New Funny Short Stories Each Week
Read or Listen to Award Winning Stories
Adventure. Romance. Comedy. All Ironic.
Welcome to 500 Ironic Stories!
Enjoy funny short stories with ironic themes. Help rate the growing collection. Your feedback guides the creation of new funny short stories each week. Use the table below to find stories. Click on the title to read or listen. Enjoy curated selections with these themes: Happy Endings, Stories for Kids, Love Stories, Moral Stories. Shorter versions for beginning readers are here: Beginner Versions.
| Story Title | Post Date | Summary | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|
| Grinch for Christmas | 12/20/2025 | An extended family invites the Grinch to their Christmas party. When he starts collecting presents from under the tree, the kids fight back. … | |
| Climate Inversion | 12/13/2025 | One family from Wisconsin and another from Tampa change locations during winter but somehow do not get the warmth and cold they expect. … | |
| Popup Christmas Wedding | 12/06/2025 | Despite one of their parents’ objections, two college students hope for a Christmas themed wedding during winter break. Will their dream come true? … | |
| Tough Mouth | 11/29/2025 | After looking silly when tasting a hot pepper during lunch, a middle schooler plots his revenge by planting something hot in a sandwich. … | |
| Text Me When I Get There | 11/22/2025 | Late and desperate for a ride to the airport, Gabriella sinks to calling her ex for help. If only she read the text. … | |
| Miracle Bowl | 11/15/2025 | A college football fan discovers a way not to be disappointed when his favorite team loses: buy tickets to a less-competitive bowl game. … | |
| Lost and Found in France | 11/08/2025 | A high school student loses her bag during a spring break trip to France. Can any possible joy come from this painful situation? … | |
| Perfect Vision | 11/01/2025 | A third-grader used to perfect scores in school attempts to cheat on a vision test rather than admit she doesn’t have perfect vision. … | |
| Ghost Matchmaker | 10/25/2025 | After moving into an older house in a Colorado mountain town, Rose befriends two teenage ghosts before deciding she’d rather be left alone. … | |
| Voice in the Cemetery | 10/18/2025 | Wesley and his friend think up a prank to scare Katelynn in a small-town cemetery. Their ghostly recordings prove more real than imagined. … |
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Stay In Touch for Funny Short Stories
Stay connected if you are a fan of any of the following: irony, humor, reading, listening to narrated funny short stories, listening to podcasts, rating things, laughing, visiting interesting webpages, weekly surprises. To make sure you stay in touch, you can follow this project on social media. Click on the links at the bottom of the page to find us on Facebook, Instagram, X, and YouTube.
You can also find us on almost any podcast platform. Links to some popular ones are found here: Podcasts.
You can also subscribe to receive a weekly reminder email message when a new story is posted: Subscribe. If you have ideas for short stories, feedback, or questions, please visit the Contact page. You can submit messages using an online form. The page also provides an email address you can use for communications.
What the Numbers in the Funny Short Stories Table Mean
The Sortable Table of Ironic Stories contains a list of the funny short stories which have already been posted. Beside the title of the story is the date when it was first posted and a star ranking.
Star rankings are provided by readers. After reading a story, you are asked to rank it from 1 to 5 stars for overall quality and for irony level. Readers are also asked whether the story is believable. All funny short stories are fiction, but could they happen in real life? Reader responses are saved, averaged, and displayed in the table. The number in parentheses after a star ranking indicates how many readers have provided a ranking.
Frequently Asked Questions About Funny Short Stories
What's a Funny Short Story Example?
Countless numbers of funny short stories exist. Two features distinguish a short story from other types of literature: first it should be short and second it should be a story. How short is short? A good rule of thumb for a short story is something between 300 and 5000 words. The stories in this website’s collection are all close to 2500 words. Anything longer than 5000 words is closer to a novella. After 15,000 words, you are looking at a novel.
What is something shorter than 300 words? Maybe a scene or impression. Almost a poem.
What elements does a story need? It should have characters and a plot. The characters should do something and there should be a conflict that needs resolution. Three classic short stories which are not part of this website are Jack London’s To Build a Fire, James Hurst’s The Scarlet Ibis, and Richard Connell’s The Most Dangerous Game.
How Do I Write a Funny Short Story?
Every author has their own creative process but a good place to start is thinking about the characters. The easiest characters to write about are people you already know. While you probably do not want to copy a character exactly, you can borrow personality and physical traits from the interesting people around you.
Once you have some interesting characters in mind, you need a plot. A plot usually involves resolving trouble the characters find themselves in or how they overcome some challenge. The easiest stories to write come from your own life. Ask yourself what trouble you have been in. What challenging thing have you tried to accomplish? Put the characters and the plot together and you have a story. Easy right? Not really.
If you would like some step by step pointers click here: writing advice.
When composing funny short stories for the 500 Ironic Stories collection, the best way to start is either by thinking of an interesting character, setting, or scenario. Then ask the question: What is the most ironic thing that could possibly happen with this situation?
What is the Best Short Story Ever Written?
That is an almost impossible question. It does not have a good answer because every reader has different opinions and preferences. Different stories remind them of their own experiences. When something feels familiar, they tend to like it. But there are a couple of short stories that have become famous because they resonate with lots of people. They are also good examples of ironic stories.
One universally loved story is by renowned writer O. Henry and called The Gift of the Magi. The story is about a young couple who sacrifice for each other to buy Christmas gifts. They end up exchanging gifts that are no longer usable because of the sacrifices they made to buy them. An updated version of this story called Sappy Modern Love Story is available as part of the 500 Ironic Stories collection.
A second very good ironic story is called The Necklace, written by Guy de Maupassant. It tells of a woman who borrows what she thinks is an expensive necklace, only to lose it. She works for years to try and replace the necklace only to discover it was an inexpensive fake.
Where Can I Read Funny Short Stories for Free?
That’s easy! Right here!
What is a Good Story for Kids from this Collection?
All stories in this collection are family friendly with subject matter and material that is safe for children. Some recommended stories with children as characters include Saltwater Starlight Dog and A Star is Hatched.
What is a Funny Story from this Collection?
Since irony is the basis of humor, most readers will find something funny in all these stories. Some particularly funny examples include Goldfish Gift Swap and Three Little Graduation Pigs. You might also like The Rise of Carrot Man, which is fun for the tween and teen crowd.
What is a Romantic Story from this Collection?
Many stories in this collection deal with interpersonal relationships, including the romantic relationship between couples. Two good examples include Strong Armed Date and the before mention Sappy Modern Love Story.
What is an Adventure Story from this Collection?
Many readers like stories packed with action and unpredictable plots. Two examples from this collection of stories include Javelina Airlines and Weekend Smugglers Run.
Who Writes the Funny Short Stories in this Collection?
You might be curious about who is producing the stories in this collection and why. For more information about this, you can read the About page linked to this website. It will explain the origin for the project, why the website concentrates on ironic stories, and how the name 500 Ironic Stories was chosen.
Many new stories still need to be written. If you have ideas for new stories, please submit them on the Contact page, which also has information on an email address you can use for direction communication.