Nobody, darnit

My current project has three primary storylines, told through three different characters. I'm going over one of them right now, and am getting annoyed. I started this project a long time ago, and set it aside. Now I'm back, and while I love Bresizha's first two chapters, they're not very relevant to the plot, which has finally developed after all these years. However, they're very important to her character. Once upon a time, it was all important, because she stayed where she was and with the zillion people in that first chapter. Now, she leaves right away, and doesn't come back. (Hey, I've got the same problem in another story! Why can't my characters stay where they belong!)

Meh. I'm just whining. I've still got to finish the dang thing before I can clean up the beginning. God, it's a sloppy beginning all around.

So Nano is done (I'm at 53,000 odd words. Pretty much a complete first draft except for a couple of sex scenes I'm too burned out to write, and an ending to rewrite.) Now I'm looking forward to giving it a break so I can come back to it fresh in a month or two.

The plan now? Get the first part of Juri ready for Norwescon, and possibly write a short story for that as well. My two short stories right now are an ancient thing, and fluffy Dracula vs the paparazzi. I kinda want to give myself a challenge, since they're allowing two submissions, and short stories can do the Round Robin critique. But that comes second to Juri.

With Juri in mind, I'm re-reading A Game of Thrones. It has a beginning I'll never forget. It starts with a prologue involving characters who have nothing to do with the rest of the book, but the situation they face is arguably the most important one in the entire series. It's also one that is constantly pushed aside because the characters are too busy fighting each other and caring about the throne. In the end, however, you know everyone's going to have to unite to face that ultimate threat. The scene also establishes up front the brutal tone that bugs so many people, but is why I love him. :-)

I haven't gotten to the first chapter yet, but I remember that, aside from the foreshadowing of the book's end in the first scene, it involved everyone together and basically peaceful. Martin's got an enormous cast of characters, so I want to study how he introduces them from the beginning. My number one problem is undoubtedly my tendency to bring in a whole of lot of characters/worldbuilding at once.

I'm also going to read War and Peace (at least the first parts) and whatever other epic political books I can. I seem to remember War and Peace opening with two characters having tea and talking politics. I also remember I loved it. The two characters were very sharply defined early on.

Can anyone think of other books I could read? Any thoughts on introducing a story with mulitple viewpoint characters (three important ones in my case.) Should I bring them all in at once? I was going to open at Bresizha's wedding, where I could show everybody. But now it seems too chaotic.