June of Doom & Gloom - Week 4 discussion and etc. post

[huinare]

Welcome to week 4 (challenge details here yadda yadda)! We still have a week until July 1st, so we're not off the hook yet. I'm excited that finished stories have appeared on the scene!
Discussion in comments, if so desired. Woes, gloating, links to your stories? Optional discussion topic for all: Are there ways in which your writing has changed since around this time last year--in terms of writing style, themes, plot devices, characters, or whatever else? Go!

Comments

[huinare.livejournal.com]

I posted the first chapter to my story, The Birds of the Temple Garden. I'm extremely glad to finally be writing again. This is the story I've been wanting to write for a year, but I had no idea how to go about it and was finding myself intimidated and unenthused.

Chapter 1 here: "The Incurious," in which Mairon deals with that inept acolyte.

So far this is really mild by my standards--creepy, but not grisly. It may reach a certain grisliness at some point because, well, I am what I am, but I'll warn on individual chapters in that event.

___________

Now maybe I should answer the discussion question, because so far I've answered zero of my own discussion questions this month (don't tell!). I actually appear to have shot myself in the foot with that question, because, aside from a few efforts I don't think worth counting, I haven't written since December 2012.

But comparing then to now, I -think- (and we'll see how my story bears this out) I have less of a desire to be wrenching and shocking, and more of a desire to add a sort of dark poesy and melancholia to stuff, make the terrible beautiful or whatever.

[zdenka]

Leaving my comment on the story here, since I don't have an account at the SWG:

I liked this! It's understatedly creepy, and it makes me want to read more. The last sentence is excellent.

[huinare.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I was definitely trying for understated.

[hhimring]

I think that your "dark poesy" thing is really working in the first chapter of the Numenorean story.
Mairon is really frightening and impressive, probably more so than if he had just erupted on the spot, and the description of the garden is beautiful, melancholy and very ominous. Also, that POV thing, where you manage to make the Faithful sound like an obscure minority cult, is very good.

[huinare.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much!

I'm still not perfectly clear on timelines/lifespans etc, but it struck me while writing the bit about the garden that Armenelos must have been a pretty hostile environment for the Faithful for some time (although I might need to rethink this as I apparently quite forgot Tar-Palantír, but still, I'd imagine many of the Faithful had already removed elsewhere before his reign).

[zdenka]

For Numenor dates and lifespans, I usually go to "The Line of Elros" in Unfinished Tales. I find it conveniently organized for my purposes, at least.

It is hard to keep track of -- I had this very belated realization a while back that Miriel was 60 years old when her father came to the throne and thus spent her childhood and a significant portion of her adult life in a very hostile atmosphere.

I can see it as entirely plausible that many of the Faithful would have left and not all come back with Tar-Palantir. Or that if they were still in Armenelos, that they could still be afraid to show their beliefs openly during his reign.

[huinare.livejournal.com]

Ohh, I should just look at "The Line of Elros" then...UT is actually the only physical Tokien book I currently own (libraries and PDF files are my friends). Thanks for the tip!


I can see it as entirely plausible that many of the Faithful would have left and not all come back with Tar-Palantir. Or that if they were still in Armenelos, that they could still be afraid to show their beliefs openly during his reign.

Oh good. I was having one of those "oh noes did I just make an egregious error?" moments (although really, yes, I could see the population of the Faithful in Armenelos as not recovering during Palantír's reign, but I was worried that might be my...um, biases...talking).

[zdenka]

Hope it's helpful!

UT also says that Tar-Palantir spent a lot of his time in Andunie, so I always figured that most of the Faithful would keep living there.

[huinare.livejournal.com]

Ah that's right, it does, doesn't it? *very helpful*

[hhimring]

It seems quite likely to me. I think you can at least argue that by the beginning of Tar-Palantir's reign the Faithful were a minority anywhere but in the West Country, where they seem still to have had a clear majority (this being before they were forcibly removed to Romenna). And while, during Tar-Palantir's reign, they would certainly have been welcome at court, that doesn't mean he managed to change the mood in the city of Armenelos as a whole (we certainly know he failed in other ways).

[huinare.livejournal.com]

Yes, true, even when the leadership is trying to manufacture change it isn't always quick to happen.

[hhimring]

"...the greater part of his people did not repent..."

But, eep, in my earlier comment read "Ar-Gimilzor's reign" for "Tar-Palantir's reign". I should not pretend to know things about Numenor, especially not on a Friday morning just before rushing off to work!

[huinare.livejournal.com]

Ah okay, I see what you mean, but your comment still made sense reading it as Tar-Palantír.

I should not pretend to know things about Númenor whilst writing a story about Númenor (actually I think I used to know at least a deal more, but my knowledge of the Legendarium has waned this past year or so with disuse...)