Fiction Friday: You are NOT J. R .R. Tolkien

I've only read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings Trilogy once.  It was actually years ago, and I've very much wanted to read them again, but, dude!  Those books are long.  I would probably have to devote an entire summer to reading them, so maybe next year?

Even if I haven't read them in a while, they remain some of my favorite books.  Samwise Gamgee is my second favorite fictional character.  I can't watch the end of the last movie (Return of the King) without weeping.  The book The Return of the King made me weep, too.  After journeying along with Samwise and Frodo (and believe me, with as long and as well-written as those books are, you literally feel like you're journeying with them), it broke my heart to have to see them part at the end.  Hopefully I didn't ruin that ending for you.

Tolkien was a genius, and eventually I'd like to delve into some of his other work.  I have a copy of The Silmarillion that I have yet to read.  Why?  Because I'd probably have to devote a good month to that thing in order to give it proper attention, and I don't have that kind of time at the moment.  Tolkien's works need time to properly digest.  They deserve every bit of that time. 

Other books, however, don't deserve that kind of time and devotion.
There was a time when readers wanted to read books full of descriptive landscapes, wordy settings, lengthy passages about various unimportant objects that happen to be sitting around in a room.  A lot of these books are wonderful.  I have nothing against them.  It's just that most of them were written in the 1800s, and it seems to me that a lot of today's authors are suffering under some kind of delusion.  Either they believe they're still living in the 1800s, or they believe they are, in fact, J. R. R. Tolkien.

Tolkien did not write LOTR in the 1800s.  He wrote LOTR in the earlier half of the 1900s.  In the case of this work, however, it doesn't really matter, because it was ground-breaking.  LOTR was pretty much the first of its kind, which means it would have done well in whatever particular time it was written.  Just about every fantasy author since Tolkien has ripped off been inspired by LOTR.  If Tolkien had not written this work, I seriously doubt modern literature would be the same.

I'd also like to point out that Tolkien's use of the written language was amazing.  I haven't read the books in many years, but I have skimmed through them, just to relive the beauty of the language.  Tolkien knew how to weave words together.  The following is a brief excerpt from Return of the King:

The great shadow descended like a falling cloud.  And behold! it was a winged creature: if bird, then greater than all other birds, and it was naked, and neither quill nor feather did it bear, and its vast pinions were as webs of hide between horned fingers; and it stank.  A creature of an older world maybe it was, whose kind, lingering in forgotten mountains cold beneath the Moon, outstayed their day, and in hideous eyrie bred this last untimely brood, apt to evil.  And the Dark Lord took it, and nursed it with fell meats, until it grew beyond the measure of all other things that fly; and he gave it to his servant to be his steed.  Down, down it came, and then, folding its fingered webs, it gave a croaking cry, and settled...digging in its claws, stooping its long naked neck.

Wonderful!  Ooh.  I might have nightmares!

I've read a few more modern authors who seem to think that they have a similar grasp of the written language (Christopher Paolini and Cornelia Funke immediately come to mind), and well, they just don't.  I'm not saying that they aren't good.  In fact, I enjoy their work.  I simply enjoy their work for the stories, and not the long, detailed, and completely unnecessary descriptions and/or situations that I have to work through in order to read the stories.  The problem is, sometimes I'm not sure if I think stories like this are worth all the effort and time involved to actually read them.  And that's sad.

I'm not saying description is a bad thing.  Not at all.  Small details are nice. Is it vitally important that the main character is wearing a blue shirt? No, but it's okay if an author wants me to know that, as long as he/she doesn't, for no good reason, tell me that the main character is wearing a tagless, pocketless cotton blend periwinkle blue polo with a yellow stripe on the sleeves.  If the lengthy detail about the main character's shirt was to make some kind of clear point or was necessary to the story somehow, that's fine.  Otherwise, leave it out!  See, what I really don't like is when an author goes on and on about nonessential details that don't make the story more enjoyable.


What today's authors have to understand is that most of today's readers aren't interested in major detail that 1) isn't essential or at least relevant to the plot, or 2) doesn't significantly add to the enjoyment of reading.  That means that not all excessive descriptions have to be integral to the plot, but if they're not, then they had better be stinkin' good. 

Readers, for the most part, are not stupid.  They do not need an author to figuratively hold their hand.  It insults a reader's intelligence if an author includes too many non-essential descriptions. 

Maybe it's sad that society is all about instant gratification.  Maybe it's sad that we can't sit down and enjoy a lengthy book with incredible descriptive scenes.  But honestly, I haven't read many modern books that have long descriptions that take my breath away.  Most of them just make me want to put the author in the Literary Naughty Corner.  The most enjoyable literature (Harry Potter and The Hunger Games immediately come to mind) I've read lately has a good balance of description and pace.  The authors know what they need to include without putting in too much.  They know how to keep the story flowing without getting stuck in some kind of pointless drudgery that no one wants to read.  They know how to make the characters interesting and relatable without telling us a million little details that aren't relevant to the plot.  Believe me, Paolini, I could care less that Eragon likes to shave using magic.  If it's not important, or otherwise really good, don't include it.

And just so everyone knows I'm not picking on anyone, I'm going to go ahead and say that I was once quite guilty of believing that I was J. R. R. Tolkien.  I believed I had every right to write a 175,000 word YA fantasy novel, because I was just THAT good.  No.  I wasn't.  After much, MUCH, editing, that book is now under 75,000 words.  I still have some minor editing to do, but it'll probably stay under 75,000 words.  That means that about 100,000 of the words I originally included were unnecessary. 

I'm not Tolkien.

Neither are you.

Which kind of takes the pressure off every fantasy writer out there.  I mean, no matter how awesome we are, we'll never be as awesome as Tolkien.  Just something to think about.

Use Your Words!

I've been planning a craft for the girls I watch that involves using words clipped out of magazines and newspapers.  I guess I could *try* to get them involved in the actual word clipping, but I know that would go over about as well as if I asked them to do their own laundry.  The youngest one (The Princess) wouldn't even know what I was talking about (I'm pretty sure she believes the Laundry Fairy comes and washes all her clothes and magics them back into her dresser.  Well, okay, the Laundry Fairy does exist--and her name is Mommy...and sometimes Daddy).  The oldest one (The Drama Queen) would freak out about how hard it is and act as though I were a horrible monster for even suggesting that I try to make her do it.  The middle one (The Diva) would let me know that she was perfectly capable of doing it, but that she had better things to do and wouldn't waste her time on such a trivial activity.  Long story short--I would fight a battle doomed to failure and end up cutting all the words out by myself.  So I saved myself a lot of whining and just started clipping out words.

I've been clipping words out of magazines and newspapers for about a month now.  My roommate told me I was going overboard, but I didn't listen.  Turns out, I probably did go overboard, but now I'm kind of addicted to clipping out words, so I'm still doing it even though I've got a huge ziplock bag full of words!  Every time I go to the library, I grab a handful of each of those free periodicals they have there.  And I don't feel too bad about it, because as I've clipped the words, I've read some of the stuff in there.  Some of it is actually pretty good, but most of it belongs on the bottom of a birdcage.  I have a feeling a lot of those free periodicals end up getting recycled without having ever been read.  I feel sorry for those periodicals.  They were printed for a purpose that they will never realize, stacked on the wire rack of their dreams that will never come true.  So I'm doing them a favor by putting them to some use--even if that use is viciously ripping them apart in search of "big, pretty words."

In my search for words, I've noticed that advertisers are some of the best liars in the world.  For example, do you know what the word "unique" means?  Do you know how many times I've cut the word "unique" out of different ads?  If something is unique, then it's one-of-a-kind, right?  Well, I seriously doubt that all of these similar products and services I've encountered are as "unique" as they claim.  But slap the word "unique" on a page with big, pretty letters, add a picture of a cute kid, and all of the sudden suckers are going to get sucked in.  That is, they would if every other "unique" ad didn't also have big, pretty letters and an equally adorable child.  Maybe even holding a puppy, for good measure.

Words are some of my favorite things in the world.  I like the idea that a bunch of symbols (letters) pieced together in a certain order has a meaning that we assign to it.  I like that you can put those words together into sentences that also have meanings.  I like watching toddlers learn to assign meanings to words, and I like hearing them put those words into sentences--figuring out language patterns.  I like watching kindergartners and first graders learn to write out those patterns.  I like watching them struggle with the MANY exceptions to those patterns.  It's not that I like watching them struggle so much as it's interesting to me to watch their brains try to figure out this crazy English language.  As much as the English language has been warped over the centuries, it's a wonder we have any grammatical rules left....

Some grammatical rules seem more important to me than others.  I can't stand it when people use the wrong form of your/you're or there/their/they're, but I can live with a split infinitive (if James T. Kirk could do it on his five year mission, I can do it, too).  I also don't mind it if you end a sentence with a preposition.  And it's absolutely fine with me if you start a sentence with a conjunction (see what I did there?).  I even like passive voice if it's used effectively.  I think I'm more likely to be a grammar nazi when a broken grammar rule leads to difficulty in understanding the meaning that a writer is trying to convey.  For example, the phrase "Your pretty" leads me to ask the question, "My pretty what?"  Yet that doesn't explain why my ears bleed every time someone says, "I'm doing good" or "I'm real smart" or "He ran quick."  I guess being the daughter of two teachers--one of whom was an English teacher--caused me to pick up on how proper grammar should sound. 

I do think there's a problem with what people do with words today.  That "unique" example is part of it.  C. S. Lewis made a good point when he said, "Don't use words too big for the subject. Don't say 'infinitely' when you mean 'very'; otherwise you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite."  I do that with the word "awesome."  I use that word like I have to meet a quota.  And when I use it, I'm not even using the original meaning.  I'm using the watered-down 80's version of it.  Word meanings change over time (another thing I really like about words), but sometimes I don't think it's a good thing.  With "awesome," I keep using that word, but I do not think it means what I think it means.  I call my friends awesome.  Does that mean they fill me with awe every time I see them?  Ok...maybe...but I think it more likely that they are just great people whom I like to be around.  Maybe I should find a better word to describe my friends and save the word "awesome" for things that actually inspire awe--like God.

But I really really like the word "awesome," and I really really like using the word "awesome" because it's such an...awesome word.  You see my problem?  That--and I feel the need to repeat the word "really" to convey the really-ness of my like of the word "awesome."

You know what?  Never mind.  I'm pretty sure the English language is doomed to be a train wreck.  I'm the only one of my friends who actually types out words when I text.  I'm sure I annoy all my friends who are able to make sense out of the phrase: "Gng 2 prty @ Sue's 2mrw? 8pm. Cn u br dip?"  I mean, I cause them so much trouble by actually typing it all out: "Are you going to go to the party at Sue's tomorrow?  It's at 8pm.  Can you bring dip?"  All those extra letters to read.  It's such a waste of time!

I believe that in the future, vowels will be obsolete.  Everyone will communicate using only consonants, even whilst speaking, so that all verbal communication will be reduced to a series of grunts.  "Gd mrnng.  Hw r y?"  "Mrnng. M fn. Hw r y?"  "Gd. Nd cff."  "M t."  Yeah.  It'll be really confusing.  To fix that problem, everyone's just going to be implanted with a device that eliminates all need for verbal communication.  To save the time it would take for someone to verbally communicate a thought, the actual thought will actually be projected into another person's actual brain.  ACTUALLY!  This, of course,  will lead to several technical glitches that will eventually make everyone completely telepathic.  Everyone will know everyone else's thoughts all the time.  Then everyone in the world will become uber paranoid and will never leave their houses again.  Until one day a brave soul discovers an ancient book called a "Dictionary" and brings language back into a world that is desperately in need of a few good words.

Ooh.  That would be awesome.