A Story Idea Each Day for a Month — Day 12

This is the 9th year in a row I’ve run this series in April. Last week, I provided a daily explanation about why you should make it a habit to be generating story ideas. This week, I’ll give you some tips on how to come up with stories.

Tip: Look at Craigslist.

Dreamworks bought this pitch based on Craigslist ads.

There is this musical based on Craigslist ads.

There was this TV movie based on a Craigslist story.

Now something proactive you can do for your writing career while searching for a used barbell set.

Today: Stephanie “Queenie” St. Clair // The Queen of Harlem.

Presenting the tale of Prohibition-era gangster Stephanie St. Clair. She ran Harlem’s numbers rackets, fought the mob and won, and repeatedly dissed them in full page ads in the newspaper — where she attached giant pictures of herself dressed to the nines, because Madame St. Clair was fabulous above all else.

The early history of Stephanie St. Clair (who went by Madame Queenie), is lost both to time and to her tendency to lie shamelessly about her past. This much seems certain: she was born on Guadeloupe in the Caribbean, came to New York in the 1910s, and by 1923, had started her own numbers racket with seed money of $10,000. Within a few short years, she was clearing a quarter million dollars a year.

Now, a quick explanation of numbers rackets — since it may be, like me, you’ve heard the term a million times but have no clue what it actually means. More commonly referred to at the time as “policy banking,” it was a mix of investing, gambling, and playing the lottery. Because few banks would accept black customers at the time, it was one of the few ways anyone in the community could invest their earnings. Although the practice was generally illegal, it provided a surprising amount of wealth and jobs. So: dubious practice, but actually sometimes good for the community!

And make no mistake, Stephanie St. Clair was extremely community-oriented. Most of her numerous newspaper ads were spent educating her neighbors about their rights, advocating for voting rights, and calling out police brutality. She spent her money on any number of community projects: a legal fund to help new French-speaking immigrants. She made sure all her employees were dressed impeccably and treated Harlemites with the utmost courtesy. She even lived in the same building in as many other neighborhood luminaries: C.J. Walker, W.E.B. Du Bois, Thurgood Marshall, and more.

She was not afraid to get rough, though, and the Great Depression afforded her ample opportunity. When the economy tanked and white mobsters’ profits began to plunge, they began edging in on Harlem. None were more ruthless in this land grab than gun-toting thug Dutch Schultz. He began making phone calls threatening her, kidnapping and murdering her men, buying off select police, and even at one point got her arrested.

St. Clair’s revenge was swift and brutal. When, at one point, Schultz sent an underling to intimidate her, she pushed the underling into a closet, locked him in, and called in four massive bodyguards to “take care of him.” She attacked and destroyed the storefronts of any business that ran Schultz’s betting operations. She tipped the police off to Schultz’s operations — which led to them raiding his clearing house, arresting 14 employees, and seizing around $2 million. She then bragged about it in the press because she gave somewhere in the neighborhood of zero fucks.

When Schultz was finally taken out (shot in the stomach while on the toilet) she dropped everything and rushed a telegram to his hospital deathbed. It simply said, “So You Sow — So Shall Ye Reap.” She signed it “Madam Queen of Policy.”

Cold. Blooded.

This seems like a no-brainer to me. Great starring role for a black actress and fascinating, but not well-known character in a unique chapter in American history.

There you go: My eleventh story idea for the month. And it’s yours. Free! Here are links for all the previous posts in this year’s series:

Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7
Day 8
Day 9
Day 10
Day 11

Each day this month, I invite you to click on RESPONSES and join me to do some further brainstorming. Take each day’s story idea and see what it can become when you play around with it. These are all valuable skills for a writer to develop.

See you in comments. And come back tomorrow for another Story Idea Each Day For A Month.