Short Story Ideas (1 Viewer)

[matchalolz]

so I have to write a short story, but it has to be realistic and explore human experiences as opposed to fantasy or anything... I'm really stumped on ideas. Some themes that I'm allowed to choose from:
- immigration - acquiring new cultural values, tensions between cultures
- family life, growing up
- identity
- desire to be an individual vs conforming to society
- responding to adversity
- relationships

idk, I feel like anything I come with is too cliched and teen angsty. anyone care to help out?

 

[BLIT2014]

immigration - acquiring new cultural values, tensions between cultures


* could talk about factory in australia, and you could contrast it against the immigrant's experience doing similar type of work in a different country
* could have immigrant's english not being that good, and causes a mistake in the output of the factory

 

[Mdyeow]

That's a lot of clichéd topics...nice work, school.

Identity is great because, well, anything and everything can be about identity.

So, for example, a slug dreams that it is a koi, but has to go about every day doing slug things (squelching, eating leaves, not getting consumed by birds), so it convinces itself that it's really a koi masquerading as a slug and eventually drowns itself in an ornamental fish-pond.

You're welcome.

 

[obliviousninja]

Dont do any of these immigrant experiences they 99% of the time turn horrid

 

[cub3root]

Dont do any of these immigrant experiences they 99% of the time turn horrid

yeah pretty much. As a english class we had to mark each other's creatives and most of the time it was something like "I'm asian at unsw and I don't do commerce and i feel like i don't belong."

try something unique like sci-fi or something. if you get it right it will work in your favor but this rarely happens

something else: I did moon exploration for the 1/2 yearlies and then mankind doesn't belong here when they ran into trouble, etc, etc

 

[obliviousninja]

yeah pretty much. As a english class we had to mark each other's creatives and most of the time it was something like "I'm asian at unsw and I don't do commerce and i feel like i don't belong."

try something unique like sci-fi or something. if you get it right it will work in your favor but this rarely happens

something else: I did moon exploration for the 1/2 yearlies and then mankind doesn't belong here when they ran into trouble, etc, etc

Eco people get outcasted

 

[anomalousdecay]

Well what worked for me was choosing a real life experience which related to belonging, but not a cliche one (it was actually a very unique story about something not many people do).

Note I didn't do well though in English, but the idea was definitely right, and I can imagine getting some decent marks for my creative.

Before that I had a story on a family of transistors, capacitors and resistors who were all built to be put on ENIAC in 1946. They came from Bell Laboratories or something. Was a cool story, had a good kick to it, but no-one could understand what its about so yeah the idea didn't work for English because the personification was so strong it blew away HSC markers to the point they had headaches.

My previous story gave even more headaches.

My stories were too sophisticated for English HSC

In saying that, a simple, but unique plot would be a good idea (I practically used this for my final HSC story). In the end, as long as its not cliche or overdone, its all about execution.

 

[cub3root]

Well what worked for me was choosing a real life experience which related to belonging, but not a cliche one (it was actually a very unique story about something not many people do).

Note I didn't do well though in English, but the idea was definitely right, and I can imagine getting some decent marks for my creative.

Before that I had a story on a family of transistors, capacitors and resistors who were all built to be put on ENIAC in 1946. They came from Bell Laboratories or something. Was a cool story, had a good kick to it, but no-one could understand what its about so yeah the idea didn't work for English because the personification was so strong it blew away HSC markers to the point they had headaches.

My previous story gave even more headaches.

My stories were too sophisticated for English HSC

In saying that, a simple, but unique plot would be a good idea (I practically used this for my final HSC story). In the end, as long as its not cliche or overdone, its all about execution.

legit? lel

 

[rumbleroar]

this is probably the most repeated advice ever but draw upon your own experiences that are about a particular tension you feel strongly about...the themes given are relatively broad and adaptable so whatever experiences you talk about would probably fit

 

[anomalousdecay]

legit? lel

Don't quote me back or ask more questions on it to prevent a derail, but I'm being legit. My teacher said I needed a new story because it was confusing (I got 10/15 for it in my trial).

 

[obliviousninja]

this is probably the most repeated advice ever but draw upon your own experiences that are about a particular tension you feel strongly about...the themes given are relatively broad and adaptable so whatever experiences you talk about would probably fit

Pretty much this. Dont write some story where you aren't familar with the context. Absolutely will turn out bad.

 

[Absolutezero]

A son quietly wages war with the appliances in his house, determined to drain as much power as possible because his father was crushed by a tree.

 

[Absolutezero]

An astronaut misses the companionship of the training facilities girl, and the longing to be with her conflicts with his dreams of space travel.

 

[Absolutezero]

A man slowly plasters himself inside the wall of his house, to escape the abuse of his wife.

 

[Absolutezero]

A women battles with a 20 inch steak, in order to trump that bitch Sally in the PTA food eating contest.

 

[Absolutezero]

A child grows out of her favourite pair of boots, and has to decide whether to pass them to another child.

 

[Absolutezero]

And old man slowly reclined in a chair faces the struggle of feeding his new puppy.

 

[Absolutezero]

And that's it. That's all the ideas in the world.

 

[madditrev]

And that's it. That's all the ideas in the world.

you just spammed everyone so much.
thank you!

 

[matchalolz]

lol much feedback and spam. you know what? short stories are so overrated the end. i've sort of got an idea, I'm going to work on it (if I can be fucked)