[mark12_30]

Davem,

Lively ideas!

Suppose I wrote a 'fanfic' about a Hobbit called Trotter (complete with broken pipe & wooden shoes) rescuing Idis, Theoden's daughter, from the dungeon's of Giant Treebeard, encountering along the way some of 'pretty little fairies'?

Gee, sounds fun. What do you think, Child? (Who gets to visit the Cottage of Lost Play?)

How many people unfamiliar with Tolkien's early work & the first drafts of LotR would consider it totally 'wrong' & entirely unacceptable?

Lots of 'em. So it would be preferable to give the storya thorough introduction: a preface explaining what Tolkienish era the story is based in. One either explains who Trotter was, or, one refers the reader to the section of HoME the story is based from.

Would that story be classed as 'uncanonical'?

No. It would be classed as pre-LOTR, HoME fanfic. Admittedly you would have a much narrower audience than for a Legolas story.

It would certainly be AU.

For Strider, yes it would; but **not for Trotter.** And you're writing Trotter's story, not Strider's. Aren't you? (Or are you?)

What 'period' of Tolkien's creative work does a piece of fan fiction have to correspond to in order to be acceptable?

The period that you say you're working with. That's why I was excited about the "Sliding Scale" idea. Some of us have played/ are playing with The Lost Road. And there have been games involving Gondolin, Numenor... which used extra-Sil, HoME writings. We debated as we went.

A work of fan fiction may not correspond to the later vision, but it may capture the mood & spirit of the early work. Or it may get many 'facts' wrong & still be a good story. On the other hand, I've come across a lot of fan fiction, replete with 'facts', even large chunks of perfect Elvish, which bored me senseless.

I would certainly agree that fanfiction-- indeed, any good story-- requires more than just correct language and facts.

Of course, knowing Tolkien's creation as well as I do (though I'm certainly no 'expert'),I do find many things in otherwise good fan fiction which annoy & break the spell, but I suspect that that is because the inner consistency of reallity has not been achieved, the spell of the story not sufficiently well cast - because if it was I would have been too enchanted to notice the odd slip.

I agree that it must be part of the whole.

If I combed through Mithadan's Tales, I might be able to find a slip. But: I wasn't accosted, mugged or ambushed by any! Not one! And as a result, when I got to ... oh, I won't ruin it for you, but the part where -- yeah, that part -- I cried.

You are right. It's a question of not breaking the enchantment. So-- there has to be an enchantment there to start with . And that takes good writing, and inspiration, and a host of other things.

Character abuse is the worst form of non-canoni..ci..ty. In fact Tolkien Himself said so in Letters.



It is a pleasure discussing this with you, davem.

Grace and peace, --mark12_30

(EDIT: Child--

Tagging along with a bunch of Fallohides, he is required to stretch between two worlds, and that is not always easy.

I never saw it like that before. Now there's an eye-opener and no mistake.