A Story Idea Each Day for a Month — Day 16

This is the 15th year in a row I’ve run this series in April.

Today’s story idea: “Homeless man wins $1 million in California scratcher.”

A stroke of luck for a homeless San Luis Obispo man may finally allow him to afford a home — and the second chance he’s been dreaming about.

A customer of Sandy’s Liquor in the Central Coast city won a $1-million scratcher from the California Lottery this month, state lottery officials said. According to the store’s manager, Wilson Samaan, the man is a longtime customer who is homeless and did not wish to speak publicly. But Samaan couldn’t contain his joy for the customer during an interview with The Times on Wednesday.

“I was so excited — even more than him,” Samaan said. “He’s a good person, he deserves every penny. … I was very excited it happened to a person who deserved it, and he actually needed it.”

This could be a drama: A down-on-his luck individual wins $1M and uses the winnings to reconstitute their life.

Or it could be a dark comedy: When a homeless person wins $1M, word spreads and the Protagonist finds himself in a frenzied race to a lottery center to cash in his prize before a mob chasing him steals his ticket.

Or horror: A homeless guy hits it big with a lottery ticket. Then the guy behind him in the convenience store kills the homeless guy and steals the ticket … only to be tormented by the victim’s paranormal apparition dead set on revenge.

What would you do with this story conceit?

There’s my 15th story idea this month.

Previous articles 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
Day 12
Day 13
Day 14
Day 15

Here are links to previous series:

A Story Idea Each Day for a Month (2017)

A Story Idea Each Day for a Month (2018)

A Story Idea Each Day for a Month (2019)

A Story Idea Each Day for a Month (2020)

A Story Idea Each Day for a Month (2021)

A Story Idea Each Day for a Month (2022)

A Story Idea Each Day for a Month (2023)

A Story Idea Each Day for a Month (2024)

Note: The articles from 2010–2016 have corrupted URLs. I am in the process of cleaning those up.

Each day in April, I invite you to join me in comments to do some brainstorming. Take each day’s story idea and see what it can become when we play around with it. These are valuable skills for a writer to develop.

See you in RESPONSES to hear YOUR take on this story idea. And come back tomorrow for another Story Idea Each Day For A Month.