***spoiler Warning***

[Feanorsdoom]

Like Eomer said above, the tales of the First and Second Ages are mostly written as histories in the tradition of Old English, Old French, and Latin chronicles from Medieval Britain. It is, roughly, the equivalent of chapter headers like, "Sherman's March to the Sea" or "The Burning of Atlanta" in a modern Civil War text. A good illustration of this style might be The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, by William Shirer, which is divided into 'substories' a reader of the Silm might recognize.

Although Tolkien meant for the Silm to be published, he is said by CT to have meant it as a suppliment to the LotR (at least in its comprehensive version). When expanding the particular stories, he kept this historical view; never was it meant to be seen as a narrative in the style of a (modern) novel. Even LotR is a compromise between the two styles, because it began as a sequel to The Hobbit, yet ended up an epic every bit as full as the Narn.

[Lord Halsar]

Spoilers eh? Well I'd say the biggest spoiler in anything is the whole "Good triumphs, evil loses" thing. the entire concept is getting REALLY old.
I really wish that Tolkien had written alternate ending chapters where Sauron does get the Ring. That would be a much welcomed plot twist on my part.

[The Sixth Wizard]

Which is why CoH is such a different book. Evil winsss!

[Volo]

No, LotR isn't that black and white that you can truly say that evil loses and good triumphs. Both triumph and both lose greatly.

And CoH is even less black and white in the victory terms.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Bloody plot twists. I once took a creative writing seminar, in which we all gave copies of our pieces to all the other students to read and criticise. My God, virtually every one was somehow convinced that he (or she) absolutely *must* have a surprise ending or a last-minute plot twist or some kind of unexpected zinger. Good gracious, O. Henry is not the only short-story writer out there!

Surprise is one technique in the writer's toolbox. It's by no means the only one. I never felt it wasn't worth going to see "Death of a Salesman" because the title gave away the ending. And I went ahead and read Moby Dick even though I already knew---***SPOILER ALERT*****--- the whale sinks the ship. Sheesh!

I suppose on these grounds we should chastise Shakespeare for using giveaway titles like "The Tragedy of King Lear."

[Sir Kohran]

I suppose on these grounds we should chastise Shakespeare for using giveaway titles like "The Tragedy of King Lear."

One thing I found interesting about Romeo And Juliet is that the entire story and ending is basically summed up in the opening paragraph:

Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;
Whole misadventured piteous overthrows
Do with their death bury their parents' strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,
And the continuance of their parents' rage,
Which, but their children's end, nought could remove,
Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;
The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.

Essentially that's the whole story - if we just wanted to know the story we would only have to read the first paragraph and no more. What's the point of reading on? The last three lines tell us that what the play will show is not the story itself - that's been done already in this prologue - but *how* it happens: here we 'shall miss' the specific details of the plot and that is what the play will show us. It's not the 'what' that's interesting; it's the 'how'.

This is the same with Tolkien. When reading The Children Of Hurin, we have two consecutive chapters - 'The Death Of Glaurung' and 'The Death Of Turin'. So we know that both these characters will die, one after the other; the ultimate in spoilers. But why? Why would Turin die shortly after the destruction of his enemy, and not during it or long after? It's a mystery that keeps us guessing until we actually read it.

[Kitanna]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hickli

Bloody plot twists. I once took a creative writing seminar, in which we all gave copies of our pieces to all the other students to read and criticise. My God, virtually every one was somehow convinced that he (or she) absolutely *must* have a surprise ending or a last-minute plot twist or some kind of unexpected zinger.

Reminds me of my own creative writing class. However in some instances many of the stories read were very cliched ideas that any four year old could predict the ending to. Surprise and plot twists can be a welcome relief in such a situation. But predictable endings and surprise plot twists both get stale and a happy medium can be hard to find. And it's in good story telling that we can find that medium.

Sir Kohran quotes the beginning of Romeo and Juliet, virtually everyone knows how that ends and still generation after generation reads it or sees the play. Why? It is wonderful storytelling.

And that's what I love about Tolkien. The Departure of Boromir, clearly he's leaving, but how and why? Oh he dies trying to save Merry and Pippin in an act of redemption. *gasp* That's brilliant.

When it comes to creative writing courses I feel there needs to be more on solid story telling. In my class we focused on poems and structure, but never how to craft a good story. It's something any aspiring writing should know. Plot twists and cliched endings can only go so far.

Spoilers eh? Well I'd say the biggest spoiler in anything is the whole "Good triumphs, evil loses" thing. the entire concept is getting REALLY old.
I really wish that Tolkien had written alternate ending chapters where Sauron does get the Ring. That would be a much welcomed plot twist on my part.

It may seem that clean cut on the surface, but think of all that happened within. Think of the conflict among the heroes. Frodo nearly falls to the evil of the Ring and it's not through his good heart it gets destroyed, is it? I felt Gollum actually destroying the Ring and himself was a bit of a twist. I mean, it wasn't Frodo's want to destroy the evil the Ring brought, but instead Gollum's great need for it. When I started reading LOTR for the first time I assumed Frodo would destroy it, it was a shock to learn it was Gollum.

[Feanorsdoom]

If anything, I think the Legendarium is an exercise in the idea that evil basically cannot be stopped until the very end, as is implied in the Ainulindale. No matter how far out in the Void Melkor is thrown, he always finds his way back, or his leiutenant does, or people get to squabbling over the neato stuff he left behind. After all, the doom of the Silmarils wasn't to end up in the crowns of the Good Guys and the One Ring wasn't destroyed by the goodness of Frodo, but the greed of Smeagol. Eru never quite gets around to letting Good win completely. If that happened, there would be no reason to set down the 'lessons of history'.