The Softer Side of the Tolkien Purist Community
You don�t have to try and emulate his style � everyone has their own writing style, after all. The clue is balance. Throwing half the thesaurus in your writing will not make you look better � especially if you use words that have secondary meanings attached to them. However, writing in a lot of slang and using �said� repeatedly wont help you any either.
Prose, like poetry, should have a rhythm to it. Again, if you are stuck, try reading your work out, as if telling a story (which, after all, you are), and try and work out which bits flow, and which bits sound more stilted.
In terms of dialogue, remember to cut out modern phrases. Elves do not say �Yeah.�. Nor would any inhabitant of Middle-earth know modern swear-words or phrases. Read both Tolkien and other �high-fantasy� novels to get an idea of the type of language. It�s not easy to start with, but you�ll soon get the hang of it.
While we�re on the subject of dialogue, lets talk about other types of speech, such as thought, telepathy, or different languages.
The best way of indicating thought or telepathy, is through italics. However, sometime FF.net will strip out formatting. If you have this problem constantly (and it is not fixed by saving as HTML), you can use other formatting methods, ~such as using special characters to indicate thought or telepathy~
If you are going to use special characters or different formatting for different modes of speech, use them sparingly. If your manuscript is dotted with various symbols denoting this that or the other, then it does make it harder to read.
Speaking of hard to read � lets move along to one of my pet subjects, shall we? If you are using large amounts of Elvish in your stories, to the extent that you need to provide translations for it, the chances are that you�re doing it wrong.
How can I say that? Well, the fact is that most of the �Elvish� seen in Tolkien fanfiction is from the Grey Company website. If your Elvish is referred to as �Quenya�, and if it comes in the form of a phrasebook listing, then you�re probably using Grey Company Elvish. It�s based upon Tolkien�s Quenya, but its not Tolkien. Don�t use it.
For the most part, if you ask yourself the question do I need to put this in here?, then the answer will be no. Especially if you are translating sentences directly after they are said. Just write in English � after all, none of the people you are writing about speak English. They are speaking Sindarin, Westron, or Rohirrim, and Tolkien translated their speech into English for the purposes of his story.
If you are writing a scene involving two Elves, then you don�t need to use any Elvish, or even tell us what language they�re speaking, unless it has some bearing on the story (switching to another language to hide something from someone who doesn�t speak that language, etc.). It can be assumed that they are speaking Sindarin (Quenya is not used day-to-day at the time of the War of the Ring.) You may scatter certain words through your dialogue � Ada, Nana, mellon, talan, yrch � these are common, and most people will know what they mean. (Daddy, Mummy, friend, a dwelling of the Galadhrim, and orcs, in case you were unsure).
At any rate, even if someone is unsure of what a particular word means, they should be able to grasp the general meaning of the sentence even without knowing the meaning of every word. If you do need to define some of the words, put the definitions at the top or bottom of the story, with the author�s notes, where they will not interrupt the flow of the narration.
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