need an extra set of eyes on new story line idea

Hey guys, I've been thinking about writing a short story called "The Impossible". Its kind of like a thriller in which a guy who has a really bad habit (havent thought of what a believable bad habit would be good ) ends up going homeless and ends up getting badly taunted and harrassed by fellow homeless members and they give him riddles to solve in order to be left alone, but in order to get through the riddles he has to face giving up something he swore on his life that he would never give up. He ends up actually getting help to give it up by an unexpected fellow homeless person who provides a "miracle" to give up his bad habit and then he ends up
facing it and getting away from the bad guys. I think it's a good story line but just wanted to get the opinions of other writers before I get too involved in a story and then setting myself up for failure. Sorry, I have a bad habit of asking for reassurance. If anybody could help me with this I'd greatly appreciate it! thanks and have a great day .

 

For me, I see the potential in this story and I see your thinking process (I do the same when developing stories), but as a reader it seems still a bit too vague. You have two things to define:
1) the bad habit that drags him down,
2) the thing he would never give up and sets the stage for the "miracle" to happen.
The connection between these two points is having to solve riddles.

I think you need to pick one of the two points, decided what you want it to be, and then rework forward or backward to the other point to see what happens.

I don't think that trying out to write a story, at least the plot, that it feels instinctively right is setting up for failure in any way! You might not execute it as effectively as you hoped at first in your mind, but that is the challenge about writing and what makes it fun. You already have a good premise, it sounds worth it to try to find out what happens with it.

I look forward to reading what comments and suggestions about the story plot other people have!

 

I think a drug addiction is a bad habit. Like perhaps the guy is a doctor in the mode of "House, M.D." and he started taking pain pills, got addicted, but even while in the grips of addiction, he retains his medical smarts and can help other homeless people.

I don't see the riddles thing. More like the other homeless people need him to cure their ills and the more good he does, the more they leave him alone/look out for him.

 

Thank you so much for your feedback!