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How would YOU have ended Lord of the Rings?
Ixarku:
--- Quote from: 1000mAh on February 26, 2011, 01:54:02 PM ---Studying writing is over-rated, EVERYONE CAN write. So, okey, you meant that kind of depth...
--- End quote ---
Most everyone can write, but not everyone can write well. Writing is a craft, like anything else. Natural talent may suffice for a few people, but most writers will benefit from studying and working on their craft. The more I study writing technique, the more I realize how much I didn’t know about how to create a story.
Overall, I agree with Fool010. I've read and reread Tolkien's work off and on for the last 30 years. I've read quite a bit of other fantasy & sci-fi as well over the years, and written some of my own. Tolkien was a scholar and a linguist first and foremost. He wrote LotR and his other works ultimately to serve as background material for the Elvish language, but also to give the English a mythology of their own (although, yeah, he did borrow heavily from other European sources). His writing is flawed in the sense that it’s not aimed for mass market consumption. It meanders a bit, the pacing is hideous for the most part, and it’s filled with exposition and description that, at times, feels like it contributes little to the immediate action.
But the writing gives quite an interesting view into Tolkien’s mind, and he succeeds brilliantly in drawing the reader into a world of tremendous depth. Tolkien provides the starting point for later generations of writers to quite successfully expand on this style of epic fantasy. And that’s really the point IMO.
I wouldn’t change Tolkien’s work at all, any more than I would change the work of Lovecraft, H.G. Wells, or Jules Verne.
Fool010:
--- Quote from: Ixarku on February 27, 2011, 01:27:25 PM ---I wouldn’t change Tolkien’s work at all, any more than I would change the work of Lovecraft, H.G. Wells, or Jules Verne.
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Minor -personal- nitpick ... how come you didn't mention Robert E. Howard ? His place is up there. While not the most elegant stylist -that honor probably goes to Clark Ashton Smith- his storytelling ability was second to none. In fact only few came even close.
While Tolkien is of primordial importance for high fantasy, both sword and sorcery and dark fantasy would be very different without Howard's influence. Everything shounen does, he did before.
Ixarku:
--- Quote from: Fool010 on February 27, 2011, 02:52:29 PM ---Minor -personal- nitpick ... how come you didn't mention Robert E. Howard ? His place is up there. While not the most elegant stylist -that honor probably goes to Clark Ashton Smith- his storytelling ability was second to none. In fact only few came even close.
While Tolkien is of primordial importance for high fantasy, both sword and sorcery and dark fantasy would be very different without Howard's influence. Everything shounen does, he did before.
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I didn't mention Howard or Smith because I haven't read them and didn't think of them at the time. Admittedly, that's a glaring oversight on my part, one I'll eventually correct, but most of my reading over the years has focused on writers from the 60s to the present, with a few exceptions.
I've got so many books in my wish list I'll probably never get through them all. I just finished Book 9 of Malazan Book of the Fallen, got book 10 on pre-order, and I decided to pick up The Black Company as well, started reading Night of Knives today, and I've still got 7 more books in my to-be-read pile on my desk...
Scudworth:
I would change it so the movie was like the book. nuff said.
TMRNetShark:
The Hobbit... nuff said.
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