starters to help you become inspired, get past writer's block and explore the fascinating process of writing in a genre that Stephen King ...

  11. Short Story Ideas For High School

    Rated 4.8 out of 5. Write a short story involving two pupils, a letter issued by the headteacher and a plate of fish. Give a narrative where two buddies go to buy a snack at the school canteen then on their way a teacher stops them and hands over a note to them. This note has shocking information.

  12. 50 Young Adult Plot Ideas and Writing Prompts

    1. A boy pursues his list of wildly ambitious New Year's resolutions, with hilarious and touching results. 2. A girl on the swim team transforms into a part-time mermaid. 3. A group of "outsiders" become a clique that eventually excludes others. 4. A girl's favorite author plagiarizes her fanfiction. 5.

  13. Engaging Short Stories and Texts for High School Students

    Allie Liotta These compelling short stories for high school are sure to engage your students! When it's time to plan a new unit, it can be daunting to find high-quality, relatable short stories your students will enjoy. That's why we've put together a roundup of engaging, thematically rich short stories that high school teachers love.

  14. 41 Short Stories for High School: FREE PDF Download

    Below you will find the best short stories for high school across multiple genres: horror stories, mystery stories, humorous stories, classic stories, and more. Each story includes a link (READ IT) that will take you to a free copy you can read, copy, download or print.

  15. The 35 Best Short Story Prompts That Will Surely Inspire You To Write

    The 35 Best Short Story Prompts That Will Surely Inspire You To Write March 16, 2022 "I love short stories because I believe they are the way we live. They are what our friends tell us, in their pain and joy, their passion and rage, their yearning and their cry against injustice." Andre Dubus Are you running out of short story prompts?

  16. 1550+ High School Short Stories to read

    Looking for stories that high schoolers actually want to read? The high school short stories in this collection are real and relatable for any teen. 🏆 Winning stories " Multiple Choice " by Zack Powell 🏆 Winner of Contest #199 Okay class! Pop quiz. If you've been doing the readings, this should be a piece of cake.

  17. 365 Story ideas to help you brainstorm

    81 Novel Story Ideas. A character believes she has committed a crime someone else knows she is innocent of. A hair stylist overhears something she shouldn't while cutting hair. A character wakes up knowing a new language, but forgets their mother tongue.

  18. 32 Short Story Prompts to Get Students' Creativity Flowing

    32 Short Story Prompts to Get Students' Creativity Flowing. By Meghan Mathis. Feb 2, 2022. Some of my favorite teaching moments come from a unit that culminated with my students writing an original short story. When given the freedom to write fiction, so many of my students came alive. They wanted to write suspense, mystery, horror, or romance.

  19. 40 Short Story Prompts You Can Write in a Day

    Science Fiction Short Story Prompts. The Internet suddenly shuts down, and no one knows why or how to get it back running again. A struggling writer in the modern-day world gets an unexpected visit from her great-great-great-grandmother, who was a well-known author in the 1800s. A modern-day city kid with no concept of saving money time travels ...

  20. 16 Best Science Fiction Stories for Middle and High School

    Examination Day by Henry Slesar. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes. A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Africanfuturist 419 by Nnedi Okorafor. Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. The Book of Martha by Octavia Butler.

  21. Short Stories for High School Students

    The Storm by Kate Chopin If you have read The Story of an Hour then you probably understand that Ms. Chopin was willing to write about love and relationships in their entirety, embracing the complexities and mysteries of that realm. In this story she takes on the sensitive issue of infidelity.

  22. 30 Great Short Story Ideas for Middle School and Beyond

    Oh yeah! 30 Short Story Ideas for Middle School It's the first day of school and your character finds a note on their locker door with a surprising message. Your character has been invited to a friend's house for a sleepover. Something feels eerie and mysterious about the home.

  23. The Best Short Story Collections That Keep You Reading

    Short story collections offer the perfect medium for fiction writers to craft compelling, affecting narratives that simply may not warrant a full-length novel to explore the ideas. The short story ...

  24. 28810+ Fiction Short Stories to read

    28790+ Fiction Short Stories to read. Submitted by writers on Reedsy Prompts to our weekly writing contest. If you're looking for the best fiction short stories to read online, we've got you covered. Wide-ranging and ever-curious, these free short stories will meet your reading needs.