Perfectly Inane

I finally hammered out the backbone of a scene for Twilight that's been annoying the piss out of me for a week.  It's an essential part of the novel, and basically everything hinges on that one chapter.  So I wanted to get it right on the first try, or at least write it well enough that I could continue to work on the rest of the novel and come back later to make adjustments.  It just wouldn't happen, for some god awful reason or another.  Anyways, I finished passing that stone yesterday, so much grunting and pounding on keys should happen today.

And just out of curiousity, does anyone have any advice for making travel plans to Europe?  I want to go to England, Germany, and maybe some eastern European countries, but I don't even know where to begin.  Is there a sort of idiot's guide or any recommendations for an honest travel company or website?  I'm definitely not thinking right away - a year or two down the line at the earliest.

I had a horrific nightmare the other night (does anyone ever have a pleasant nightmare?  Don't answer that, I don't want to know).  It wasn't my usual monster-riffic type of nightmare.  More human.  More realistic (though truth be told, it's still pretty far-fetched).  It was actually a nightmare about terrorism, of all things.  It's not something that frightens me usually, beyond that horrible fear on 9/11.  I'm guessing most of you know what I'm talking about there.

Anyways, I'm not letting it get to me.  I'm using it.  Actually, it'll make for a hell of a poignant scene in Twilight, where terrorism by corporations or government is a very real threat to the masses.  It won't be written into the novel for quite a while, but the scene is so strong, I might sketch out the basics.

That leads me to the point of this meandering little blurb.  Anything in life can be used as fodder for writing.  That's what I love about the craft - you can make something from practically nothing.  A road sign can become a horror story.  An older restaurant with good service can become the basis for a novel.  People-watching can change your dialogue from stilted to flowing.  All it takes is a spark, and you've got a nicely roasting fire.

And on a side note, I think I'm going to drop the flashback idea from Wanderlust.  I'll go back through when I've finished and edit out the portions I've included, such as my protagonist's stay in Seattle.  My thoughts earlier this week regarding duality in novels led me to realize that I need a much tighter focus.  Good idea, though, and I might use it in another project somewhere down the line.

Meme d'jour
Mmm.... that sounds good.  I'll have that.

This is probably taught to first-graders, but it just occured to me.  Have you ever noticed that the greatest stories revolve around pairs or trios?  I don't know why this strikes me so, but it's a thought I've been munching on since last night.  Even stories about groups of people revolve centrally around two or three individuals.  Let's take, uh, Lost, for example, since it's what I watched all damn weekend.  In Lost, there's very rarely a group interaction.  The first episode sees most every character in a group scene right after the plane crash (ZOMG spolizers!), but what about later?  Most every scene in almost every episode revolves around only two characters.  Sayid/Shannon, Locke/Boone, Walt and his dad, Jin and his wife, or various combinations therein.  We only really get takes on the individual when it's a flashback.... and the flashbacks almost always lead to some sort of self-realization, which leads me to my next point.

Novels about philosophy almost always center around one character's journey, literal or metaphorically.  Think.  Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.  The Alchemist.  Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure.  Wait, what?  But those novels of self-realization always seem to have a central secondary character that influences or changes their lives or philosophies.  That's just a thought - not fact.  It's been a few years since I've read anything even remotely close to philosophic, so it's just a thought.  But I think it's one that holds water.  Hmmm.

What does that mean?  Why is this niggling in my skull?  It's pretty elementary stuff, after all.  Should be obvious.  So why is the idea of twos and threes so striking?

Rhetorical questions, of course.  But something to chew on, anyways, both for life and for the writing.  Wanderlust deals with three (I consider the town to be a third entity), and Twilight deals with a pair.

Ugh.  Head hurts.  Must kill thoughts with alcohol soon.

Does anyone have any particularly great examples on working a character description into the flow of a story, preferably in the first chapter?  Seems lazy to ask, I know, but I'm working at the moment.  I'm going to go through a stack of novels tonight reading only the first chapter to do my own research.  I thought I'd ask in the meantime to see if anyone had any favorites.

Context, right?  OK.  I wrote the first chapters of each of the novels I'm working on without including some small details on the initially introduced characters.  We're talking little things - eye and hair color, that sort of thing.

Any particular good 'uns?  Feel free to include your own if you're a writer.