[ 3 / biz / cgl / ck / diy / fa / ic / jp / lit / sci / vr / vt ] [ index / top / reports ] [ become a patron ] [ status ]
2023-11: Warosu is now out of extended maintenance.

/lit/ - Literature

View post   
File: 2.29 MB, 670x503, 1392037319286.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
7898981 No.7898981 [Reply] [Original]

Tips on writing more like Tolkien?

>> No.7898983

learn old english

>> No.7898984

leave your quaint rural town to join the army and come back years later to a polluted sweatshop clusterfuck where you get no respect

>> No.7898985

>>7898981
Read more Tolkien

>> No.7899948

spend most of your day on thinking about dope elvish names

>> No.7899964

Dont try and write like tolkien

Do something right or dont do it at all

>> No.7899977

Learn how to describe different types of rocks really really well

>> No.7899991

>>7898981
Invent a language already, jeeze

>> No.7900051

>>7899964
But if he wants to write more like tolkien then writing more like tolkien is right.

>> No.7900057

>>7898981
don't.

>> No.7900088
File: 592 KB, 1045x1600, 1936-07-Weird-Tales-by-Margaret-Brundage[1].jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
7900088

>>7898981
first things first:
1.develop a shit taste that holds ye olde ynglyshe beowulf to be the bestest poem ever (because it has dragons)
2.read a ton of pic related.
3.become a professor for the english language and literature over at oxford.

>> No.7900123

>>7898985
Underrated

>> No.7900234

Read nothing but shitty public domain translations from the 19th century.

>> No.7901381

1: be from South Africa

2: smoke a pipe

3: fear of spiders

4: fuck young teenage boys in a moldy cloister in a college that is more than 400 years old

5: steal ideas from the Kalevala

6: ...

7: profit!

>> No.7901397

>>7898981

Don't just copy elves and dwarves like D&D and all the other Tolkien clones did. Focus more on the hero's journey and things like that.

The Chronicles of Narnia and pretty much all of Guy Gavriel Kay's books are "Tolkien-esque" without just blatantly stealing ideas from him.

>> No.7901424

become a scholar of old and middle english literature, read a lot, be a Christian with a tendency to moralize

>> No.7903051

>>7898985
That,

>>7901397
that,

-and principally just understand storytelling. One thing Tolkien always did was tell only important events, ones directly relavent to the over-all story or a spesific important character's development; which is a given, but he always did so through the eyes of the least-informed character present (Usually Bilbo, Frodo, or Gimli). That way it doesn't feel weird when someone explains things many characters would already know. For example: it makes sense that a hobbit what's never left the shire wouldn't understand elf stuff, vs. having it explained to a human or dwarf that have a much higher chance of having already seen/experienced elf-stuff.

However, the phrase "show, don't tell," applies just as much to books as it does to films, and it's probably the one thing that I don't like about Tolkien's stories. However, he was inventing things we now take for granted, like what a Dwarf is, or how we should feel around dragons.
Don't be afraid to elaborate on objects, places, or atmospheres, but do so when necessary for god's sake.

>> No.7903054

>>7901397
> Don't just copy elves and dwarves like D&D and all the other Tolkien clones did.

Or do, but waste no time elaborating upon them; letting the reader operate on understood conventions. Don't make another origin story for Batman; everyone knows already.

>> No.7903871

Write long stretches of prose about smoking pipes and eating mutton. Pepper in dwarves and dragons.