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Read the best fiction short stories for free on Reedsy Prompts. Be it fantasy, romance, or historical fiction stories; our collection includes them all. Choose now from 30460+ short fiction stories and start reading online!
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And some of the greatest fiction-writers of the last two centuries have written memorable short stories which stretch to little more than a few pages: short enough to be read in a coffee break. Below, we introduce ten classic short stories – very short stories – from some of the finest authors in the literary canon.
- Free Short Stories to Read Right Now
- “Lamb to The Slaughter” by Roald Dahl
- “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson
- “How to Become A Writer” by Lorrie Moore
- “Cat Person” by Kristen Roupenian
- “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver
- “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor
- “Symbols and Signs” by Vladimir Nabokov
- “Sticks” by George Saunders
- “The Veldt” by Ray Bradbury
These individual short stories are the best of the best — and the even better news is that they're available for free online for you to peruse. From classics published in the 1900s to a short story that exploded in late 2017, here are ten of the greatest free short storiesfor you to read.
While not exactly a philosophical or political tale like our first two examples, this twisty short storyfrom Dahl does delve into some shady moral territory. We are introduced to Mary Maloney: a loving wife and dedicated homemaker. In just a few short paragraphs describing how she welcomes her husband home, Dahl makes us sympathize with Mary — befo...
A perennial feature in many a high school syllabus, Shirley Jackson’s best-known short storyclinically details an unusual ritual that takes place in a small town. There’s not exactly a lot of plot to spoil in The Lottery — but within a few short pages, Jackson manages to represent the mob mentality that can drive reasonable people to commit heinous...
Told in the second person point of view, this story from Moore’s debut anthology Self-Helptakes an honest look at the inner life of a struggling artist. Through the use of an unusual POV, the author manages to turn her reader into a confidante — making it abundantly clear that the ‘you’ the narrator is speaking about is actually herself. This story...
In the Social Media Age, no short story has gone viral the way this New Yorker contributionfrom Roupenian has. Arriving at the height of #MeToo, it begins with 20-year-old Margot embarking on the early stages of flirtation with an older man, Robert. As she gets to know more about this man (as well as filling in the gaps with her imagination), the p...
First published in The Atlantic Monthly in 1981, “Cathedral”is today known as one of Raymond Carver’s finest works. When it opens, we meet a narrator whose wife is expecting a visit from an old friend, a blind man. Dissatisfied and distrusting of people not like him, our narrator struggles to connect until the blind man asks him to describe a cathe...
Innocuously titled, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”is nevertheless Flannery O’Connor’s bleakest — and most famous — work. It begins unassumingly with a Southern family who’s planning to go on a road trip. Yet the journey is rudely interrupted when their car overturns on an abandoned dirt road — and they are met by an enigmatic group of three men, comi...
The famous author of Lolita wrote “Signs and Symbols”in 1948. Its premise is seemingly simple: an elderly couple visits their mentally ill son in the sanatorium in America. Yet their background and trials come into sharp focus as the story develops, until an explosive ending disrupts everyone’s peace of mind. As you might expect, the somber “Symbol...
Not so much a short story as it is flash fiction, “Sticks”is written from the perspective of a young man whose father has an unusual habit: dressing up a crucifix that’s built of out a metal pole in the yard. One of America’s greatest living short story writers, George Saunders explained: "For two years I'd been driving past a house like the one in...
If there’s anyone who you can trust to deliver thought-provoking, terrifying science fiction on the regular, it’s Ray Bradbury. In “The Veldt,”George and Lydia Hadley have bought an automated house that comes with a “nursey,” or a virtual reality room. Worried about the nursery’s effect on the kids, George and Lydia think about turning off the nurs...
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Short Stories to enjoy when you have 5 minutes to spare, sorted by category so you can find what suits your mood. Stories average 1,000 words, including morality tales, feel-good/love stories, other-worldly stories, witty stories, dramatic stories, and farce/political stories.
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- “Angels and Blueberries” by Tara Campbell. Word count: 744 words. First lines: “Why is the sky blue?” you ask. Well, it all depends on who’s answering. Campbell’s sweet, wholesome story posits various explanations for the color of the sky, one of which (naturally) involves angels and blueberries.
- “As the North Wind Howled” by Yu Hua. Word count: 1,371 words. First line: Sunlight had sneaked in through the window and was creeping toward the chair where my pants dangled.
- “Baby Dolls” by Becky Robison. Word count: 175 words. First line: My mother isn’t always Raggedy Ann, but she was when I was born. This super-quick vignette from Becky Robison manages to be profoundly moving and disturbing at the same time.
- “Curriculum” by Sejal Shah. Word count: 490 words. First lines: The map was printed on a handkerchief. It is a map of a place that no longer exists. One of the most praised pieces of flash fiction examples in recent memory, “Curriculum” is divided into three parts: Area Studies, Women’s Studies, and Visual Studies.
Jul 13, 2017 · For that reason, and in honor of Lydia Davis’s birthday, here are eleven very short stories that you must—and can, thanks to the magic of the internet—read at your earliest opportunity. NB: this list should by no means be taken to reflect the “best of all time,” merely “my own personal favorites,” and is only a taste of what’s ...
Mar 12, 2018 · War by Candlelight is an exquisite collection of stories that carry the reader from Third World urban centers to the fault lines that divide nations and people—a devastating portrait of a world in flux—and Daniel Alarcón is an extraordinary new voice in literary fiction, one you will not soon forget.”
