To most of my research so far, it is the visual of speech sounds. When you look through a dictionary, you'll usually see these things under the main word you're looking for.
For example, you take a word like "Seahorse". You have the word type, and below the word type, you see some fancy looking text.
I will bold this mini dictionary bit for you to show you what we're focusing on.
Seahorse
Noun
/ˈsēhôrs/
The text in bold here is what you're looking for when you want to find the "Phonetic Transcription." Hope this helps!
Answer: dancing
Explanation: because they are doing it right now, not in the past
I would say that all scenarios that are not too complex could be a basis for a short story, but also in principle, you could shorten and simplify any story to make a short story out of it!
So there is no clear distinction.
But among the options, the better candidates are:
a championship basketball game in which a new player is the star
a family mix-up over selecting a birthday present for Dad
the mysterious disappearance of a cake from the pantry
The other options are potentially too complex.
