Eryan,
You have wonderful insight! Tolkien was an artist and illustrator, as well as, a remarkable writer. I believe having both these gifts enabled him to paint such splendid pictures with words.
I also believe this is one of the reasons when we see paintings by Tolkien artists they often look just as you pictured it in your mind. He gives them every detail right down to the light and shadows.

Thank-you for sharing this marvelous reflection on Tolkien's writings.

Eryan's fine examples of Tolkien's painting with words, provide such graphic pictures that I can almost taste them. And yes, when we view an artist's rendition of one of Tolkien's scenes, it is very like what our mind's eye pictured, because Tolkien used such great multi-faceted descriptions in setting his scenes.

A nice quote Allyssa!
What you wrote about too many unnecessary details as a symptom of immaturity of the writer is very true! Look at that fragment of the "LAy of Leithian" describing Beren's coming to Doriath. Just four lines, and we know that he is alone and sorrowing, that he just had some hard time (came form the mountains cold), but that now he is in an enchanted land (suggested just by the two wodrs, Elven-river). We feel sympathy and compassion for him and we assume that he is a hero and not a villain, although this is not explicitly stated! We do not know anything more, but we assume that he is a nice man (and he might have been an evil, ugly bad-smelling Orc - they also can be alone and sorrowing I suppose!)
Returning to the question of too many words/details, I am more and more worried about it in my own writing. I showed fragments of my texts to several persons (including my mother) and only one of them told me that she liked my manner of writing - but even that person warned me that I am "painting with words using too much paint"! All others told me that my texts ares far too wordy. My cardinal sin is that I often cannot choose a single adjectif and I am putting more of them in a string which makes the text very heavy. And, most annoying of all, when I return to some fragments of my text after a longer while, I see that although I put too much unnecessary details, many necessary details are still missing!!!!

My writing is in Polish so the guild won't be able to help me I'm afraid!
As for showing and not telling, I am doing this all the time and I was proud of it... and then my readers complained that Ii'm "bombing" them with vivid, suggestive images which haunt them afterwards and leave no place for imagination... and that this manner of writing is tiring... I was much surprised but almost all of them told me so, except one person who told me that she liked that! And you know what? This only person is very fond of fantasy as a genre, and all others do not like fantasy so much! I wonder whether this is a simple coincidence, perhaps not? Perhaps I should seek only the opinion of people who actually do like fantasy?

[Edited on 2/12/2002 by Eryan]

I agree with Grondy. I have found that the most helpful and constructive feedback comes from people who read fantasy. Do you know any other fantasy readers/writers Eryan? I think you need some more (expert) opinions.

What a fascinating quote, Eryan. I like it very much. In fact, I think that I will remember it when I am trying to create a mood like that one. It is very cleverly done!

Please make this the post of the week. it is one of the most insightful discusion I have ever seen. Eryan if you don't get post of the week for which you should you get a huge thumbs up from me

I have another quote, that evokes a very powerful vision, with fairly few simple words.



Tension is built with the first two sentances, as well as illustrating the protagonist's innocence. Somehow, the reader is able to guess that his mother and sisters are not hiding, but have been killed. The rain lends a metephor for tears and grief, and though the protagonist does not cry, we sense that he will later. The image of the dead men in the alley is very strong, yet it only takes two sentances, and nowhere does Hearn use the word 'dead'. I like this kind of writing very much.