What are you writing about now?

[Maedhros_Nelyafinwë]

Got a good news report regarding the meeting I was scared about! As a refresher, my friend's mom, who is an author of children's books and is in the process of getting them published, agreed to review the prologue of my book and give me feedback on it. She has been part of a literary critique group for some years, so she's knowledgeable. She told me she has told people before that their writing sucks, and she's made people cry, so I was quite nervous.

But she told me ahead of time that she thought my prologue was very good, so that eased my nerves. And as for the type of feedback she gave me, it was very positive and it made me excited to dig in deeper to the feelings and stories of my characters.

Mainly, her feedback was mostly relating to reorganizing information in the paragraphs, eliminating redundant and unnecessary words, and including more sensory details to "show not tell." She wants me to illustrate the characters' feelings more through using direct thoughts and sensory feelings, rather than just stating information. Also, she was able to help me find some places where my language wasn't entirely consistent. By that I mean, I have a wise, angelic unicorn who speaks in a formal, elevated style, and there were some areas where my language didn't quite match that.

She also pointed out a place where I described a mysterious man who lived in the mountains, and he's the one who told the main character about the legends of the unicorns. This is hugely important because it sets the whole story in motion. My friend's mom said she was immediately full of questions about this mountain man, so I should either give him a prominent role in the book, or eliminate the mention of him. At that moment, I was hit with sudden inspiration like a tidal wave. I don't want to spoil anything for those who eventually want to read my book, but I have an existing character whom I realized would be perfect for this role, and now I just need to connect him to it.

But best of all, this same lady who isn't afraid to tell people when their writing sucks, told me my story has, quote, "the bones to be a classic."

That made me so happy! Mechanical things and issues of telling-not-showing can be fixed with some effort, but if the bones aren't there, what are you even doing, right? But she told me she really wants me to publish my book. That made me so excited and encouraged. Ever since I was a little kid, I've dreamed of becoming a published fantasy author. In more recent years, I've dreamed of contributing something new and refreshing to the fantasy genre. Maybe, with enough work and patience, that could happen.

 

[david_wendelken]

Got a good news report regarding the meeting I was scared about! As a refresher, my friend's mom, who is an author of children's books and is in the process of getting them published, agreed to review the prologue of my book and give me feedback on it. She has been part of a literary critique group for some years, so she's knowledgeable. She told me she has told people before that their writing sucks, and she's made people cry, so I was quite nervous.

But she told me ahead of time that she thought my prologue was very good, so that eased my nerves. And as for the type of feedback she gave me, it was very positive and it made me excited to dig in deeper to the feelings and stories of my characters.

Mainly, her feedback was mostly relating to reorganizing information in the paragraphs, eliminating redundant and unnecessary words, and including more sensory details to "show not tell." She wants me to illustrate the characters' feelings more through using direct thoughts and sensory feelings, rather than just stating information. Also, she was able to help me find some places where my language wasn't entirely consistent. By that I mean, I have a wise, angelic unicorn who speaks in a formal, elevated style, and there were some areas where my language didn't quite match that.

She also pointed out a place where I described a mysterious man who lived in the mountains, and he's the one who told the main character about the legends of the unicorns. This is hugely important because it sets the whole story in motion. My friend's mom said she was immediately full of questions about this mountain man, so I should either give him a prominent role in the book, or eliminate the mention of him. At that moment, I was hit with sudden inspiration like a tidal wave. I don't want to spoil anything for those who eventually want to read my book, but I have an existing character whom I realized would be perfect for this role, and now I just need to connect him to it.

But best of all, this same lady who isn't afraid to tell people when their writing sucks, told me my story has, quote, "the bones to be a classic."

That made me so happy! Mechanical things and issues of telling-not-showing can be fixed with some effort, but if the bones aren't there, what are you even doing, right? But she told me she really wants me to publish my book. That made me so excited and encouraged. Ever since I was a little kid, I've dreamed of becoming a published fantasy author. In more recent years, I've dreamed of contributing something new and refreshing to the fantasy genre. Maybe, with enough work and patience, that could happen.

Wonderful news! Now get to work!!!

Check out Autocrit, it will help you with some of the tasks she mentioned.

 

[Server Room Gremlin]

Got a good news report regarding the meeting I was scared about! As a refresher, my friend's mom, who is an author of children's books and is in the process of getting them published, agreed to review the prologue of my book and give me feedback on it. She has been part of a literary critique group for some years, so she's knowledgeable. She told me she has told people before that their writing sucks, and she's made people cry, so I was quite nervous.

But she told me ahead of time that she thought my prologue was very good, so that eased my nerves. And as for the type of feedback she gave me, it was very positive and it made me excited to dig in deeper to the feelings and stories of my characters.

Mainly, her feedback was mostly relating to reorganizing information in the paragraphs, eliminating redundant and unnecessary words, and including more sensory details to "show not tell." She wants me to illustrate the characters' feelings more through using direct thoughts and sensory feelings, rather than just stating information. Also, she was able to help me find some places where my language wasn't entirely consistent. By that I mean, I have a wise, angelic unicorn who speaks in a formal, elevated style, and there were some areas where my language didn't quite match that.

She also pointed out a place where I described a mysterious man who lived in the mountains, and he's the one who told the main character about the legends of the unicorns. This is hugely important because it sets the whole story in motion. My friend's mom said she was immediately full of questions about this mountain man, so I should either give him a prominent role in the book, or eliminate the mention of him. At that moment, I was hit with sudden inspiration like a tidal wave. I don't want to spoil anything for those who eventually want to read my book, but I have an existing character whom I realized would be perfect for this role, and now I just need to connect him to it.

But best of all, this same lady who isn't afraid to tell people when their writing sucks, told me my story has, quote, "the bones to be a classic."

That made me so happy! Mechanical things and issues of telling-not-showing can be fixed with some effort, but if the bones aren't there, what are you even doing, right? But she told me she really wants me to publish my book. That made me so excited and encouraged. Ever since I was a little kid, I've dreamed of becoming a published fantasy author. In more recent years, I've dreamed of contributing something new and refreshing to the fantasy genre. Maybe, with enough work and patience, that could happen.

That's pretty cool. 😁

 

[david_wendelken]

Had a nice chat with my granddaughter today. She's been stuck trying to write some stories for quite some time. I sent her a set of the www.FabulaDeck.com cards and she's really happy with them. It's helped her fill out a lot of details in her story and find connections she didn't know where there.

It's great when a plan comes together and a gift is really appreciated!

 

[david_wendelken]

Finished re-writing the chapter with the addition of the new elvish weaving technique. Also cleaned up a bunch of pre-existing verb tense mismatches and some minor clarity issues.

 

[Tyelkormo the Fair]

What would have happened if Aragorn and Eowyn had wed?

In Hammond and Scull's Reader Companion to the LOTR, H and S claim that Tolkien at some stage in the writing of the LOTR intended Aragorn and Eowyn to marry. If this had happened in the story, would Faramir and Arwen find true love elsewhere - in each other's arms maybe? Note that's not meant to...

thetolkien.forum

Well we wouldn't have liked it at all.😤
@Server Room Gremlin

 

[david_wendelken]

What would have happened if Aragorn and Eowyn had wed?

In Hammond and Scull's Reader Companion to the LOTR, H and S claim that Tolkien at some stage in the writing of the LOTR intended Aragorn and Eowyn to marry. If this had happened in the story, would Faramir and Arwen find true love elsewhere - in each other's arms maybe? Note that's not meant to...

thetolkien.forum

Well we wouldn't have liked it at all.😤
@Server Room Gremlin

It's certainly possible Tolkien intended it at one point. After all, Strider the heir to the Dunadan kingdoms started off as a hobbit who wore wooden shoes. Tolkien didn't change his mind until the pass over Caradhras.

 

[david_wendelken]

I spoke with the textile artist I mentioned a few posts back, we'll try a small experiment this summer to see if a bigger one is worth doing.

Now I need to figure out how to rig musical output to a small wooden platform so the platform vibrates but we don't have to hear the music. And what musical notes to experiment with.

 

[WatcherWraith]

What would have happened if Aragorn and Eowyn had wed?

In Hammond and Scull's Reader Companion to the LOTR, H and S claim that Tolkien at some stage in the writing of the LOTR intended Aragorn and Eowyn to marry. If this had happened in the story, would Faramir and Arwen find true love elsewhere - in each other's arms maybe? Note that's not meant to...

thetolkien.forum

Well we wouldn't have liked it at all.😤
@Server Room Gremlin

Depending on if Aragorn and Arwen's relationship had been developed at that point, I would have found it most confusing indeed.

 

[Tyelkormo the Fair]

Depending on if Aragorn and Arwen's relationship had been developed at that point, I would have found it most confusing indeed.

Well Eowyn and Faramir are my favorite couple, so for me they are the only people making sense with each other.

 

[WatcherWraith]

Tolkien knew how to write very good couples Such beautiful people.

 

[david_wendelken]

Looks like I'll be doing a small experiment with the textile artist this summer to see if sound vibrations cause the silkworms to weave differently. If it works, we'll work up a grant proposal to test it big time.

 

[david_wendelken]

Had a low brain-power day, so I just did some (lengthy but) light editing.

Book 1 has been written over a span of 35 years. Some of the word processors back then didn't have custom dictionaries, so there were a lot of mistakes as I added in those funky accented letters by memory. I went thru the entire book and added all the special words in it (in their correctly accented form!!) to my custom MS Word dictionary. I corrected misspelt words whether in the dictionary or not. Plus, I fixed a bunch of grammar mistakes that existed in the older writing that I now routinely avoid.

All told, I fixed about 1200 flagged issues.

 

[WatcherWraith]

Had a low brain-power day, so I just did some (lengthy but) light editing.

Book 1 has been written over a span of 35 years. Some of the word processors back then didn't have custom dictionaries, so there were a lot of mistakes as I added in those funky accented letters by memory. I went thru the entire book and added all the special words in it (in their correctly accented form!!) to my custom MS Word dictionary. I corrected misspelt words whether in the dictionary or not. Plus, I fixed a bunch of grammar mistakes that existed in the older writing that I now routinely avoid.

All told, I fixed about 1200 flagged issues.

That's some really good progress. I must admit, spelling mistakes would be a task I would be heavily tempted to put off. :/

 

[david_wendelken]

Should I use "Elf Maid" or "Elfmaid" or "Elf-maid?" Enquiring minds want to know!

 

[Ent]

The only place it's found in LoTR is in the "notes" at the back, and is shown as elf-maid.
It's not used in Tolkien's Letters at all.

But the real question is, what do you want it to be? Are you trying to match Tolkien?

I did a study once on how he used the capitalization of the race in front of "titles", and he was slightly inconsistent.
That said, he had a Tendency to capitalize the race if in front of a "title" like Elf-lord. But that's different than an elf-maid, which is not a 'title' per-se. Elf-king, etc. yes. Elf-waif no. elf-waif would be more suited to his style.

 

[Ent]

As an interesting addition, I found it slightly odd the 'race' wasn't even included when it came to the man or human.

Dwarf-lord, Elf-lord, Orc-lord - even Witch-king, Elven-king, etc. - yes. But when it came to Man-lord or Human-lord, we never saw it. What kind of a prejudice does that show, I wonder? (I bet it wasn't even thought about.)

However, in other ways, when necessary, 'men' was used here and there. Like I think Elrond once refers to "the race of men (failed that day)..." or some such as that.

 

[WatcherWraith]

As an interesting addition, I found it slightly odd the 'race' wasn't even included when it came to the man or human.

Dwarf-lord, Elf-lord, Orc-lord - even Witch-king, Elven-king, etc. - yes. But when it came to Man-lord or Human-lord, we never saw it. What kind of a prejudice does that show, I wonder? (I bet it wasn't even thought about.)

However, in other ways, when necessary, 'men' was used here and there. Like I think Elrond once refers to "the race of men (failed that day)..." or some such as that.

If I may posit a theory: we have names and titles already for rulers among men, but none for the other races/species. We may refer to them as "kings", "Lord's", etc, but these are natively human terms, and perhaps not the types of terms the dwarven, elven or even hobbit culture may have come up with themselves. Men are "kings", "stewards", "princes", "lords", "dukes", etc. and these are the names we have come to as a consequence of the language and culture intermix, and as for the other races, we refer to them as "lords" because this is the most generic of the terms and therefore stands for almost any rank.

 

[Ent]

If I may posit a theory

Of course you may. And it’s a theory worth considering.
That said, yes it’s ’how things are’ in our world because of the ‘real’ progression of things.
But… what about a world such as Tolkien’s where from the very beginning, men, elves, dwarves, and others constantly lived side-by-side? How would language and titling have evolved in such a case?

I understand what you’re saying, given things ‘are settled as they are’ in the world as we know it.
But in reality, a world such as Tolkiens would have been quite entirely different - languages and ‘norms’ and all.

Just always things of the sort constantly fluttering through my ever-pondering head, I fear.

 

[WatcherWraith]

Of course you may. And it’s a theory worth considering.
That said, yes it’s ’how things are’ in our world because of the ‘real’ progression of things.
But… what about a world such as Tolkien’s where from the very beginning, men, elves, dwarves, and others constantly lived side-by-side? How would language and titling have evolved in such a case?

I understand what you’re saying, given things ‘are settled as they are’ in the world as we know it.
But in reality, a world such as Tolkiens would have been quite entirely different - languages and ‘norms’ and all.

Just always things of the sort constantly fluttering through my ever-pondering head, I fear.

Ah but there is yet a solution for this as well! :]

Tolkien states the book we read to be a translation, from Westron, Elvish, Adûnaic, etc into English. Even names, to some degree, are translated to be easier for us to understand or pronounce.

In many languages, they don't translate directly into English very well because they use different phrasing or have one word for a specific meaning we don't have a word for. If such is the case with Elvish, and particularly Dwarvish(since it was kept largely secret and I'm betting a translator would have been hard put to it to discover as much as Tolkien represents himself to have done), then perhaps the words for "king" or a ruler of some type was either unknown to the translator or meant something different to the elves than it would to humans.
Granted, I don't know how far Tolkien's world-building went in this respect. But given his own words, I believe this to be at least a decent suggestion.