Howlina - Day 26: Anti-What If?

"Look at your "mood words" list and then at your notes and outlines and ideas. Put anything that doesn’t match at least one mood word (or a synonym of a mood word) onto a separate page or in a separate file. You may end up putting your misfits into this novel when you're stuck or need some inspiration or when there's an opportunity for them to fit in. You may even, when you get tired of the main storyline, decide that you want a subplot of Misfits, something to give a little comic relief, perhaps, or just an alternative tone to your main storyline.

For contradictory ideas, pick the one that you like best or, if you have no favorite, the one that best matches the mood of your piece. Put the other one into the Misfits file-- you never know when you might be able to tweak it to fit your story after all. Throw nothing away at this point, but organize your world into "things that I know contribute to what I'm trying to do" and "things that don't match but I like them anyway."

I've been pretty careful to keep everything IN the mood, so I can't think of anything I have that doesn't fit.  I've even had challenges from the comments, and I think I've satisfied those (btw, the "Salute Your Solution" is from a song by the Raconteurs, and it doesn't apply to the Howlers being military, but to non-military folks throwing a Captain Stubing style salute at an attempt to solve a problems, coupled with the fact that I'm planning on starting a war in the story that the general Howler populace IS ill prepared for).

I did get an idea though.  I could get a list of writing challenges and see what I can do with them.

I'll present the lists today and then later tell you what I'm going to do with them (I'm a little pressed for time and I tend to go WAY over the 15 minutes suggested time limit).  I will mark them with an M for misfit though.

First I generated several actual writing challenges from Seventh Sanctum's Writing Challenge Generator:

1. The story must have a raven at the beginning.
2. During the story, a character makes a meal for themselves.
3. The story must involve a salve in it.
4. The story must have a jar of honey appear in the middle.
5. The story must have a giant at the beginning.
6. During the story, a character becomes pregnant.
7. A character is depressed throughout most of the story.
8. A character becomes turned on during the story.
9. M - The story takes place in mid-fall.
10. A character is resigned throughout most of the story. 

So far only one item I don't think I could bend into the mood and theme.  Now I will grab several items from Seventh Sanctum's What-If-A-Nator:

1. M ...Beethoven lived in a world where the rise of the Aztec Empire had never happened?
2. M ...Cleopatra lived at the same time as Roger Bacon?
3. M ...Goethe lived in a world where the crucifixion of Jesus had never happened?
4. M ...Lincoln was inspired by Kepler?
5. M ...Magellan was like Tutankhamen?
6. ...genetic engineering had been invented a thousand years earlier?
7. ...the Cuban Missile Crisis had never happened?
8. M ...the evolution of mankind happened after the rise of the Islamic Caliphate?
9. ...the most advanced technology of today was hypnotism?
10. M ...the rise of the Islamic Caliphate had never happened? 

Lot's more misfits there.  What do you think?  Can't figure out how I could fit any of it?

Here's a last one.  It's an image.  I was looking for a Riddler image and found this.  I like it.  It inspires my bad guy.