20 Fiction Prompts Culled from Florida Man Headlines

The Sunshine State has been the inspiration for so much great literature; authors like Lauren Groff, Kristen Arnett, and Karen Russell have used the wild natural world of Florida’s swamps and beaches as inspiration for their fiction. But perhaps no one has captured the spirit of Florida quite like Florida Man. He alone is as untamed as the Everglades; he alone is as resilient as an alligator. Writers are students of life, and who but Florida Man can say they have truly lived? Use this list of Florida Man headlines to inspire some writing as weird as the state itself. 

1. Missing Florida Man Says He Wants to Heal, Kill People (speculative fiction)
2. Large, exotic bird that killed Florida man to be auctioned (detective novel)
3. Florida Man Speeds Down Highway While Standing Out Of Sunroof, Says He’d Rather Go To Jail Than Home To His Wife (queer romance)
4. Florida man rides manatee, dares police to arrest him, gets arrested (fable)
5. Florida Man Shoves Foot-Long Sandwich Down His Pants, Sparks Manhunt (western)
6. Florida man fighting for his life after chasing monkey (metafiction)
7. Florida Man Allegedly Fooled Family Into Believing Murdered Wife Was Still Alive (psychological thriller)
8. Florida Man Threatens to Kill Man With ‘Kindness,’ Uses Machete Named ‘Kindness’ (poetry collection)
9. Florida Man Finds a WWII Grenade, Places It in His Truck, Drives to Taco Bell (picaresque novel)
10. Florida man throws burrito in woman’s face, cops say. And this has happened before (bildungsroman)
11. Rattlesnake-carrying Florida Man Claims to be ‘Agent of God’ (magical realism)
12. Florida Man Who Allegedly Threatened Family with Coldplay Lyrics Ends Standoff After SWAT Promises Him Pizza (food memoir) 
13. Florida Man Rescues Grandma Floating Away on Ice Throne (climate fiction)
14. Florida Man Believes Wrestling Event Is Haunted by the Ghost of Macho Man Randy Savage (erotica)
15. Florida Man’s Church Loses Tax-Exempt Status Because It’s Just a Nightclub (tragedy)
16. Florida Man Covered in Pizza Arrested for Pizza Battery After Pizza Dispute (cookbook)
17. Florida Man Drinks Goat Blood in Ritual Sacrifice, Runs for Senate (political thriller)
18. Florida Man Found Asleep In Taylor Swift’s Bed Charged With Stalking (young adult thriller)
19. Florida men, one dressed in bull onesie, attempt to burn down house with Ragu sauce, police say (surrealism)
20. Florida Man claiming people were “eating his brains” leads police on insane golf course chase (zombie novel)