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How I, J.R.R Tolkien, Came Up With The Lord Of The Rings

This is the story of how The Lord Of The Rings came to be. Although the novel is fiction, the inspiration for the adventure the story tells is based on my real-life experiences.

It was Wednesday and we have been at the front line for almost two weeks; though it has felt like 2 months. On Sunday we will go back a few miles from the front and freshen up before going out again. It seems like our battalion has dwindled down to about half of the numbers we had two weeks ago, like a bucket with a crack in it; you fill it up with water, but as time goes on, the less water you end up with. I am grateful that I, nor any of my friends have leaked through that crack in the bucket yet; even though I know that it will happen soon enough. That’s actually what I like about our five-man group, though we don’t talk about it, we all know that some of us aren’t coming home. And we all seem OK with it. There is Jim, who looks like he eats a little too much but actually eats the least in the group. We don’t bother him about it because that just means more food for us others. Harry, well let’s just say that he was the opposite of Jim, the best way to describe him would be to say that he looks like a twig on a dead, shrivelled-up bush. Then there was Frank. Although he was the shortest soldier in our battalion, and probably the whole of the English army, he had the will and determination of a war hero. Once, when we made an advance into a German trench, Frank went around looking for the biggest guy he could get and fought him with his bare hands. I wouldn’t have ever won that fight, but Frank somehow did. Hank is my best buddy, we have known each other since middle school and we enlisted together. At school, he was the class clown and could always make the brightest of a bad situation; but ever since a few months back, he hasn’t been the same. It was like someone took a needle and sucked the life out of him; he barely talks anymore, never laughs, and his skin has turned at least 3 shades whiter. 

About 5 months ago, we were at the front line and the Germans launched a massive offensive across No-Man’s Land and into our trench. They came over in the nighttime and we were not prepared at all, most of us weren’t even awake until they were next to our beds. There was really no one to blame for this ill-preparedness as in front of the trenches, it looked like a graveyard from a movie, with fog that made it impossible to see more than three feet in front of you. The worst battles I have ever fought were hand-to-hand combat, and we had to endure about 2 hours of this before making the decision to fall back to our previous trenches. When you fight in the trenches, everyone suddenly goes savage, and the most useful weapon is a sword or a knife. You forget that you are in a very technically-advanced war when you are using your helmets as weapons. Expectedly, a lot of us didn’t make it back and the worst part was that many were left in No-Man’s Land to die as the Germans had snipers who would shoot anyone who ventured out to try to bring someone back. Just a few feet in front of Hank where me and Hank were in the Trench, there was this young kid, he couldn’t have been over 18, he got hit by a stray artillery shell and was knocked over. He couldn’t get up, I assumed that he was paralyzed. We knew that we would get shot the minute that any of us poked our little heads over the trench. One fellow, he went over to this kid and started to drag him back. I was so surprised that he didn’t get shot yet when suddenly another man jumped out to help, that was when they both dropped, one by one. POP! POP! Now there were three men screaming in agonizing pain. Hank and I just sat there, listening to them for hours; crying, yelling, screaming, groaning. Then finally, one after another, going silent, breathing their last breath. I didn’t need to see them die, I had listened to them for so long that it felt like I knew their whole life story; why they were here, why they wanted to go home. After this day, Hank was never the same.

After  four more restless days of blood, sweat, rain, tears, machine-gun fire, and artillery strikes; we were finally taken away from the front line. We would get a week of rest before being sent out again. I like to take this time to work on my story. It is so hard to write a fantasy at the front when you have to face reality all the time. Back here, the only reality you face is visiting the wounded in the hospital and the distant roar of explosions at the front. At this point, my story was in the very early stages, I still didn’t really have a meaning to it all. So far, I had created this fantasy world, where there are a bunch of beings, all living in harmony. However, earlier in the week, when I was still at the front, I realised that all stories need a bad guy. I did have one guy, but he wasn’t that big of a part of the story. I started thinking about the war, not just this war, but all wars; why do they happen? Frank and I came to the agreement that the backbone of all wars is the thirst for power. I wanted to have this somehow implemented into my book, how power can corrupt the mind. I didn’t just want the idea of power, I wanted the power of corruption to be a physical object. Later that night, I overheard one of the officers say, “Three-quarters of my boys are dead, and for what? A war for nothing but a crown!” What this guy said sparked this idea in my head: A piece of jewellery so powerful that it corrupts the minds of anyone who dares to use it. I tried a bracelet, a pocket watch, a crown; then finally the perfect candidate, a ring. I didn’t want my story to be about a cliche super hero who goes and destroys the ring to bring peace to the world. Oh no, I wanted this story to be the story of how the underdogs, the ones who nobody expected to follow through, succeed and bring peace to the world after a long, hard, and traumatizing journey.

So there it is, the story of how The Lord Of The Rings became a story. The Hobbits were a representation of me and my friends, taking on a challenge even though we knew that the chances were that we were not coming home. And the Ring was a representation of how too much power is not good for any side, in my case, the English and the Germans. If there was no power to corrupt the judgement of these countries, then there wouldn’t have been a war where so many lives were lost. The same went for my story, many sacrifices were made just because of that tiny little ring.

The Fellowship Of The Ring

Another Version of The Bridge Of Khazad-Dum pg. 429

Legolas noticed two enormous figures emerging from the ominous shadows between two distant pillars. He flipped his silky, long white hair around and prepared an arrow for his worn, rickety bow. He drew his bow, but as he was about to shoot the arrow, the once confident and skillful Elf, became shaky with a face full of fear.

“What’s wrong Legolas!?” cried Frodo as Legolas dropped his bow. 

“It’s-the-ther-ar-t-ro”, muttered Legolas as he fell to his knees. 

“WHA-WHAT-WHAT’S GOING ON HERE!?” questioned Gimli, out of breath. 

“I don’t know” answered Frodo, glancing at the shadowy figures getting closer and closer, “Legolas has lost his mind!” By now, the figures were no more than two-hundred yards away from them, stomping harder with every step. Boom boom. Boom boom. BOOM! The last stomp vibrated the mine so much that pieces of ruble came crashing down all over the place. 

“Quick!” Yelled Gandalf as he twirled his staff in a violent manner, creating a turquoise forcefield brighter than snow on a sunny day, “Under here everyone!” Hundreds of pieces of ruble rained down as if they were in a hail storm. As the downpour came to an end, Gandalf dismantled his forcefield with a swift poke at the ground with his staff and a verse of what seemed to be gibberish,

‘Oney-gah dje statiloo blappa-gop!’ The dust settled, and there they were; two enormous Trolls standing less than 20 yards from the group of perturbed individuals. 

“Oh Lord have mercy! Those are Trolls!” Sam cried out. The Trolls were bigger than any being they have encountered so far, completely made of dusty stone, they were covered in lush moss, as if they had been dormant for thousands of years. The Troll on the left lifted his right arm and with a huge grunt, slammed upon the ground. Everything in the mine shook, as if an earthquake had happened. Then, everything went silent, the Orcs simply vanished and the two Trolls, shaken with fear, looked down at the floor beneath them. A distant rumble gradually came nearer and louder. 

“Uhh, what’s happening?” fearfully questioned Pippin. Alas, the quaking became unbearable BOOM! A fiery, devilish being broke through the floor and threw the Trolls into the air.

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Reflection

J.R.R Tolkien was known for two things: his ability to describe to a reader, in great detail, the setting of the story; and creating suspense although there is an omniscient narrator. One very noticeable fact is that Tolkien always used an omniscient narrator, which greatly helps the reader understand what is going on in every moment of the story. Of course, Tolkien held back some information, but not to the point where the narrator became unreliable. The withholding of information is done to build suspense; because if Tolkien told the reader everything leading up to a climatic event, then the event would not be so climatic. In the extract I wrote, I made sure to give the reader enough information that they could imagine the setting and feelings of the characters, but kept some information hidden until the suspense had been built up enough to reveal it. This can be seen where I told the reader that there were “two enormous figures emerging from the ominous shadows.” I could have told the reader that these ‘figures’ were Trolls, but I withheld that information to build tension and suspense. Then almost at the very end of the page, I revealed what these ‘figures’ really were. This style of tension-building is seen all the time in Tolkien’s writing; you will often find a whole paragraph or page building up to one moment. Another thing that I was sure to include from Tolkien’s writing style was the extensive use of metaphors and adjectives. He did this so that the reader could imagine the setting for themselves and understand fully what is happening and what the characters were feeling all the time. This quotation from my extract details how much Tolkien loved to use adjectives, “He flipped his silky, long white hair around and prepared an arrow for his worn, rickety bow.” Here there are five adjectives used. This paints a full picture for the reader and although it may seem excessive, this is what made Tolkien’s novels super fun to read and so easy to make into movies. Later, I described Gandalf’s forcefield as “a turquoise forcefield brighter than snow on a sunny day.” I chose to describe the forcefield with a metaphor because the reader may not have any idea about what a forcefield looks like. I described it with something that most people would understand, just like Tolkien did extensively in his writing. In the end, I think that I got a lot of Tolkien’s key writing methods into my variation of the story.

Fight Club

By Chuck Palahniuk

An Adaptation Of Pg.1

TYLER HELPS ME move into my apartment, now he is about to kill me. What has this world come to? You are best friends with someone and next thing you know you have a sawed-off shotgun pressed against your chest. I can feel the ragged and rusty edges of the barrel poking through my shirt. Earlier last week I told Tyler to saw the barrel of his shotgun. This makes a shotgun lighter and more maneuverable. Though it does compromise range and accuracy, we melted the shells into slugs so the spread of the shot won’t matter. Slugs are very inaccurate and slow-moving, but can go through anything, unlike normal buckshot. My shirt is now ripped and coloured orange, and I probably have tetanus; all because Tyler didn’t listen to me when I told him to sand the edge of the barrel. A slug through the chest will most definitely kill anyone. And if by some miracle you survive the initial impact, your guts will spill out through your front and back and you’ll be dead within minutes. Not so much of a miracle afterall. 

“Escape with me.” Tyler says, “Death isn’t really death.” I’m not quite sure what he meant by this.

We are standing on the roof of my apartment building. At exactly 12:07 PM, this apartment building will be no more. All my stuff. Gone. All my memories. Gone. My life. Gone.

You go to the corner of Number 5 West St and Kings Rd, you knock on the door and ask for someone named Big Chunga. They let you in and you go down the stairs and into the second door on the right. In this musty room you get to look at the merchandise. There is anything you could ever want there: regular TNT, C4, grenades, biological, shrapnel, chemical, flashbangs, really anything. I can’t remember how I found out about this place, I guess I know because Tyler knows.

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Reflection

When you read Chuck Palanhiuk’s Fight Club, one thing you will notice right away is the fact that Palanhiuk’s writing style is all over the place; going from one idea to the next before closing the first idea. This is definitely what I noticed when I read the book. All of it is written in first-person and there is an emphasis on stream of consciousness. When I wrote my adaptation of Pg.1, I was sure to include this structure of writing. You can see a clear example of stream of consciousness in this quotation:

“all because Tyler didn’t listen to me when I told him to sand the edge of the barrel. A Slug through the chest will most definitely kill anyone. And if by some miracle you survive the initial impact, your guts will spill out through your front and back and you’ll be dead within minutes.”

Here, you will see that at one point the narrator is telling the reader about Tyler not sanding the edge of the barrel, then the very next sentence is an example of what would be going on inside the narrator’s head. In this quotation from the actual book, you can see where I got the inspiration for my adaptation:

“With my tongue I can feel the silencer holes we drilled into the barrel of the gun. Most of the noise a gunshot makes is expanding gases, and there's the tiny sonic boom a bullet makes because it travels so fast.”

The narrator goes from describing the moment to the reader, to thinking out loud. 

Another key method Palanhiuk used in his writing was telling the story in a non-chronological order. I also tried to incorporate this into my adaptation in this quotation:

“I can feel the ragged and rusty edges of the barrel poking through my shirt. Earlier last week I told Tyler to saw the barrel of his shotgun.”

I start the first sentence off by describing what the narrator is experiencing and then in the second sentence I explain what the narrator is thinking with a flashback to two weeks prior. If I were to write the book in chronological order, then I would have to start the book where the story starts and not have any major flashbacks or spoilers. In the actual book, Palahniuk uses the whole first chapter to explain to the reader what the ending of the book is. Then, starting in chapter two, it is basically all a flashback.

In the end, I think that my adaptation of the first page mimics exactly what Palanhiuk is famous for. I would even go so far as saying that one might not be able to differentiate my extract from Palanhiuk, not because of the content but because of the writing style. 

The Untold Story Of The Attempted Assisination Of William Shakespeare

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It was a rainy Wednesday in 1593. William Shakespeare was at the theatre where his actors were trying out the new play he had just written: Romeo and Juliet. There were no audience at this rehearsal as William wanted to make sure the play worked out well before anybody could see it. The actors started at 7 o'clock in the morning and went through the script over and over again. Even when it started to pour, William insisted that the actors kept on going until they got every part perfect. They finished at around 5 in the afternoon and the actors were exhausted and quite frustrated.

After a nice lunch, the actors quickly departed to their homes and Shakespeare stayed around a little bit longer to go over the script a couple more times. After a few hours, he decided to walk to a nearby bar to have a few drinks. While walking on the wet gravel road, William started to think about another playwright by the name of Christopher Marlowe. Just a few months ago he was killed during a fight in a tavern, the same one William was going to today. Christopher was pretty good friends with William as they even worked on some of the same plays. William kept on thinking about how stupid it was that of all the things that could kill someone, his friend got killed in a bar fight. He then went on to think about why this would happen to someone like Christopher. William came to the conclusion that it was simple karma, Christopher was in another brawl before he got himself killed where he killed another person. So William thought that this was just another example of what goes around, comes around. As William approached the red and squeaky door to enter the tavern he noticed that a few men, dressed in black overcoats, had been shadowing him pretty much since he left the theatre. But before he could give it another thought the bartender yelled,

“Shakespeare! Get on in here son! I got some people that want to meet you.” 

So William went in and figured that he was just being paranoid.

After a few drinks, the bartender mentioned to William, “You know, Shakespeare, there were a few men in here earlier who were talking about you.”

“Exactly what was it they were talking about?” Questioned William.

“Didn’t pay them much attention, but they were saying some mighty odd things.” The bartender went on, “They only started saying these things once they had some alcohol. They were talking about how you are abusive, annoying, and bossy. And how they would do anything to get rid of you.” William once again remembered seeing those suspicious men in black overcoats. Looking out of the foggy window with a small crack in it with a face of distress, William asked the bartender,

“Wha-wh-what were these bartenders wearing?”

“Umm, I don’t know, why do you ask such a question, my kind sir?”

“WHA-!” William blurted out with a sense of urgency. As everyone in the bar glanced an eye at the two, William took a deep breath and restarted his sentence in a softer tone, “Sorry, I just want to know what these gentlemen were wearing.”

“Gentlemen? HA!” The bartender said in amusement, “Hardly gentlemen at all if you ask me, they were speaking in the most rude language. Anyhow, I remember seeing black overcoats hanging on their chairs.” William got up from his chair, looking in all directions.

“Uhh, it is getting quite late innit?” Said William with a gulp, “I should get going.”

“OK buddy,” said the bartender in a cheerful manner, “and hey! Don’t worry ‘bout those ol’ chums, they were all so drunk they could hardly get out of the place.” 

William left the bar and to his relief, he did not see anybody around. It was still raining quite hard, but he had other things on his mind. Not 100 yards from the bar three men dressed in black overcoats came out from around the corner. They were wearing cloths over their mouth and nose so William couldn’t identify them. William stood there in the pouring rain, frozen like a deer in headlights, wondering what would come next. 

“What do you want from me?” He asked the men. They didn’t answer. One of them pulled a knife out from under his coat, another had a wooden baton in his hands. William suddenly took off in the other direction but another man came from an alleyway and shoved him to the ground. The men started beating him with kicks to the stomach. They brought William to his feet and each took turns hitting him with the baton. By now, both William’s legs and a few ribs were broken; and his face was swollen to twice the size. The one man pulled back his hand with a knife in it and just as he started to swing down to stab William, the bartender came out and hollered at them. The man with the knife paused, and said, 

“I hope you learned your lesson.” and took off running along with the other three men.

Wonder who these men could have been.