Throw me some ideas for a short story?

[Rally]

I've got an assignment due on Thursday. It's a story that's between 800 and 1000 words. I'd be tempted to say I'm a gifted writer, I've been working on a novel for the past few months, and the truth is, I have no idea how the forget to write a short story. I just can't develop characters, setting and plot in under 1000 words.

Throw me some ideas for a plot-line that can fit in under 1000 words, my ideas are always way too ambitious or complex. I'll write it up and post it here when I'm done lol. I'm being graded on some story telling techniques such as climax, setting, all that fundamental beginner stuff

[Ad Bot]

[Damp]

is this for your 4th period english class in summer school

[Buu]

make it a story that involves revealing how much of a creep the narrator is overtime

[Rally]

is this for your 4th period english class in summer school

We don't have sequential periods in Australia, class order is different for each day of 2 weeks.

[Operator¹]

A graphic designer working for a major company walks on the street as they commute to their work when an abnormal event disrupts their routine.

You could probably set this in the future or in modern times

[Bosnik]

Give a brief description of a character and then just go through the motions of writing out the character accomplishing something. That's what I do when writing out a short story for school, we do them a lot

Have the accomplishment be something that gives a simple life lesson or something, that's usually easy writing material

[the hacker]

A man who can fly, but only when he trips on something.

[Redconer]

The story of a blockhead that had went from zero to hero

[carolcat]

A man who can fly, but only when he trips on something.

flying is really only trying to hit the ground and missing

[Flatflyer]

ThekidXChar fanfic 

[Swat 3]

Some sort of family fairing in the some sort of futuristic "dark ages", where there is a massive plague that eliminates nearly everyone, and the family is one of the very few of what once was America, if you like spooky and sad stuff, like say everyone in narrator's family dies. At the end of the book, he also closes his eyes for the last time.

You should totally do it in the form of a diary, and leave it up to the reader to think if the guy just lost the book after the military arrives to inject the "cure" into him during the night after he put his diary down, because near the end he contracted the disease, or died in his sleep.

[Zanaran2]

is this for your 4th period english class in summer school

he's in austrailia i.e. southern hemisphere

ThekidXChar fanfic 

sick forget

[Rally]

Some sort of family fairing in the some sort of futuristic "dark ages", where there is a massive plague that eliminates nearly everyone, and the family is one of the very few of what once was America, if you like spooky and sad stuff, like say everyone in narrator's family dies. At the end of the book, he also closes his eyes for the last time.

You should totally do it in the form of a diary, and leave it up to the reader to think if the guy just lost the book after the military arrives to inject the "cure" into him during the night after he put his diary down, because near the end he contracted the disease, or died in his sleep.

I tried to write a narrator's story / diary type entry but my teacher advised against it. She wants all the fundamental story basics stuff like rising / falling action, climax, ect.

Interesting idea however, I'll try see if I can make it work.

A man who can fly, but only when he trips on something.

Trips on acid?

[sir dooble]

Don't worry too much about character development in a short story, especially if it's a 1k word limit.

Create a character and deliver them as is. Part of the fun of a short story is that the characters are much more incomplete than in a longer story, so the reader himself can think up their personality/history more. Vague characters work well in short stories.
Trying to fully detail one in a tight limit can mean your story has very little plot and just lots more exposition.

[Plethora]

Take a three sentence plot and flush it out with setting and little actions like staring at a pencil that mean nothing.

Eg.
Man hovers over desk by candlelight.
Describe entire room.
Man wakes up next morning after having fallen to in front of desk.
Daughter asleep on couch holding bedtime story book.

Whole thing can be assigned meaning and sound good if you use the right words.  Teachers just love it if they think there's some kind of meaning even where there is none.

I don't know that there's any rise, fall, climax, &c. to that really, but it's the unexpected stuff that breaks the mold that succeeds.