[Saxony Tarn]

Well, this thread has certainly been an enlightening read for one who's but recently caved in and allowed the latest idea (inspired oddly enough by a dream, a need to think up an adventure for my gaming group, and some of the gems posted on the fanfic section here) to come flooding onto paper. Of course with some of the caveats posted to this thread, i'd have to go back and determine if it was indeed "unpublishable" by any standards before submitting it for the omnivorous consumption of the 'Downs readers...

A couple of things to add, since most everything else has been well worked over:

1) On the problems of "imitating Tolkein": i've been writing for my own entertainment (and that of brave friends who've read my stuff) for two decades, and i've developed two distinct authorial voices (one, which i call "Steinbeck Prose", more 'highbrow' and florid (and grammatically complicated) than the other) I would consider writing a given story DELIBERATELY in a Tolkeinesque style to be an interesting challenge, and if i could pull it off half as well as the visionary soul who crossed Tolkein and Austen by foul craft or fair, i'd pat myself on the back. And thus this story starts out with one of the characters making up a twisted little song that just happens to suit the actions and the initial thrust of the plot...

Yet adorning already intricate narration with poetry breaks just because Tolkein did it would be artistically like Prince lacing seven music videos together with the movie "Purple Rain" for a string. So, as it pans out, our singer here would use music and verse as the method of his magic, thus giving the songs a more believable reason to be in the story (or at least i'd hope a reader would think that, find them relevant and appropriate, and maybe even cleverly done, and get a chuckle rather than skipping them...)

2) On Sex, Love, and Good Fiction: always a, um, provocative topic. i've noticed it's easier to handle as i get older (and also easier to write it convincingly) but if the characters aren't cool with it, i wouldn't force them on each other (conversely, some characters i've had to pry off each other with a crowbar) One rule i've always held to is that no character's relationship should be consummated until the end of the story. i'd rather make 'em wait and work for it, and if the tension that drives them drops off before then, i won't bother letting such a resolution happen for them. (Sort of like Life, in a way. Had some characters that caved in to their 'forbidden' attraction to each other -- they spent the rest of their tale dealing with the repercussions from their rash action and maneuvering their way out of the hot water it put them in. Ah, character-revealing conflict!)

But yeah, the carnal angle has been pretty well used & overused by now, so if it doesn't seem like it should be worth mention,or it makes the author feel uncomfortably voyeuristic while trying to write it, off-camera it goes and stays...

and 3) let me add my voice to the raves for having so many folks on here who are serious about their writing -- whether they write for an audience of one or a million. Makes me feel right at home!

be well, and may your ideas never dry up; if they do, do something else for a bit. (Always works for me -- my ideas have come in cycles for years...)

s.t.