Fairy-tales, Cabbages & Potatoes
Gen, 12863 words
For many years I used to say that I really could not write Tolkien fanfic, unless maybe something very short and silly or mostly original characters. Then I decided I could if it was Silmarillion. Then I found that I really needed to work out how to write Bilbo and Frodo if I wanted to write about Elrond. Now basically I seem to have mostly abandoned the whole idea of bits being off-limits. I forget why I decided it anyway.
Years ago when the LOTR movies were being filmed, I remember seeing an interview with Ian McKellen saying that if he were young and playing a Hobbit, not Gandalf, he would have loved to make more examination of the class differences in the Shire and between Sam and the rest of the party, which can sometimes be quite uncomfortable for a modern reader. I thought that was an interesting idea, so I played it up a bit.
