For the writing of THE HOBBITS (the finest Middle-earth Fanfiction yet written, in my oh-so-humble opinion), I found it necessary to start an actual bulletin board forum on EZBOARD.
There was a thread for each chapter, the first post of which was the first draft of the chapter. Reader/Editors were invited to post comments, corrections, and glorious praise to each chapter thread. I was then able to edit arcane spelling and grammar errors, to make Middle-earth corrections recommended by those more learned in the lore than myself, and to make other improvements in style and substance. This took nearly 18 months, since I was not able to work at it as diligently as I should have liked.
Since it was a Middle-earth fanfiction, I saw no point whatsoever in avoiding the Professor's style. The readers are hoping for more of what made them fans to start with! Point in fact, I tried to emulate Tolkien's style and perspective as much as I was able, choosing THE HOBBIT as the particular mode best suited to the work. In Mithadan's TOL ERESEA fanfictions, he seems to write in a style closer to parts of THE SILMARILLION. Should I ever finish my novel on the forthcoming Millennial Kingdom, some may (hopefully) say it reminds them of Tolkien, but I will not be trying to consciously duplicate his style in a non-Middle-earth fiction.
You will find that working hard on a Middle-earth fanfiction should be very good practice for whatever writing you may ever want to do. Please do not simply think, "It's a fanfic, so spelling, grammar, logic, internal consistency, and canon lore do not really matter." It certainly does matter to the person taking time to read it!
THE HOBBITS has gotten a number of favorable reviews. It is 27 chapters long, but I hope you will find it worth the read and a decent example of what a long form fanfiction can be. You can read this LORD OF THE RINGS sequel from the link provided in my signature.
|