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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/43759
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/43759
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

You can use factorization. Some task takes 6 groups of 3, say making camp. Another takes 3 groups of six, say one group of six stands watch while the other two sleep. At some point, they divide into 2 groups of 9; maybe 9 males and 9 females, and in another 9 pairs of two.

You can find ways to emphasize the 18 by the ways in which you can factor 18, and indirectly that is how you can geometrically arrange 18. A group of six can be arranged in a hexagon, for example, as watch-points on a camp perimeter.

Find odd or mystical coincidences. There are 12 months in a year. What if one of the kids notices that they have 1 birthday for every month, and then one more birthday for every other month? So 12 have a partner in their birth month, and 6 do not. What does it mean? It doesn't have to mean anything, it can be just something they have fun with in an idle moment; joking about the partners. But it draws attention to their number. It **can** have meaning; you could use this early in the story as an excuse to pair some characters that become friends; perhaps two kids with the same birthday. Childhood friendships can originate in coincidental likenesses.

There doesn't have to ultimately be an explicit plot reason for 18, but by playing with the number you can draw attention to 18 and make 18 play a subtle role in shaping the story and the relationships.

Original score: 7