Possible Sequels...

[Herenya]

So after spending some of my free time over the past couple of days immersing myself into reflections on the plot of that prequel story, I'm now starting to wonder if it would be better for the world if it remained untold? The point is that it reminds me more and more of the Professor's trilogy in terms of plot, except that it's already clear now that my story lacks some of the appealing qualities that the latter arguably has, mostly the main character's constrained optimism and belief in getting better.

A company of heroes consisting of a wizard (Gandalf,) an Arnorian half-elf, two Arnorian Dúnedain and two hobbits gathers and sets off on a long and dangerous journey in the hope of being able to find the One Ring in the wetlands of the Gladden Fields, and then take it to Mordor in order to try to destroy it in the fires of Mount Doom. Only that, in their opinion, can save their kingdom of Artedain from impending doom and it has to be done before Angmar has gathered enough forces to start a new devastating war with Artedain.

But their mission is complicated by the fact that Mount Doom was dormant at the time (that is, its caldera was frozen,) as well as by other confusing circumstances. Further events are not developing in the most favorable way for their mission and for the main character himself, as a result of which the protagonist is forced to suffer first from serious anxiety, and then from depression and extreme guilt for the entire second and third parts of the story.

Since at some point it was actually his personal responsibility to decide what the future of Middle-earth would be, and he made this decision alone, on his own, hence for almost the entire remaining two-thirds of the story he is forced to suffer from post-traumatic syndrome and doubts whether the choice he made was the right one. Alongside their ineffectual long journey, events develop in such an unfavorable way that finally it turns out that both the company and the main character personally achieve nothing in terms of their initial task.

The story also features a number of secondary characters, some of whom initiate the main character into secret lore about the structure and history of that "flavour" of Middle-earth in which the events of this story take place. Perhaps some details of the main character's conversations with those supporting characters might seem slightly interesting to someone else. Despite that, I have doubts that the possible readers of my story would be happy to spend so much of their valuable time examining the story that seems so unbearably depressing even to me, differing in this from The Lord of the Rings so strikingly. Perhaps the bitterness of that story could only ruin the mood of its readers for the day, and it would also conceal some of the positive qualities that the story arguably possesses.

Thus I should first try to do something to improve the plot of that story to make it more optimistic and hopeful, and make the bitterness of that story more moderate. I really hope that I will be able to amend the plot in this way somehow, since I have already given much thought to that story, and I've also become too attached to some of the secondary characters. Otherwise, I could only humbly recommend watching some old anime from the mid-90s instead, as I believe that the plots of many of those anime may be more promising than my story's.

[Inziladun]

Well, Herenya, I think if I were in your place, I would ask a friend or two to read my story.
Even if they aren't rabid Tolkien fans, odds are they've at least seen the movies, and could judge whether they think your work derivative.

[Herenya]

(Un)fortunately for me, I decided to suspend my work on that possible prequel to The Lord of the Rings just yesterday. I finally lost patience and started to feel exhaused because of the high number of failed attempts to discover a viable version of that story. I would really like to apologize to the followers of this thread for making the false promise of posting that prequel story that I'll probably be unable to fulfill! However, I still continue my long-term work on composing the story for an unofficial sequel to The Lord of the Rings set in the beginning of the Fifth Age. I can see its scheme of events quite clearly right now as a whole thing, but it still lacks detail and some prettiness that seem to be optional and yet necessary. It seems so much easier and safer for mental health to think over that sequel story instead of that suspended prequel story! Most importantly, I will certainly try to contact a friend of mine who has watched the movies in order to ask them to read that story after I complete it.

[Herenya]

So I'm posting again accepting the risk of getting shunned since I would like to inform anyone else who could be interested to know this that it seems that I've finally succeeded in my self-imposed task of developing a story for an unofficial sequel to TLotR. Ayyy! However, I'm afraid there are few such people here if any at all, since my communication skills seem poor to me now and everyone has probably seen that. Anyway, I believe I've been able at last to find the correct ideas needed to complete a story for such an unofficial sequel. I expect if nothing suddenly makes me suffer acute amnesia over the next few weeks then I will most likely be able to submit its summary to Middle-earth Mirth that soon, if I could still afford to think that was safe and appropriate.

[Galadriel55]

Many people here on the Downs are not native English speakers. And even though English was already my primary language when I joined, I attribute my development in written expression (and my ability to type, lol) to hanging out here. So never worry about still working on communication skills, on whichever level you are at with them.

Please post away! If you have a story to share, I am only in favour of sharing it!

[Herenya]

I'm afraid that a reply posted after such a long pause may be against the generally accepted rules of communication on the Web, but pitily, this time I just failed to immediately understand that it might be appropriate to reply.

To be honest, I can't even imagine how much being on this forum could help me improve my fluency in English if I had enough time to read all the threads that are of immediate interest to me. This forum seems to me one of those few places on the modern Internet that I have discovered by now, the existence of which I would be really glad to be aware of much earlier, ideally on the very day when I first got access to the network. (Sometime in the distant shining 2002.)

Then I had more than enough time compared to these days, and so I could try to learn English at a native level on this forum, having fun and at the same time being in an environment that seems to be safe for kids.

Concerning the story that I wanted to share, honestly I'm concerned right now about whether sharing it publicly would mean cancellation of that my personal project at the same moment. The point is, the events of the story are so distant in time and conception from the events of The War of the Ring that I'm afraid the plot might be easily adopted (possibly without even making an attempt to receive my consent to it) for a fiction novel taking place somewhere else, not in the Middle-earth.

Thus, I'll have to find out a way around that obstacle before I can proceed with this project, since being a long-term fan of the Middle-earth I now see the risk of such an Intellectual Property leakage as something that has to be taken into account too.