* An unofficial New Silmarillion Outline *

[ArcusCalion]

I must say, I am against using the revised edition of the Hobbit in our narrative. To do so would be unjustifiable, as even the revised edition does not change the fact that it is from Bilbo's perspective and not Gandalf's. I think also that to use summaries of the LotR text would not be in line with the project, but I suppose it is more viable than the inclusion of the Hobbit material. I think we should hold off adding any of teh remaining three tales (Quest for Erebor (QE), Battles of the Fords of Isen (BFI), and Hunt for the Ring (HR)) until we have posted and reviewed the text of the final chapter. This way we will see what we are working with and be able to make a more informed choice.

As to what sources I used for the final chapter, I did not use the ones you mentioned. I used a large patchwork of sources, and I think it covers the War of the Ring reasonably well, but of course only highlighting Gandalf, Aragorn, and mentioning Frodo. After we review the chapter, we can discuss adding in more details.

[ArcusCalion]

Having reviewed some of the texts mentioned by Fin, I would like to comment on them.

1) Of the Finding of the Ring: I think this is actually a good idea, but we would have to discuss how it would fit in with the account in Of the Rings of Power and in Durin's Folk, but I am sure we could make it work. If we do include this narrative summary, perhaps we could also include the Quest for Erebor into the main narrative, which would be ideal, although I feel (pretty strongly) that it is impossible to remove the narrative framework from it, which would make it impossible to insert into the story. Regardless, if we are to include Of the Finding of the Ring, then I think we must also include the other sections of the Prologue, aside from (perhaps) the last one, although that last section would fit nicely at the start of the whole project. I see no reason why we could not do this. perhaps adding them into the narrative when the Shire is first established. Whatever our decision on the above, I do not think we could use the revised Hobbit, as it is still written as the memoir of Bilbo, and to add it in would mean adding in the entire Hobbit (updated) which is beyond the scope of the project. I think we are able to use the text of the Prologue to LotR, simply because we are not given a source for it, whereas LotR and the rest are all explicitly sourced (and published).

2) The Letter to Milton Waldman: This ends with the end of the Second Age, and so cannot help us here.

3) The Synopses contained at the beginning of Two Towers and Return of the King: These worry me. They are not contained in all editions, and I am unsure if they are the words of Tolkien, or of his editor/publishers. I think to use these texts presents risks, as well as the issue of the events of Return of the King being almost entirely untold: a jarring change of pace from the description of the events of the first two books. To use Appendix B: the Great Years to construct a narrative would need to be almost entirely written wholecloth, and even then would produce only a choppy, awkward narrative. We may at best use it only for supplemental sentences to a narrative which must exist beyond it; we cannot use it as a primary narrative. Therefore, it seems to me as if the events of Lord of the Rings are not easy to tell. I am somewhat inclined to use the synopses at the beginning of TT and RotK, but I would need to have proof that they were indeed written by Tolkien himself. If we do any of these things, then we may be able to include HR and BFI, but we need to decide this first.

Sidenote: I used the narrative at the end of Appendix B which details the events of the War in the North in Mirkwood and Dale in the last chapter.

[ArcusCalion]

Having reviewed the Synopsis in LotR, if we can prove it was written by Tolkien and not his editor, it is indeed perfect for our desires. With the synopsis, we can include at least the Hunt for the Ring, and possibly the Battles of the Fords of Isen. In addition, I have some ideas for restructuring that we can use now that we are to include the material from the prologue of LotR (at the very least).

I propose that we give the headline 'The Stewards' to the chapter made from the second part of Amroth and Nimrodel. The chapter that we are currently calling The Stewards will then also be split into two: Of the Finding of the Ring and The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen. The former will include much of the ancillary material from the Stewards chapter (the stuff about Rohan mostly) while the second will take the story of Aragorn as far is it goes before LotR, as well as discussing Denethor. I think this will both expand and streamline the structure of the chapters. From there, the next chapter can be The Hunt for the Ring, which essentially is composed of that text. Following that will be The War of the Ring, which may contain The Battles of the Fords of Isen. If Fin can fit The Quest for Erebor into the narrative, then that title can replace Of the Finding of the Ring as the chapter name, while that can become a subheading. I think this allows for the best structure of the narrative thus far. If we agree to this, I am inclined to remove the Stewards thread and start over, in order to remove all this confusion and restructuring of narratives (for which I apologize.)

[Findegil]

Sorry this is a kind of cross posting since I started this before ArcusCalions laast message.
1) For the inclusion of Of the Finding of the Ring and The Quest for Erebor with some extract from the 1960 Hobbit I worked out in the meantime a draft. But seeing your post, I considered holding back until you would have posted the last chapter and the appendices and made only some comments on the changes you introduce in the chapter ‘The Stewards’. I realy think we should wait with changing title of the chapter until we have reached a final decision what is included. Since if we include The Quest for Erebor, this might become the title or the chapter might even be split.

2) The part about LotR of The Letter to Milton Waldman is given in full in Scull and Hammond’s The Lord of the Rings: A Reader’s Companion. I have not yet re-read it but at least we have the text.

3) The Synopses contained at the beginning of Two Towers and Return of the King: I am prety sure that these are from JRR Tolkien, but I have not yet found a prove. It is true that they are not in all editions (they make no sense at all in a one volume edition) but since the first editions were three volume editions and the publisher was much concerned about the books being each readable by themself, I suppose they were included from the start. I will further look for any indication that they are original JRR Tolkien productions. I agree that it would be risky to use them without such prove. (Probably I could not even provide the English text, since, think about it, all my English editions of LotR are one volume editions. I only know them from my German edition.)
As to the story of volume III not told, I agree that this might be problematic, but on the other hand, the most importante events are collected there and these are given some space in the other sources we have, specially Of the Rings of Power.
I agree with ArcusCalion’s jugdement about LotR, Appendix B and its useability. And reading his sidenote, I fully support that inclusion. Nonetheless we should consider such addition from The Great Years as are possible.
I am not quite sure that we have to decised first how we build up these chapters. The approached used to make the drafts is still a decent one. So why should we not get the results of that approach (chapter The War of the Ring and the Appendices) and then work together at the text to get a result we are all satisfied with?

Please do not delet any thread! This forum is a kind of documentation of our work. And it is no failure to start with diffrent assumptions. And restructuring has been done before.

For the time being I agree to the plan of restructuring.

Respectfully
Findegil

[ArcusCalion]

1) I have posted a draft of my restructured chapter including Of the Finding of the Ring in The Stewards thread. In that thread we can begin to discuss the inclusion of The Quest for Erebor into that chapter. I would need to see your proposed draft, or if it is in any way similar to the idea I have in my restructured version.

2) Having checked the book, his summary of LotR is very much point for point the same as the synopsis, but written in a much choppier form. Therefore, the only place it would be relevant would be for the events of Return of the King, and indeed I think I will incorporate parts of it into my draft for the final chapter, but the overall meat of it is inferior in quality to the form of the Synopsis, since it is written in Tolkien's commentative style, as well as in brief bullet-point form.

Update: I have updated the final draft of the last chapter, and I made copious use of the text of the letter. It is actually perfect for summarizing the events of Return of the King, and I used great portions of the end of it (heavily edited). Thank you Fin for pointing me in the direction of the full text, as I did not know it continued past the point given in the Letters of JRRT.

3) I have the text of the Synopsis typed out and added into my draft, so once we have confirmation that they were written by Tolkien (as indeed seems likely) then we may use it. Having made the draft using it, I no longer think the lack of a summmary of volume 3 is a big problem. The summary of the War of the Ring in the drafts for the Tale of Aragorn and Arwen covers all the basic points of the story quite well, and we can supplement it with extracts from the Letter to Milton Waldman. About The Great Years I do not think we will need them if we use the Synopsis and the Letter. I used parts of the Fourth Age events for the draft of the next chapter, but aside from that I do not think we will need them. As for The Hunt for the Ring, once we make a decision about including the Synopsis there is no question that I would want to include it inmy draft as its own chapter, because the Synopsis will solve the imbalance in level of story detail. Therefore, once we decide definitively that we will use the Synopsis, I will post the draft of the next chapter, which would now be The Hunt for the Ring. I will, however, wait until we have reviewed the chapter as it exists then before adding in The Battles of the Fords of Isen. For now, that can remain in our outline as an Appendix, along with The Quest for Erebor. Once we review the last chapters as they are currently envisioned, we can discuss whether or not to add them in, as I know Fin already has a draft for the latter prepared.

Update: Upon completion of the last draft of the final chapter including the summary of Return of the King from the Waldman letter, I think it will be very easily possible to add in the Battles of the Fords of Isen, although we can discuss the best way to do so in due time.

Apologies for the many, many posts. I know it's hard to keep track, but all of these additions are so exciting to me and I get carried away, and new ideas of how to handle them keep occurring to me!

Therefore, the summary of all of this is this:
1) I will wait for Fin to comment on my restructure of The Stewards, now split into two chapters: Of the Finding of the Ring and The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen.
2) After we resolve that, he will post his ideas about possibly including The Quest for Erebor into the narrative.
3) We will decide whether or not to use the Synopsis for LotR (as I think we will).
4) I will post my draft for the last two chapters: The Hunt for the Ring and The War of the Ring.
5) We will review my drafts, and then discuss adding in The Battles of the Fords of Isen.
That seems to me to be the timeline of what we need to do next. I figured I lay it out here for ease of reading. We are so close to the end! After these next chapters, it is only The New Shadow and then we finish the entire narrative of the Legendarium!!

[ArcusCalion]

Now that we have finished step 1) and 2) of our to-do list, we come to step 3). I am pretty much resolved to use the Synopsis of LotR at this point, as I think it is a fairly safe assumption that Tolkien wrote it himself. It is nearly identical in form and style (and sometimes even in words) to the letter to Milton Waldman which Tolkien wrote. Therefore, for that reason, and the reason that it was present in all multi-volume editions, even the first one, as well as the editor's explicit desire that each book should be able to be read alone, I think we can assume that Tolkien did in fact write the Synopsis at the front of Return of the King. If we are agreed on this, I will move on to step 4) and post the draft for The Hunt for the Ring.

Sidenote: Since making the last post, I have revised (again) my outline for the final chapters. The first of these is still The Hunt for the Ring, but what follows is different. As I currently have it, the chapter that follows I have entitles The Ring Sets Out, which was one of the rejected titles for one of the books of LotR. I think it fits, and in this chapter I have the subheading The Battles of the Fords of Isen. Following that chapter, I have The War of the Ring, which was another rejected title for one of the books of LotR, as well as the title of volume 8 of HoME. Finally, after that, I have The End of the Third Age, which was (again) another rejected title for one of the books of LotR, as well as the title of one edition of volume 9 of HoME. We can discuss these in more detail in their respective threads, but I wanted to lay out the structure so we can all be on the same page.

[Findegil]

After a long search, I have found the prove that the synopsis's are original JRR Tolkien text. Hamond and Scull document in their 'Chronology' in full detail the corrospondence between JRR Tolkien and his publisher. So we get for the July the 5th 1954 the information that JRR Tolkien send the synopsis of The Fellowship of the Ring that was to be included at the begining of The Two Towers and for the 13th of September 1954 that he send the Synopsis of The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers that was to be printed at the begining of The Return of the King.

Respectfully
Findegil