Short Story

7 Following

A common type of Prose Fiction and a good way for new authors to start out. Short stories are any stories that run up to 7,500 words in length, though some definitions place them as long as 20,000. Due to the discrepancy, short stories can overlap with the Novella and the Novelette but are usually categorized separately. Some people feel a story is only "short" if it can be read in one sitting, but "one sitting" is a very subjective definition due to differences in attention span — even among heavy readers.

Short stories are usually published in magazines and, more rarely, collections. There is a large Pulp Magazine industry that is much easier to break into than the book industry, which makes it a good place for a new writer to build up a resume. And a good place to stage Old Shame.

A lot of Fan Fic takes the form of Short Story.

Compare: Novel, Novella, and Novelette. An Anthology is a collection of short stories by different authors.

Pseudopod.org makes a job of publishing audio version of short stories.

Examples:

By Author:

• Poul Anderson
  • "The Man Who Came Early"
  • "Time Lag"
• Christopher Anvil
  • "Behind the Sandrat Hoax"
  • "The Troublemaker"
• Machado de Assis
  • "The Devil's Church"
• Clive Barker
  • "The Age of Desire"
  • "Dread"
  • "The Forbidden"
  • "The Last Illusion"
  • "The Madonna"
  • "The Midnight Meat Train"
  • "Rawhead Rex"
  • "The Yattering and Jack"
• Cyril M. Kornbluth
  • "The Advent on Channel Twelve"
  • "The Marching Morons"
• Robert Bloch
  • "Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper"
  • "Notebook Found In A Deserted House"
  • "Enoch"
  • "The Yougoslaves"
• Jorge Luis Borges
  • "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius"
  • "The House of Asterion"
  • "The Library of Babel"
  • "Emma Zunz"
• Leigh Brackett
  • "Martian Quest"
  • "The Treasure Of Ptakuth"
• Ray Bradbury
  • "All Summer in a Day"
  • "The Fog Horn"
  • "Homecoming"
  • "Icarus Montgolfier Wright"
  • "A Sound of Thunder"
  • "There Will Come Soft Rains"
  • "The Veldt"
  • "Zero Hour"
• Joseph Payne Brennan
  • "The Corpse of Charlie Rull"
  • "Slime"
• Jim Butcher
  • Side Jobs, a collection containing eleven short stories.
  • Brief Cases, a collection containing twelve short stories.
• Ramsey Campbell
  • "Again!!"
  • "Call First"
  • "The Chimney"
  • "Down There"
  • "The Interloper"
  • "Midnight Hobo"
  • "Out of Copyright"
  • "Mackintosh Willy"
  • "Cold Print"
• E. G. Castle
  • "All Hands!"
  • "An Army of the Dead"
  • "The Crystal"
  • "Death of a Pop-Idol"
  • "Decision of Fate"
  • "Devin and the Teacher"
  • "Dragon-in-Distress"
  • "An Encounter and an Offer"
  • "A Fantasy Attraction"
  • "Mark Delewen and the Space Pirates"
  • "The Priest, the Scientist, and the Meteor"
  • "The Man Who Carried Trouble"
  • "The Man Who Controlled Metal"
  • "The One Who Started Fires"
  • "The Woman Who Made Machines Go Haywire"
  • "Sewing Circle"
  • "The Story of the Fire Swan"
  • "Ultimate Hero"
  • "The Worst Shots in the West"
• Anton Chekhov
  • "Anna on the Neck"
  • "A Problem"
  • "Romance with a Double Bass"
• P. Djèlí Clark
  • "A Dead Djinn in Cairo"
  • "The Angel of Khan el-Khalili"
• Michael Connelly
  • Angle of Investigation, a collection of three short stories.
  • Mulholland Dive, a collection of three short stories.
  • Suicide Run, a collection of three short stories.
• Roald Dahl
  • "Georgy Porgy"
  • "Lamb to the Slaughter"
  • "The Landlady"
  • "Mrs. Bixby and the Colonel's Coat"
  • "Vengeance is Mine, Inc."
  • "The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar"
• Brendan Detzner
  • Beasts, a collection of short stories.
  • The Monster Hunters, a collection of short stories.
  • Scarce Resources, a collection of short stories.
• Arthur Conan Doyle
  • "Lot No. 249"
  • "The Terror of Blue John Gap"
• Derin Edala
  • "Angel"
  • "Gentle Nerandi"
• Harlan Ellison
  • "Final Trophy"
  • "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream"
  • "Jeffty Is Five"
  • "Psycho At Mid Point"
  • ""Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman"
  • "The Situation On Sapella Six"
  • "The Untouchable Adolescents" (under the name Ellis Hart)
• Neil Gaiman
  • "Bitter Grounds"
  • "The Case of Death and Honey"
  • "Chivalry"
  • "Down to a Sunless Sea"
  • "Feminine Endings"
  • "The Goldfish Pool and Other Stories"
  • "How to Talk to Girls at Parties"
  • "I, Cthulhu"
  • "The Man Who Forgot Ray Bradbury"
  • "Murder Mysteries"
  • "Nothing O'Clock"
  • "October in the Chair"
  • "The Problem of Susan"
  • "The Sleeper and the Spindle"
  • "Snow, Glass, Apples"
  • "A Study in Emerald"
  • "The Thing About Cassandra"
  • "The Truth Is A Cave In The Black Mountains"
  • "We Can Get Them For You Wholesale"
  • "The Wedding Present"
• Nathaniel Hawthorne
  • "The Birthmark"
  • "Feathertop"
  • "The Great Carbuncle"
  • "The Maypole of Merry Mount"
  • "Rappaccini's Daughter"
  • "The White Old Maid"
• Robert A. Heinlein
  • "—All You Zombies—"
  • "—And He Built a Crooked House—"
  • "The Green Hills of Earth"
• O. Henry is well-known for his prolific amount of short stories, including:
  • "After 20 Years"
  • "The Gift of the Magi"
  • "The Last Leaf"
  • "The Ransom of Red Chief"
• E. T. A. Hoffmann
  • "The Artushof"
  • "The Entail"
  • "The Mines of Falun"
  • "The Sandman"
  • "Vampirismus"
• Robert E. Howard made his career on short fiction.
  • Nearly every Conan the Barbarian story (with the exceptions of the novel The Hour of the Dragon and the novellas "The People of the Black Circle" and "Red Nails") is a short story.
    • "The Phoenix on the Sword"
    • "The Frost-Giant's Daughter"
    • "The God in the Bowl"
    • "The Tower of the Elephant"
    • "The Scarlet Citadel"
    • "Queen of the Black Coast"
    • "Black Colossus"
    • "Iron Shadows in the Moon"
    • "Xuthal of the Dusk"
    • "The Pool of the Black One"
    • "Rogues in the House"
    • "The Vale of Lost Women"
    • "The Devil in Iron"
    • "A Witch Shall Be Born"
    • "The Servants of Bit Yakin"
    • "Beyond the Black River"
    • "The Black Stranger"
    • "Shadows in Zamboula"
  • "The Shadow of the Vulture"
  • "Spear and Fang"
• L. Ron Hubbard
  • "The Slaver"
  • "Strain"
• Tanya Huff has penned a huge number of short stories, with two collections and one single story having pages here.
  • Swan's Braid & Other Tales of Terizan
  • Third Time Lucky: And Other Stories of the Most Powerful Wizard in the World
  • "A Woman's Work"
• Washington Irving
  • "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"
  • "Rip Van Winkle"
  • "The Spectre Bridegroom"
• Malcolm Jameson
  • "If You're Smart—", as by Colin Keith
  • "Pig Trap"
  • "Slackers Paradise"
• Robert Barbour Johnson
  • "Far Below"
  • "They"
• Nick Joaquin
  • "Candido's Apocalypse"
  • "Doña Jeronima"
  • "Guardia de Honor"
  • "May Day Eve"
  • "The Summer Solstice"
• Stephen King has several collections of short stories in his bibliography, and many films have been based on these stories. The early stories were usually published in men's magazines, and King has pointed out that the income often took care of necessities the family couldn't afford otherwise. Many fans express a preference for King's shorter work over his novels.
  • "1408"
  • "The Fifth Step"
  • "Jerusalem's Lot"
  • "The Langoliers"
  • "The Mangler"
  • "The Mist"
  • "The Monkey"
  • "Sometimes They Come Back"
  • "Trucks"
  • And his short story collections:
    • Different Seasons
    • Everything's Eventual
    • Four Past Midnight
    • Full Dark, No Stars
    • If It Bleeds
    • Just After Sunset
    • Nightmares & Dreamscapes
    • Night Shift (1978)
    • Skeleton Crew
• Rudyard Kipling wrote a large number of short stories, including:
  • ".007"
  • The "Just So" Stories
  • "The Ship That Found Herself"
• Norman L Knight
  • "Bombardment In Reverse"
  • "Short Circuited Probability"
• Myer Krulfeld
  • "Mission"
  • "Mudman"
• Henry Kuttner
  • "The Graveyard Rats"
  • "It Walks by Night"
• Joe R. Lansdale
  • "Bill, the Little Steam Shovel"
  • "The God of the Razor"
  • "Night They Missed the Horror Show"
  • "Steel Valentine"
  • "King Of Shadows"
  • "Incident On and Off a Mountain Road"
• Ursula K. Le Guin
  • "April in Paris"
  • "The Island Of The Immortals"
  • "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas"
• Frank Belknap Long
  • "Grab Bags Are Dangerous"
  • "The Hounds of Tindalos"
  • "It Will Come to You"
• Most of what H. P. Lovecraft wrote was in the form of a short story. These include:
  • "The Call of Cthulhu"
  • "The Cats of Ulthar"
  • "The Colour Out of Space"
  • "Cool Air"
  • "Dagon"
  • "The Dreams in the Witch House"
  • "The Dunwich Horror"
  • "Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family"
  • "The Festival"
  • "From Beyond"
  • "The Horror at Red Hook"
  • "The Hound"
  • "In the Vault"
  • "In the Walls of Eryx"
  • "The Lurking Fear"
  • "The Music of Erich Zann"
  • "Nyarlathotep"
  • "Old Bugs"
  • "The Outsider"
  • "Pickman's Model"
  • "The Rats in the Walls"
  • "The Statement of Randolph Carter"
  • "Sweet Ermengarde"
  • "The Temple"
  • "The Terrible Old Man"
  • "The Thing on the Doorstep"
  • "Through the Gates of the Silver Key"
  • "Till A' the Seas"
• George R. R. Martin
  • "Sandkings"
  • "The Way of Cross and Dragon"
• A. Lee Martinez
  • "Bigfoot Dreams"
  • "Cindy and Cragg"
  • "Death, Dust, and Other Inconveniences"
  • "Greyback in Blue"
  • "Imogen's Epic Day"
  • "My Dinner with Ares"
  • "Penelope and the Willful Blade"
  • "Pizza Madness"
  • "Wizard Bait"
  • "Work Ethic"
• Richard Matheson
  • "Little Girl Lost"
  • "Prey"
• Guy de Maupassant
  • "The Diary of a Madman"
  • "The Necklace"
  • "Simon's Papa"
• P Schuyler Miller
  • "Bird Walk"
  • "In The Good Old Summertime"
• Nobel prize winner Alice Munro works exclusively in the short story format.
• Haruki Murakami
  • after the quake (collection)
  • "Barn Burning"
• Kim Newman
  • "Angel Down, Sussex"
  • Back in the USSA, a collection co-authored with Eugene Byrne
  • "Clubland Heroes"
  • "The End of the Pier Show"
  • Seven Stars, a novella consisting of eight linked short stories
  • Silver Nails, a collection set in the Warhammer universe
  • "Swellhead"
  • "Tomorrow Town"
• Edgar Allan Poe
  • "Berenice"
  • "The Black Cat"
  • "The Cask of Amontillado"
  • "A Descent Into The Maelstrom"
  • "The Devil in the Belfry"
  • "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar"
  • "The Fall of the House of Usher"
  • "The Gold-Bug"
  • "Hop-Frog"
  • "Ligeia"
  • "The Man of the Crowd"
  • "The Masque of the Red Death"
  • "Metzengerstein"
  • "Morella"
  • "MS. Found in a Bottle"
  • "The Oblong Box"
  • "The Pit and the Pendulum"
  • "The Premature Burial"
  • "The Tell-Tale Heart"
  • "William Wilson"
  • The C. Auguste Dupin stories
• Terry Pratchett
  • A Blink Of The Screen collects several short stories.
  • A Stroke of the Pen collects several short stories Pratchett wrote under a pseudonym.
• Rick Riordan
  • The Demigod Diaries collects several short stories, much like its predecessor just below.
  • The Demigod Files collects several short stories.
  • Demigods & Magicians collects several Crossover short stories.
• Ross Rocklynne
  • "Quietus"
  • "Unguh Made A Fire"
• Eric Frank Russell
  • "Exposure"
  • "Jay Score"
• Robert Silverberg
  • "Catch 'em All Alive!"
  • "Galactic Thrill Kids"
  • "The Happy Sleepers", under the name Calvin M. Knox
  • "The Insidious Invaders" under the name Eric Rodman
  • "Misfit"
  • "The Monsters Came By Night" under the name Charles D. Hammer
  • "The Seed Of Earth"
  • "World Of A Thousand Colors"
  • "Our Lady of the Sauropods"
• Edogawa Ranpo
  • Kogoro Akechi Series
  • The Boy Detectives Club
• Henry Slesar's works:
  • "Desire Woman"
  • "The Dope", under the name O. H. Leslie
  • "Mr Loneliness"
• Aza Smith
  • "Arson Jax"
  • "The Great Freeze"
  • "Humans Below"
  • "Into the Swarm"
  • "The Last Easter"
  • "A Letter of Complaint to Public Relations"
  • "Mystery Movies Customer Complaint Transcript"
  • "Paranoia Retardant"
  • "Potter's Field"
  • "Pumpkin Spiced Brains"
  • "The Raptor is Coming!"
  • "Terror Tapes"
  • "This House Isn't Haunted"
  • "The Undead Buccaneer's Sonata No. 8"
  • "Wabbit"
  • "We Don't Shoot the Rabbits"
  • "Wet Matches on a Dark Christmas Eve"
  • "The World Tree Awakens"
• Clark Ashton Smith
  • "The Charnel God"
  • "The Ghoul"
  • "The Nameless Offspring"
• Evelyn E Smith
  • "The Weegil"
  • "Woman's Touch"
• Richard R Smith
  • "Get Rich Quick"
  • "The Old Timer"
  • "The Well Fed Birds"
• Robert Louis Stevenson
  • "The Body Snatcher"
  • "The Bottle Imp"
  • "Olalla"
  • "The Pavilion on the Links"
  • "Thrawn Janet"
• James Thurber
  • "The Macbeth Murder Mystery"
  • "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty"
• Harry Turtledove
  • "Joe Steele"
  • "The Road Not Taken"
  • "Trantor Falls"
• A.E. van Vogt
  • "Black Destroyer"
  • "The Monster"
• Kurt Vonnegut
  • "EPICAC"
  • "Harrison Bergeron"
• Harry Walton
  • "The Scrambler"
  • "Subcruiser"
• Robert Westall wrote a great deal of short fiction; notably "Break of Dark" and the best of anthologies Demons and Shadows and Shades of Darkness.
• Oscar Wilde
  • "The Canterville Ghost"
  • "The Happy Prince"
  • "The Selfish Giant"
• Patricia C. Wrede
  • "Cruel Sisters"
  • "The Sixty-Two Curses of Caliph Arenschadd"

By Title:

• "An Account of Some Strange Disturbances in Aungier Street" by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
• "Adam And No Eve" by Alfred Bester
• "After King Kong Fell" by Philip José Farmer
• "The Aftermath"
• "Alice and the Allergy" by Fritz Leiber
• "Amina" by Edward Lucas White
• "And Not Quite Human" by Joe L. Hensley
• "Angel Notes" by Kinoko Nasu
• "Another End of the Empire" by Tim Burns
• Arcana Magi Zero is a trilogy of Web Original short stories written by H-M Brown.
• "Artemis Neo" by H-M Brown
• "The Barbarian and the Sorceress" by Patrick Thornton
• "Back for Christmas" by John Collier
• "Beatrice" by Karin Tidbeck
• "Big Blonde" by Dorothy Parker
• "The Birds" by Daphne du Maurier
• "The Blanks" by Grady Hendrix
• Books Of Blood, a short story collection by Clive Barker.
• "The Boy Who Saved The World" by Roland A. Marlone.
• "Brokeback Mountain" by Annie Proulx, which forms the basis of Brokeback Mountain.
• "By the Waters of Babylon" by Stephen Vincent Benét
• "The Car Park Attendant" by Jeffrey Archer
• "Cast-Offs" by Wajida Tabassum
• "The Chadbourne Episode" by Henry S. Whitehead
• "A Chapter From The Beginning" by AM Phillips
• "Christmas Every Day" by William Dean Howells
• "Clockpunk and the Vitalizer"
• "The Clone" by Theodore L Thomas, which he later expanded into a full-length novel with co-author Kate Wilhelm.
• The Codeless Code is a series of short stories.
• "Collections" by Amber Blaeser-Wardzala
• "Comrade Death"
• "c/o Mr. Makepeace" by Peter Phillips
• "The Conductor"
• "Coulrophobia"
• "Coyote v. Acme" by Ian Frazier
• "Crabs"
• "Daedalus", by Thomas Bulfinch.
• "The Dandelion Girl" by Robert F. Young
• "Danger — Human!" by Gordon R. Dickson
• "Day of the Choosing"
• "The Day of the Dragon" by Guy Endure
• "Dead Stars" by Paz Marquez Benitez
• "Désirée's Baby" by Kate Chopin
• "Despoilers of the Golden Empire" by Randall Garrett
• "The Devil and Daniel Webster" by Stephen Vincent Benét
• "Divination (China)"
• "The Doctors of the Cat Family"
• "The Door (Creepypasta)" by Dispater
• "The Door (Kanvi)" by Kanvi
• "Doors (Creepypasta)" by aCJohnson
• "Down in the Dark"
• The Draco Tavern, a series of science fiction short stories by Larry Niven
• "Dracula's Guest"
• The Dream Eaters and Other Stories, a collection of nine short stories, plus the titular novella.
• "The Dungeonmaster" by Sam Lipsyte
• "The Dwindling Sphere" by Willard Hawkins
• "The Eagles Gather" by Joseph E Kelleam
• "Eater" by Peter Crowther
• "The Egg" by Andy Weir
• "The Embassy" by Donald A Wollheim (under the Pen Name Martin Pearson)
• "Emergency" by Vic Phillips
• "The Englishman"
• "Eric the Pie" by Graham Masterton
• "Espie Droger Dreams of War" by Matthew Kressel
• "Everella's Wand", for Highlights for Children magazine
• "The Extinction Parade" by Max Brooks, which was later adapted into a comic book.
• "The Fable of the Dragon-Tyrant" by Nick Bostrom
• "The Fall"
• "Far Centaurus" by A.E. van Vogt
• "The First Run"
• "The Fisherman (China)"
• "Fish Story" by Vic Phillips and Scott Roberts
• "Flowers for Algernon" by Daniel Keyes, later expanded into a novel of the same name.
• "The Fly" by George Langelaan
• "Flying With Santa"
• "Forever Is Not So Long" by F Anton Reeds
• "The Fortress Unvanquishable, Save for Sacnoth" by Lord Dunsany
• "Fresh Guy" by E. C. Tubb
• "Games" by Katherine Mac Lean
• "The Gangrene Man"
• GJ Club is a strange case; it is marketed as a Light Novel but is more accurately a collection of short stories, all exactly 4 pages long.
• "The God Stealer" by F. Sionil Jose (1959)
• The Goddess of Everything Else by Scott Alexander
• "The Governor of Nanke" by Li Gongzuo
• "Grandpa Gray" by Cass Hollander
• "The Great Night of the Trains" by Sara Gallardo
• "The Grownup" by Gillian Flynn
• "Hairball"
• "Hammer Wives" by Carlton Mellick III
• "The Hare and the Pineapple" by Daniel Pinkwater
• "He" by Alan Dean Foster
• "Heart of Greed"
• "Hell Screen" by Ryunosuke Akutagawa
• Her Body and Other Parties, a collection of short stories by Carmen Maria Machado.
• "High Frequency War" by Harl Vincent
• "His Brother Was an Only Child" by Ronald D. Ferguson
• "History Lesson" by Arthur C. Clarke
• "Holey Matrimony" by Kevin Strange
• "An Honest Thief" by Timothy Callender
• "Howard's End" by Anthony Horowitz
• "The Howling Man" by Charles Beaumont
• "How My Brother Leon Brought Home A Wife" by Manuel E. Arguilla
• The Hubcap Fairies and Other Tales is a short story collection.
• "The Hunter" by David Case
• "If You Were A Dinosaur, My Love" by Rachel Swirsky
• "I Like Monkeys", a comedic '90s story originating from e-mails and blogs, eventually becoming a copypasta.
• "Impossible Dreams"
• "An Incident at the Dancing Badger" by M.W. Irving
• "Insect Inside" by gelefant
• "Instead of Three Wishes", a collection of short stories by Megan Whalen Turner.
• "The Interlopers" by Hector Hugh Munro
• "An Invitation from Thanatos"
• "It" by Theodore Sturgeon
• "It's a Good Life"
• Jason Wood, a series of short stories by Ryk E. Spoor
• "Joey: A 'Mechanical Boy'"
• The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers is a short story collection.
• "The Kiss of Wrath"
• "The Kunlun Slave"
• "The Lady, or the Tiger?"
• "The Lady Who Loved Insects"
• The La Fuerza Series.
• "Leaf by Niggle" by J. R. R. Tolkien
• League of Legends: The writers for the series publish a lot of short stories that focus on the game's various Champions. You can track some of them in the recap page.
• "Leiningen Versus the Ants" by Carl Stephenson
• "Lena" by Sam Hughes
• “The Life and Adventures of Shed Number XII” by Victor Pelevin
• "Life in the Iron Mills" by Rebecca Harding Davis
• "Lightning Sentai Blitzenger"
• "The Living Manikins" by David Wright O'Brien
• "Locked Out" by HB Fyfe
• "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson
• "Loves Lost And Found"
• "Lust Caution" was originally a short story by Eileen Chang
• "Magic For Beginners" by Kelly Link
• "Manic Perverse" by Winston K Marks
• "The Man Who Evolved" by Edmond Hamilton
• "The Man Without a Country"
• "A Matter of Pride"
• "Mereana Mordegard Glesgorv"
• "mi jan"
• "A Model Life" by Kim Antieu
• "The Monkey's Paw" by W. W. Jacobs
• "The Monster of Lake LaMetrie" by Wardon Allan Curtis
• "The Monster of Partridge Creek" by Georges Dupuy
• "the moon asks a question" by E Jade Lomax
• "Mop-Up" by Arthur Porges
• "The Most Dangerous Game" by Richard Connell
• "Mr. Widemouth" by PerfectCircle35
• "Der Münchner im Himmel" by Ludwig Thoma
• The Murderous Steam Shovel by Allison V. Harding
• "My Guitar Gently Screams" by Robert Essig
• "My Old Friend Gideon"
• "The Name of the Game" by P.N. Elrod
• Naughty: Nine Tales of Christmas Crime, a collection of short stories by Steve Hockensmith.
• Neofeud Short Story Collection, a collection of short stories by Christian Miller.
• "Nie Yinniang"
• "The Night Wire", a classic horror story by HF Arnold, who only wrote short stories. His other two stories are impossible to find.
• "None Too Holy"
• "A Nose For News" by Roby Wentz
• "The Nothing Equation" by Tom Godwin
• "Nothing Like the Sun"
• "Not The First" by A.E. van Vogt
• "Obst Vw" by Sharon Solwitz
• "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" by Ambrose Bierce.
• "Okuyyuki" by Tom Kratman
• Ong's Hat by Peter Lamborn Wilson
• "Only a Lonely Heart"
• "The Orderly World of Mr. Appleby" by Stanley Ellin.
• "The Owl And The Pussycat"
• "A Package Marked "Return to Sender""
• A Pack of Lies, a collection of short stories by Geraldine McCaughrean.
• "The Paper Menagerie" by Ken Liu
• Pareidolia and the Gilded Scar, a collection of short stories connected by a common theme of expressing different mental health states though surrealism (8 so far with the goal being to have one for each letter of the alphabet).
• "Pâté" by Wildbow
• "Paying The Ferryman" by Joanna Berry
• "Pilots"
• "Place of Meeting" by Charles Beaumont
• "A Place to Stay for a Little While" by Jim Aikin
• "The Pony Engine and the Pacific Express" by William Dean Howells.
• "The Prize of Peril" by Robert Sheckley
• "Project" by Lewis Padgett
• "Proof" by Hal Clement
• "Protect Him"
• "Psychosis" by Matt Dymerski
• "Pump Jack" by Donald R. Burleson
• "The Queen of Spades" by Alexander Pushkin
• "Quietly Now" by Charles L. Grant
• "Ranks of Bronze" by David Drake; later expanded into a novel
• "Rebel Bluff" by Michael Kogge
• "The Red Monarch"
• "The Red Tower" by Thomas Ligotti
• "Redemption Cairn" by Stanley G. Weinbaum
• "The Reign of the Superman" by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster
• "The Revolution"
• "Robes"
• "A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner
• "The Sack"
• "The Saga of Emmerich Holyblade and Corvirus Magidark"
• "Sam's Ghost"
• "Secret Santa" (2004) by Steve Hockensmith.
• Secret Weapon, the twelfth book in the Alex Rider series, is a collection of short stories featuring the character. Several of them had previously been published in newspapers (but were revised to make them a bit more substantial), and a couple of them were totally new.
• "Shabti"
• "Sheba Lee" by Teresa Cotsirilos, for American Girl magazine
• "She Fell Among Thieves (1964)" by Robert Edmond Alter.
• Selina Sedilia
• Most of the Sherlock Holmes oeuvre consists of short stories.
• "Sivad's Question"
• "Sixth of the Dusk" by Brandon Sanderson
• "Sleep No More" by James H. Schmitz
• "The Smiling Man" by L.S. Riley
• "Some Curious Effects Of Time Travel" by L. Sprague de Camp
• "The Son's Veto" by Thomas Hardy
• "Souls in a Vacuum"
• "StarCraft: One People, One Purpose"
• "Star Wars: Blade Squadron" is a short story in two parts.
• The State of the Art, a collection of short stories by Iain Banks.
• "The Steam Shovel"
• Stitches, a collection of short stories by Hirokatsu Kihara, with illustrations by Junji Ito
• The Stories of John Cheever, a collection of short stories by (who else?) John Cheever.
• "The Story of Vox Angelica and Lieblich Gedacht"
• Strange Weather, a collection of short stories by Joe Hill.
• "A Study in Fairy Dust" by Selina Heister
• "Sultana's Dream" by Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain
• "The Summer People" by Shirley Jackson
• "The Sword of Good"
• "The Tale of Miss Ren"
• "The Tale of Zatoichi"
• "Talma Gordon"
• "The Tamarisk Hunter"
• "Test Of The Gods" by Raymond F Jones
• "There Shall Be No Darkness" by James Blish was adapted into a movie, Amucis's The Beast Must Die.
• "There's Magic in Bread" by Effie Sieberg
• "The Things" by Peter Watts.
• The Thirteen Problems, a short story collection by Agatha Christie featuring Miss Marple.
• "The Thought-Monster" by Amelia Reynolds Long, which was adapted into the classic sci-fi/horror film Fiend Without a Face.
• "Time and Time Again" by H. Beam Piper
• "Tiptoe" by Laird Barron
• "To Build a Fire" by Jack London
• "A Touch of Melancholy"
• Most of the Transformers: Timelines fiction consists of short stories, and issues of The Transformers (Marvel) and The Transformers: Last Stand of the Wreckers had short stories published in them occasionally.
• "A Tropical Horror" by William Hope Hodgson.
• "Troubled Boats" by Margaret Adams
• "Two Percent Inspiration" by Theodore Sturgeon.
• "Valentine"
  • "Valentine Man"
• Verge: Stories by Lidia Yuknavitch is a collection of short fiction.
• "The Voice of the Empire" by Mur Lafferty.
• War Veteran
• "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale"
• "We Knew Them"
• "Werewolves Of War" by DW Hall.
• "When the Storm Came"
• "When This World Is All On Fire" by William Sanders.
• "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" by Joyce Carol Oates.
• "The White People" by Arthur Machen.
• "Window" by Bob Leman.
• "The Wings Of Night" by Lester del Rey.
• "The World Inside a Pillow"
• "Worrywart" by Clifford Simak.
• "Les Xipéhuz"
• "The Yellow Wallpaper"
• "Yingying's Biography" by Yuan Zhen.
• You Know You Want This, the debut short story collection by Kristen Roupenian.
• "Young Zaphod Plays It Safe" by Douglas Adams.

Other:

• Quite a few short stories vie for "shortest story ever":
  • Margaret Atwood:
    "Longed for him. Got him. Shit."
  • Hemingway's bet-winning short story, though it's undetermined if Hemingway actually wrote this story.
    "For sale: baby shoes, never worn."
  • "Science Fiction for Telepaths" by E. Michael Blake:
    "Aw, you know what I mean."
  • "Sign at the End of the Universe" by Duane Ackerson:
    "˙dn puǝ sıɥʇ"
  • Spanish Literature has Augusto Monterroso with his short story "El dinosaurio:" ^note "The dinosaur"
    "Cuando despertó, el dinosaurio todavía estaba allí."^note "When he awoke, the dinosaur was still there."
  • "Cosmic Report Card: Earth" by Forrest J. Ackerman:
    "F"