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A collection of stories written for family and for English classes. Some are great and some aren't so much. Take a chance and discover something at least somewhat entertaining? :)

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When I was nine years old-and going on ten-I had a very creative, influential teacher. I remember more of what she taught me than all my other teachers combined. This particular lesson I remember even more clearly than most for two reasons: she had us get up and actually learn the topic hands-on, and I gave what my fourth grade mind thought to be a quick, witty answer.

It was a fairly warm day, marking an unofficial beginning to Spring. My classmates and I crowded ourselves through the door to the modular that had been our classroom for the past two years due to there being not enough room in the ancient elementary school to hold all of us. I scrambled to my seat and got out my things to begin the morning exercises that were always on the board right next to the day's agenda. We sped through going over the answers to the work we had just done, nothing unusual for us. Our teacher wanted to get on to the concepts that mattered just a bit more than the repetitive math and reading that we did every single day.

I sat anxiously in my seat, waiting and wondering about what we were to learn in our history lesson that day. I never really liked history after her class, because no one had a flair for teaching it quite like she did. She announced to us that we were entering a unit on the American Civil War. We stared around the room curiously, trying to process this information. None of us had ever heard of such a thing, but I knew that many of us were eager to find out just what it was.

Our teacher passed out a small packet of information to each of us, also not an abnormal practice for her. She proceeded to read it aloud and we followed along. It was about another word that was new to us: slavery. To a fourth grader, these were just words on a page, for the most part. It didn't mean anything at all to me, except for the occasional thought I had about why something like this would happen at all, how people could be so mean as to do something like that to another human being. My brain just couldn't understand.

If I thought that was hard to understand, trying to understand just how something like the day to day life of a slave was even harder. Luckily for us, our teacher knew just how to teach this concept to us: she was going to reenact it.

She had us stand up and line up in our classic grade school line: single file, in alphabetical order by last name. We were beyond used to it at this point and took our places without causing any trouble. We were too excited for that anyway. Whispers rose up among us, wondering what we could be doing, where we could be going. We knew that wherever we were going couldn't be that far away, because we hadn't received any notes for our parents to sign for a field trip.

We were hushed as we began our short march to our still unknown destination. We were led straight to the school gym and right up to the steps to the stage. We had come to this very place often for practicing for our school concerts, and with our reading groups, for they stored all of the books in filing cabinets at the back of the stage at this time. Making a walk like this always made us feel accomplished, for either purpose. It told us the end of another school year was drawing to a close or that we had moved up a level with our reading. That day it made us excited, and perhaps just a little nervous. That is, until our teacher announced our reason for being there.

She turned and faced us and said that we were going to experience just a little of what it was like to be a slave. Of course we couldn't really experience it, but we could understand it a bit better this way. Idle chatter soon broke out as we stood and waited a few moments. Our principal came through the double doors facing us. Silence filled the air right away. This principal terrified us all. None of us wanted to get into any trouble, especially not on this day. We hardly ever left the classroom and we wanted to give our teacher an incentive to take us out of it more.

As the principal walked up on the stage, so did our teacher. They stood on each side as we stood in a straight line facing the back of the stage. The curtains were closed, so it was a bit darker than we were used to. It gave the scene a bit of an eerie feeling, but we were still too excited to care.

Our teacher explained to us that we were going to act out what a slave auction was like. She said that she had invited our principal down to be the slave owner coming to the auction for another slave. Our principal said that she was going to ask each one of us what we were good at as she went down the line and that she would feel our muscles, like the slave owners did, she said, to see how strong we are.

I was pretty far down the line, so I had plenty of time to think of what I was going to say. I listened carefully to what the others were saying, things like “I can play soccer,” or “I'm good at math.” My mind raced back to about three weeks prior when I had, for the first time ever, made pancakes all on my own, with only adult supervision, no adult assistance. I smiled, as I thought I had the perfect thing to say.

When the principal came to me, I was beyond prepared. She asked me the same question she asked everyone else, and I triumphantly told her, “I can make pancakes.”

She was clearly taken aback by my answer, or maybe it was my confidence, but she soon processed my witty response. She laughed and said, “I'll take you home with me. I love pancakes!”

She moved on down the line and I stood there smiling happily, for I had thought of something that was actually beneficial to her, something that my classmates had failed to do.

I had been so proud of my answer that day. Looking back, it may seem quite silly and something only a child would think of, but I felt like I had won back then. I felt like I had truly accomplished something by catching our principal off guard, and proving to myself something my classmates already knew and told me all the time: that I was indeed smart. I don't think I actually believed their words until this point in my life, when I thought of an out-of-the-box answer to such a simple question.

This event made me realize that I had potential and that I could do something great with my life. I held tight to this hope for a very long time, and I let go of a little bit of my doubt, and fear, that I always had that told me I didn't have the correct answer to anyone's questions. This memorable event truly changed my life for the better.

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7 best places to read short stories online for free.

Looking for a quick read online? Below, you’ll find our favorite websites to read short stories on.

If you’re reading this post, high chances are you’ve been browsing through Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, or Reddit for the past half an hour or so.

You’d probably like to do something more productive with your time – read a book, for example – but you just don’t have enough time on your hands to commit to a weighty 400-page novel.

But what if there’s another way?

The answer is simple: short stories . Short stories that can addict, engross, and absorb just like a novel can – but in the timespan of one morning commute or a relaxing bath.

And there are plenty of places to find high-quality quick reads online, often for free. Some websites even have iOS apps to read on, making the reading experience even easier.

Scroll down to find out which short story websites made the cut.

Why are short stories a great read?

Having not enough time to commit to reading a weighty tome is one of the major reasons why so many people ditch books.

But little do they know a well-written short story will make them feel the same thrill, experience the same attachment to the characters and spark as much love for reading as a normal book would.

You can read them whenever and wherever you want – on a commute back home from work, during an evening bath, in the waiting room at the dentist.

Need more reasons to reach for a short story? We’ve got a handy list with the  benefits of short stories .

7 best sites where you can read short stories

1. electric literature.

One of the most popular websites to read short stories on, Electric Literature is a nonprofit digital publisher focused on unveiling elevating new voices. Their interest lays primarily in writing that operates at the intersection of different cultures, genres, and media.

Everything published by Electric Literature is available to read online for free. However, as a small, independent non-profit, they strongly rely on the readers’ financial support, so donations are more than welcome.

There is also a ‘membership’ option – a recurring monthly donation of $4 or more. Members of Electric Literature get some special pros, such as monthly ebook samplings, a “Writing Well is the Best Revenge” tote bag, and more.

In addition to essays, criticism, and literary news, Electric Literature publishes one short story every Wednesday with a personal recommendation by selected top writers and editors.

A short story can be submitted by anyone through Submittable, as long as it meets specific criteria described on the website. It is later reviewed by Electric Literature editors and, if chosen, the author is paid and their work published. As of today, there are about 380 short stories on their website.

2. The New Yorker

The New Yorker has always played an integral role in the history of serious American fiction. Ever since the publication of “Short Stories from The New Yorker” in 1940, the magazine became one of the most renowned première venues for short fiction, having literary legends such as Nabokov, Murakami, Atwood, Salinger or Fitzgerald grace its pages.

Today, The New Yorker publishes only one story per issue, devoting one issue per year to new fiction. Stories can be sent by anyone using the magazine’s online submission form. While usually gravitating towards already established writers, The New Yorker sometimes takes a chance on fairly experimental ones.

Without a subscription, users can enjoy the home page, section pages, the video hub, Goings On About Town listings, and six full articles per month. They can also download the New Yorker Today app for free, and browse a couple of articles before asked to subscribe.

With a subscription, however, they are given unlimited access to the entirety of New Yorker ‘s content, such as:

▸ Unlimited browsing and access to articles on both the New Yorker website and The New Yorker Today iOS app (not just articles, but also cartoons, journalism, and much more)

▸ Flash fiction, podcasts, and short stories (often with a podcast of the author reading it aloud)

▸ Every issue of the magazine since its founding in 1925 in a digital-replica format at archives.newyorker.com (including all short stories)

▸ Every story published for the magazine since 2007 in standard Web format (including all short stories)

The pricing is surprisingly low, standing at $12 for 12 weeks of a Print and Digital subscription. As a welcome gift, new subscribers also receive a free tote bag.

3. Project Gutenberg

One of the most popular choices for free short stories online, Project Gutenberg is a digital library of over 60,000 free eBooks, available in both epub and Kindle eBooks formats.

Comprising primarily older works for which U.S. copyright has expired, Project Gutenberg has the biggest variety of book categories to choose from, including children’s literature, fiction, crime, specialized nonfiction, and many more.

The service also offers books in other languages, such as Chinese, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, and many more.

As a volunteer initiative, Project Gutenberg is 100% free and does not require registration or a subscription. The home page includes a link to a donation page, but it is not necessary to donate to access the website’s content.

4. Fictionaut

Fictionaut is a vibrant literary community designed specifically for short fiction and poetry. It is a friendly creative hub that enables users to discover new authors, publish their own works, get feedback and connect with others.

As a website still in development, Fictionaut is currently invite-only – meaning that only those who have received an invitation can log in, comment, and publish.

Non-members can, however, read all short stories and poetry for free – and there are over 15,000 works to choose from already.

Wattpad is an online community for readers and writers alike. With over 70 million members (including Margaret Atwood, Paulo Coelho, and R L Stine) and stories in 50 different languages, it is the most popular social storytelling platform on the Internet.

Some of the most popular short story categories include fiction, poetry, fan-fiction, spiritual, humor, and teen fiction.

To browse on the website, you have to create a free account. All the services – such as publishing own works, reading and commenting on other people’s work, the iOS app, and many others – are entirely free to use, since Wattpad earns money through advertising.

There is also a Premium plan that gives some special options such as exclusive theme colors or no ads, but it is not required to use the app in its fullest nor to promote Premium users’ content over others.

With over 565 million free stories available, there are plenty of content users can choose from. Anyone is welcome to publish their original work, but that does not equal bad writing.

On the contrary; Wattpad writers have proven to be extremely popular outside the site as well, with some getting deals from well-known publishing houses such as Random House and Harper Collins, and Beth Reekles’ short story The Kissing Booth being turned into an incredibly popular Netflix adaptation.

So if you’re an aspiring writer or a good-read-hungry book lover, you should definitely give Wattpad a go.

6. 3:AM Magazine

3:AM Magazine is a literary webzine created by Sorbonne lecturer Andrew Gallix. It features literary criticism, nonfiction essays, original fiction, poetry, and interviews with leading writers and philosophers.

Well-known for its “blunt, funny, and angrily academic” content, 3:AM focuses primarily on sharp and savvy avant-garde reads.

All content is entirely free to read, and it is not required to log in. Anyone can send a short story submission, but only some are selected by the editing team.

This beautifully designed website (and an equally sleek iOS app) was created for the users to upload excerpts of fictional works in progress or entire short stories to connect them with readers to provide feedback.

But most importantly, it is also a publishing house that selects authors to collaborate with through algorithms. “We analyze reader behavior, analyze their engagement,” Inkitt founder Ali Albazaz tells TechCrunch.

“If they start reading and stay up all night to continue reading, if they use every break during the day to continue reading your story, we look at this reader behavior to see if a book is good or not good”.

And the algorithm seems to work. To date, the company has published 24 books, of which 22 have become Amazon bestsellers.

As of today, the Inkitt community has 1.6 million readers, 110,000 writers, and some 350,000 stories.

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The kids are writing school shooting fiction

Wattpad is a popular writing platform for teen self-expression. Now it’s full of stories about the terror of school shootings.

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[Editor’s note, May 25, 2022: This story was originally published in 2018, and the statistics included may not be the most recent available.]

The first part of “The School Shooting” is called “First hour of my last day.”

“I already knew the day would be hell,” the anonymous first-person narrator tells us. The day proceeds like a regular one until an intercom announcement sends the school into lockdown: There’s a shooter in the building. The narrator comforts his sobbing girlfriend, telling her everything will be okay as they hide in their classroom. As the faceless shooter approaches, the narrator attacks him, taking down the shooter and saving lives, but taking a stray bullet in the process:

But as he hit the ground His gun hit the ground Im scared the bullet rushes out

Though this story is short — just a scant four pages — it’s representative of what you find when you delve into the hundreds of school shooting stories being written on Wattpad , perhaps the most quietly influential website you’ve never heard of.

On the behemoth self-publishing platform, the most popular stories — typically romance and fanfiction — boast YouTube-level traffic, amassing hundreds of millions of views, or “reads.” Despite a huge audience reach and enjoying the patronage of Handmaid’s Tale author Margaret Atwood, Wattpad habitually flies under the mainstream radar; its most notable achievements to date are launching the One Direction fanfic turned best-seller After and galvanizing the Filipino film industry with a string of movie adaptations of Wattpad stories.

Wattpad’s relative obscurity probably has something to do with its main demographic of teens and preteens. But lately, the kids on Wattpad are contributing, in their own way, to a very mainstream national conversation — by churning out stories about school shootings.

The “hot” category of school shooting fiction on Wattpad is a mixed bag. Scroll past a host of stories related to Columbine and its shooters and you find a Voltron fanfic, a Criminal Minds fanfic, and a fic about a school shooting involving the bands Leathermouth and My Chemical Romance. There are romances built around the drama of a school shooting, as well as more traditional horror stories. And then there are other stories. One claims to be an account of a real school shooting threat ; many more present terrifying fictional accounts of what a potential school shooting might be like.

There, on a site usually dedicated to painting innocent fantasies about being Harry Styles’s girlfriend, teens and preteens are living through a culture so dominated by guns that fears of their schools going on lockdown and fantasies of martyring themselves to save their friends have seeped into the stories they tell.

School shooting fiction is full of harrowing details, escape routes, and fear

The school shooting stories on Wattpad involve characters of all ages. They’re bright and bubbly sixth-graders on their first day of school. They’re seniors in high school prepping for homecoming, college, or prom.

The incidents nearly always start in one of two ways — with the popping sound of gunshots and screams coming from a hallway, or with intercom announcements putting the school on lockdown or into a Code Red: “This is not a drill.” The students nearly always wind up fending for themselves, either because the teachers are absent or because they are quickly dispatched with bullets. Inevitably, students wind up alone, unarmed and unaided.

These stories meticulously catalog potential hiding places. Bathroom stalls are the most popular by far, but there are also crannies in classrooms, storage closets, people-size lockers, kitchens. Then there are the surreptitious escape routes: second-floor windows and little-used cafeteria exits. Fear of being caught out in the open looms large: In one story , three sixth-graders get trapped in an empty classroom with no way out and no protective cover that’s able to hide all three of them. The story ends there, on an incomplete cliffhanger.

The identities of the shooters rarely matter in school shooting fiction; when the shooters are given attention, they tend to comment on the anxieties of school life and the pressure to perform. In one story, a school shooter’s attempt to explain how hard the pressure of his life has been is so compelling that after he dies, the narrator picks up the gun and continues the shooting spree himself.

In another story , a new girl turns out to be an obvious misfit who can’t make friends and takes her revenge on her classmates. Usually, however, the shooters are faceless, rarely given characterizations or even names — they’re classic horror villains, described as crazy, insane, mental, psychos, maniacs, or simply weirdos. As one story notes , “No one knew who it was. Frankly, no one cared.”

The exception to this rule is that of the Columbine fanfic. This is the most popular variant of school shooting fiction on Wattpad, to the extent that it almost functions as a separate genre. Modern teens continue to be fixated with Columbine, but most of the 800 stories associated with Columbine on Wattpad are more properly a form of what-if fanfiction that attempts to love, redeem, or empathize with the Columbine shooters. That sets Columbine fic well apart from most other Wattpad fiction, which is concerned with processing theoretical shootings that haven’t happened yet.

In most of these other fics, the emphasis is almost always on the victims and the survivors — and the horror scenarios they do and don’t survive. The main characters frequently get shot; their friends and siblings frequently end up dead or seriously injured. In one story , the captain of the cheerleading squad survives a school shooting by playing dead beneath the body of her best friend:

People screamed. I screamed. Bullets flew out of guns. Camila slumped on top of me, knocking me in to the ground. I was lying on the ground, Camila on top of me. There was a hole in her head. Her brains were on the wall behind us.

“Imagine,” reads the summary of one story. “Imagine a shooter coming to your school to kill as many people as he can before he turns the gun to himself. Imagine what horrors, what fear would arise among you. Even more frightful, imagine what it would be like for that person to be you.”

“Of course,” reads one story , told from the perspective of two sixth-grade girls. “This is how we die.”

These stories are part of a long teenage literary tradition — but the stakes are suddenly much higher

As stories of teenage angst tend to do, these stories rely on an awareness of the fragility of life. They draw on the heady emotion and melodrama of death, tragedy, and terror. In this sense, as child psychologist Ellen Braaten told me, they’re built on longstanding tropes.

Braaten, the associate director for the Clay Center for Young Healthy Minds at Massachusetts General Hospital, described the school shooting genre of fiction as being similar to the way a teen might glamorize going through the experience of having cancer, dying young, or living during war — in essence, “making something romantic out of something really scary and awful.”

Braaten speculated that these stories are “about students putting themselves in a situation they feel like they’re in ... working through their inevitable worst fears.”

It’s no secret that teens are drawn to gritty, angsty stories fraught with life-or-death scenarios. Entire genres of young adult fiction cater to this tendency, from 1 3 Reasons Why to The Fault in Our Stars to Ellen Hopkins’s entire best-selling oeuvre , which covers a range of dire teen issues from drugs to suicide.

It’s not really even new that kids are writing this kind of story themselves; lots of kids with access to a pen and a notebook have scribbled angsty existential missives somewhere inside them. The advent of the internet has just made sharing those feelings with other teens easier than ever. On Wattpad, which gained its massive underground success primarily as a mobile reading and publishing app, teens and preteens publish and view each other’s fiction by the millions. On Wattpad, a search for “cancer” generates more than 100,000 results; one of the most popular cancer stories has nearly 30 million views.

What does seem new, though, is that teens are working through their fears and anxieties about life and death using school shootings as the setting. In essence, teens and preteens who have grown up with the real possibility that they could live through (or die in) a school shooting have incorporated this reality into the kind of cathartic angst fiction usually reserved for more typically deleterious fare — a cancer scare, a plane crash, drug use, or suicidal ideation.

“Art is a place where we displace our worst fears and wishes,” Braaten said. “Anytime you’re putting something like this out there, it’s because you want to be heard. I think this is a wonderful outlet for students and teens to sort of work through one of their worst fears.” And Wattpad, she noted, is a place where “they can do it anonymously and quickly.”

What’s perhaps even more telling than the amount of fiction where the school shooting is the focal point of the story is the amount of fiction where it isn’t . Disturbingly, school shootings often form the mundane backdrop of stories with completely different plots. In many stories, the event of a school going on lockdown is just a boring part of a student’s everyday life. In multiple stories, there ultimately is no shooting, and the threat dissipates into a boring, wasted couple of hours for the students.

In several stories, the lockdown is used as an excuse for a romantic meet-cute . One, a fanfic about YouTubers Jake Paul and Erica Costell, uses a school shooting as the backdrop for a budding romance. Written in the wake of the Parkland shooting, it has Jake noting, “Us cuddling during the Code Red was amazing but sad at the same time.”

In these stories, the need to romanticize tragedy becomes very literal, a way of fantasizing about the heightened emotional connection felt at such moments while simultaneously grappling with the potential for loss of life, for instantaneous separation from their beloved.

Criminal psychologist Arthur Lurigio described the catharsis of this kind of fiction as similar to that of a horror film. “It’s scary but it’s not scary — it’s not real. Where you’re a little bit scared, a little bit excited, but the outcome is not going to hurt you.” Lurigio pointed out that these genres of school shooting fic are all about control for the students. “When you’re really feeling afraid, one way to gain control is to tell the ghost story yourself.”

School shooting fiction allows students to control the uncontrollable

Controlling the narrative seems to be a main point of these stories. “This writing has a sense of empowerment, of being able to control what’s uncontrollable and baffling,” Lurigio said. “Think about the degree of vulnerability these kids are feeling in general, and it’s being expressed now in a way it’s never been expressed before.”

Lurigio told me the school shooting fiction could be seen as a basic form of therapy for students. “In working with patients, we have them diary, writing about their lives and thoughts and scenarios, and using that as a tool in therapy. This may be a way to process school shootings and give kids a false sense of control. They’re the ones who are the masters of what happens and doesn’t happen.”

We can see that need for control in a very direct sense. One story is a first-person account of the 2012 shooting at Perry Hall High School in Baltimore, by a user purporting to be a student who was then in attendance. (The user did not respond to my requests for verification or comment.) “‘Please let everybody be okay’ was the only thought going through my mind,” she wrote. “I couldn’t wrap my mind around the fact that something like this could happen at my school; the school that I had always felt so safe in.”

The difference in tone and focus between this student’s mostly matter-of-fact description of living through the event and the highly fantastical, dramatized versions many of the teen writers are imagining is striking. “I thought about every ‘What If’ question possible,” she writes about her reaction after the event. Eventually, she says, “I stopped asking myself these questions,” because she realized there was no point to asking them after the fact.

In a sense, then, the emergent school shooting genre seems to have come about because students are running through all of these potential “what if” scenarios well before they play out in reality. It’s not only about control; it’s also arguably a means of preparedness.

Looking at these stories from this angle, it’s hard not to find them devastating. One story, “School Shooting,” is written by a user with the word “unicorn” in their handle, from the point of view of a sixth-grader; the author told me that they wrote the story following the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, as a way of paying homage to the bravery of the Parkland students.

It’s practically a litany of survival scenarios playing out in high-drama action-adventure form. It shows kids working together as an ensemble to thwart, undermine, and escape the shooter. After their teacher is dispatched, they grab weapons and turn them on their attackers. They run for exits only to find them locked, so they turn to windows instead. On the playground, the narrator spots “a little kid crying”:

She had a bullet shot in her leg. “Cmon ride on my back.” I said “I can’t. It hurts.” she said I decided to carry her. Good thing she was light.

Wattpad skews young. The company claims 90 percent of its users are millennials and Gen Z; a majority are girls and women between the ages of 13 and 24 . It’s reasonable to assume that the ages of these characters reflect the ages of their writers. And so we have 11- and 12-year-olds writing about disaster preparedness, noting fire exits, psyching themselves up to leap out of windows, and looking out for kids younger than them — all while envisioning themselves as essentially abandoned by an older generation. Remember, there are hardly ever adults in these stories, not in the moments when it counts.

“It’s as if the statement is: Adult world, you have not taken care of us, you continue to not take care of us,” Lurigio told me. “The kids are the ones who are leading, not adults, and that’s a role change.”

Lurigio explained that it’s important to consider that these stories are expressions of real trauma — not lurid, far-fetched fantasies. “[School shootings] have lasting impact, not only on the victims but on kids who see it on the media over and over again. After 9/11, we had what we described as concentric circles of trauma. They have vicarious victimization. I think seeing this on the news over and over again absolutely is a micro-trauma to the kids who are not part of it.

“So this is akin to 1950s campfire storytelling,” he said. “But this is much more serious, with life-altering consequences.”

One fic, “The Gunman,” chronicles the day of a school shooting by jumping through the points of view of multiple characters. “I would never get married, have kids,” one thinks when encountering the shooter. “I’d never buy my own house, get my own car, or even learn to drive! The husky I dreamed of getting one day would never happen.”

But not all the stories are hopeless. Many of them are about students finding their own power and changing things for the better. Jade, a.k.a. xxjademariexx, is a freshman at a New Jersey high school. Her story, “After the Shooting,” depicts a group of high school students who mount a successful gun control protest in their state after a terrifying attack on their school. “I wrote about this because gun violence is a major thing in this country that no one wants to talk and hear about,” she told me. “It also needs to be talked about more than it is.”

Jade said that few within her community support gun control. “They’re all super conservative and think more guns is the solution for a safer country. I see it in a different light that may have been portrayed by my story.”

For Jade, the important aspect of her story isn’t the school shooting — it’s the aftermath. “There’s always that fear that a shooting will happen,” she said. Writing the story allowed her to express not only that fear but also a political stance she can’t always communicate in real life.

“I want to change everything,” she writes as her story ends. “I want everyone to be safe and not fearful. I want to stop school shootings like Sandy Hook and Stoneman Douglas and all the ones in between and before. I want to stop police from killing people by the color of their skin. I want to stop the suicide rate from going up by guns. I know this country will never be perfect, but I really do want to make America great again. We will be the generation to make America great again.”

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Plot Generator

1 million plot combinations to inspire you..

Generate a random plot for your genre. Simply pick between fantasy, romance, sci-fi, mystery, or drama — and click the button below to get started. Like a particular story combo? “Lock” and save it to nail it down.

Protagonist

Secondary character.

It's story about It kicks off with

(Note that: )

And there's a twist!

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Join Tom Bromley for a writing master class and finish your first draft in 3 months . Learn more →

Looking to publish a bestselling novel out of this story generator?

It’s elusive, it’s shy, it’s frustratingly changeable, and it abandons you completely during a writer’s drought — it’s the perfect story idea. But that’s why we built this story generator: to try and give writers everywhere a bit of a power-up. All of the plots that you score are yours to use! But what exactly can you do with it now?  

If you’re wondering what’s the best way to construct a story out of the plot that you’ve just generated,

We’ve got you covered. Head to the free resources below to discover the writing world beyond story generators:

How to Structure a Novel Before You Write It . In this Reedsy Live video, NYT bestselling author Caroline Leavitt talks about plot structure — and a simple way to go about it.

How to Plot a Novel Using the 3-Act Story Structure . Kristen Kieffer, founder of Well-Storied.com, walks you step-by-step through one of the most popular story structures in this free 10-day course.

What is a Narrative Arc? Learn the intricacies of building a narrative arc, and how to attain a good beginning, middle, and end to your story in this blog post.

If you’re still in the search for the perfect plot ,

There are plenty of other plot generators and plot twist generators to provide more bursts of inspiration. Here are some of our favorite story generators on the Internet:

Writing Exercise’s Random Plot Generator

RanGen’s Story Generator

Seventh Sanctum’s Plot Twist Generator

If you’ve got everything but your story title and character names in place ,

Why not give our Book Title Generator and Character Name Generator a whirl?

And if you now feel ready to start building your story now? Great 👍 Happy writing. We’d be delighted if you dropped us the success story at [email protected]! 

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4 story structures all writers should know

A story structure is a plot mapping tool used to further character development and build a captivating arc. Writing a story or novel is a marathon, not a sprint—and it's common for authors to experience many peaks and valleys while crafting them. If you find yourself struggling with your tale, you can always turn to classic story structures to help guide the way.

Here are some of the tried and tested story structures you can use to ensure you leave no stone unturned in the development of your plot: 

The three-act structure

The three-act structure divides a story into three separate acts: the setup, the confrontation, and the resolution.

Here's the breakdown of acts:

• Setup: The writer establishes the status quo. An incident occurs and the protagonist attempts to address the challenge, setting the plot into motion.
• Confrontation: The stakes grow high as the protagonist encounters new allies and enemies. At the midpoint, an event disrupts the protagonist's mission and they fail a test. This spurs doubt about their ability to succeed in achieving their overarching goal.
• Resolution: The protagonist experiences a painful period of suffering and must choose between continuing their journey or failing. This builds towards a climax where the protagonist faces off against their enemy, and usually succeeds. The denouement begins and establishes a new status quo.

The Hero's Journey

When it comes to narrative structures, writer's note the Hero's Journey for its excellence. Joseph Campbell popularized hero myth pattern studies, and George Lucas repurposed them in theStar Wars series. This narrative structure suits stories that involve epic journeys of courage and triumph.

If you're looking for an accessible way to delve into the hero's journey structure, look no further. Disney development executive Christopher Vogler created a simplified 12-step version you can follow :

• The Ordinary World: The hero is living their everyday life.
• The Call to Adventure: The inciting incident of the story occurs.
• Refusal of the Call: The hero experiences some hesitation to answer the call.
• Meeting with the Mentor: The hero gains the supplies, knowledge, and confidence needed to begin the adventure.
• Crossing the First Threshold: The hero commits to the adventure.
• Tests, Allies, and Enemies: The hero explores the new world, faces trials, and makes both friends and enemies along the way.
• Approach to the Innermost Cave: The hero nears the center of the story and the new world.
• The Ordeal: The hero faces the greatest challenge yet and confronts death and rebirth.
• Reward: The hero experiences the consequences of surviving death.
• The Road Back: The hero returns to the ordinary world or continues to an ultimate destination.
• The Resurrection: The hero experiences a final moment of death and rebirth. They are pure when they re-enter the ordinary world.
• Return with the Elixir: The hero returns with something to improve the ordinary world.

Freytag's Pyramid

This five-point story structure has roots stemming from classic Greek tragedies like Sophocles, and Euripedes. Novelist Gustav Freytag developed this structure as a description of something fiction writers have used for many years. It's a simple and popular framework that can be used for nearly any genre.

Here's the breakdown:

• Introduction: Set and setting established. An inciting incident occurs.
• Rising action: The protagonist pursues their goal. The stakes rise as three major events add suspense to the plot.
• Climax: Tension builds to a peak, leading to a turning point for the protagonist.
• Falling action: In the aftermath of the climax, tension continues to unravel, leading to catastrophe.
• Resolution: The protagonist stoops to their lowest point. They realize their greatest fears.

Fichtean Curve

The Fichtean Curve structure places the protagonist in a series of crises on their journey to achieving their goals. The Fichtean Curve skips the typical introduction, going straight to the inciting incident. It is an ideal story structure for writers looking to weave tension into the fabric of their story. Looking at you, thriller and mystery writers!

• Rising action: The inciting incident plays out immediately. The protagonist faces a series of mini-crises. The final crisis begins the turning point that spurs the protagonist in a new direction.
• Climax: The protagonist confronts the story's conflict.
• Falling action: The story addresses unfinished business from the plot. The protagonist establishes their new normal.

Many writers claim their stories come to them in a stream-of-consciousness manner. Others harness the power of story structuring to kick off their process. Regardless of your technique, try exploring new ways to strengthen your writing. You may find a new way to break through the writer's block, and you'll develop your unique style that leaves your fans wanting more. 

Learn more about mastering the art of storytelling by accessing our writing essentials for creators. 

AI Story Generator

AI story generator by Editpad quickly writes compelling stories based on your prompt with interesting plots using AI without any sign-up.

Our free story maker creates every type of fictional and nonfictional story to ignite your imagination to avoid the frustration of thinking about a plot.

How to use Editpad's AI Story Generator?

Follow these simple steps below to use our AI story generator:

• Type the prompt of your story in the input box.
• After typing the prompt click on the “ Write Story ” button.
• Editpad's story generator will automatically write a story within seconds without any registration.
• After that, you can copy and download the story from the output box.

Features of our Story Maker

Our story maker comes with the following features:

AI Generated Stories

Story length, creativity level, frequently asked questions, is there an ai that writes stories.

Yes, Editpad offers a free AI story generator that writes creative, engaging, comprehensive, and unique stories based on your prompts.

Can AI write short stories?

Yes, AI can write short stories and Editpad story generator can help you write them. Thanks to its advanced AI language model, you can write short stories, novels, or screenplays in seconds.

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