Writing Ideas
Story ideas for writers.
Use these ideas as flexible starting points. Change the genre, setting, character, or ending to make the idea your own.
Short story ideas
- A small-town mechanic finds a coded note hidden inside a returned rental car.
- A substitute teacher realizes every student remembers a field trip that never happened.
- A retired lighthouse keeper receives letters addressed to someone who vanished decades ago.
- A child draws the same unknown house every day until the family passes it on vacation.
- A restaurant owner discovers every bad review predicts a real disaster.
Character-driven ideas
- A champion who hates attention must train the person trying to replace them.
- A quiet clerk can remember every customer except one who comes in every Friday.
- A former villain tries to live anonymously in a town that keeps needing a hero.
- Two rivals inherit the same failing business and have one month to save it.
- A person with perfect luck starts losing only when helping someone else.
Ways to expand an idea
- Add a deadline.
- Give the main character a secret.
- Move the idea into a different genre.
- Add a cost for success.
- Start the scene after the worst thing has already happened.