Flash fiction ideas

The latest brief for a 500 word short story for Writer’s Forum is one side of a conversation at the end of a holiday romance. No tears, no deaths, uplifting. I set about gathering ideas –
1. Two teenagers and the one comparing the holiday friend with someone back home.
2. Two middle aged from humdrum backgrounds finding a real interest in living.
3. Two old people who were sweethearts in their youth and have met again by accident in the hotel.
and variations of that.
4. A lesbian who has found out her orientation and must reveal it to her husband/family. Something like that would be more dramatic than the usual romance.

I’ll expand on those ideas but as usual, the brief led me into other byways.

Someone who has been sailing and fallen in love with a particular boat is recalling the fun they had.
Someone, maybe a child, who has met and formed a relationship with and animal, a dog or a donkey. They can’t take it home and want to say goodbye.
Someone from a city who has discovered the beauty of a landscape and is describing it to remember how it affected them.
Someone from a sleepy village who has discovered theatre, music, art, and their ambition is revived.
Someone in whom ambition had died and has had it revived by a storm and the persistence of a rescue. Bruce and the spider.
Outside the brief there are so many interesting possibilities for short story lines.

A Straight Shooting Checklist

The picture is by Pam Pepper