Oh lordy

Hey guys!

Welcome back to Too Many Books to Count! All month long, we’re talking about televisions shows, books, and the occasional movie I’ve gotten inspiration from when it comes to my writing—and today we’re talking about one of my all-time favorites. In fact, I even got a tattoo about it.

 The Lord of the Rings

J.R.R. Tolkien

Yeah, I bet you all saw this one coming in the list. I love Tolkien. I do. I’m even a little snooty on how to pronounce his name (he told us how to say it, people!). I’ve been a huge fan of The Lord of the Rings since the first time I saw The Fellowship of the Ring—because, yes, I saw Fellowship before I even knew the books existed.

But why is The Lord of the Rings so inspiring to me? The answer might not be what you think.

See, in this day and age, there’s a certain stigma about having too many characters in any given work of fiction. Most writers say that you shouldn’t focus on more than four characters within a single book, because it just gets confusing and readers have no hope of latching onto any of them. So, why bother? That’s just what people today seem to think readers like. But… The Lord of the Rings is still a classic that everyone loves, so, how is it that we all feel so attached to the entire fellowship?

Well, that’s what I love about this book series.

Throughout the entire series, we know every single one of the 8-9 primary characters, and very many of the 10-12 secondary ones. We know them, we see through their eyes, and we understand them. That’s not something you see in writing these days.

I aspire to write something like that, with so many primary characters that it should be hard to keep them all straight, and yet somehow all of you know every single one of those characters as though they were your friends.

But there are so many more things we can be inspired by, when it comes to Tolkien’s writing. He has an epic grasp on foreshadowing, a beautiful way with words, and an amazing story line in every single thing that he writes. He’s also great about writing with only a bunch of male characters (hey ladies, why don’t we do that with girls?!), which I think we could all stand to learn from. Not every story needs to be even-stevens on male and female characters. I promise.

Basically, I love this series to the point that I have a beautiful tattoo of the shards of Narsil, and it’s one of my favorite tattoos. I’ll never stopped being inspired by The Lord of the Rings, and I love it even more every time I read it.

[love]

{Rani Divine}