I am Seriously the Rain King

I love Lord of the Rings, and when I tell people that they either think I’m kidding or laugh or just think I’m weird. But I still love Lord of the Rings. Tolkien is a genius in so many ways. For example, he invented multiple languages while writing LOTR, and he invented a whole world with extensive history, unique cultures, and brilliant characters. I first read LOTR when I was in 7th or 8th grade, and it was a great story and easy to read. I just recently picked up the books again and right now I’m about 200 pages into the Fellowship of the Ring. As a snobby writer, when I start a book, I analyze the way the writer employs language and assess their capabilities with all of language’s intricacies (ridiculous for a 19-year-old, I know). I thought, as I picked up the book again a few weeks ago, that Tolkien would be, stylistically speaking, an average writer, not amazing, but not poor. But as I read the opening pages of his tale I was in awe.

 

The language is beautiful, a feat in and of itself, but it is beautiful in a way that few writers can render it. As I read Tolkien I feel as if I am being read the book, not as if I am reading it. It’s like I am sitting in his house, cuddled around his hearth, listening to him tell me a story. In Heart of Darkness, which is Josh the Playwright’s favorite book, Marlow tells his story to a few sailors on a boat. It follows the oral tradition of story, and Tolkien uses language in such a way in his novel Lord of the Rings. I find it nearly impossible to make language both uniquely beautiful and easily read by the masses. If I write something with lofty language that is beautiful, but that is not for the layman, then what is my work truly worth? If I write a good story with poor language and boring style, then what is my work truly worth?

 

Walt Whitman taught me an important thing, and that is to write to ordinary people. I wrote a novella before I learned this lesson, and I like my novella a lot, but I don’t think it speaks to everybody. If I were to read my novella as an outsider I would perhaps think the writer had a very specific audience to which he was writing. I don’t want to do that, I want to reach an audience large and great in size: young and old, black and white, American or Canadian, whatever whatever whatever, I don’t care! If you are a person, I want my book to be directed toward you in some way. And Minus the Sunlight is not that (my novella, I really like that name and if you want to help me get it published please do haha). However, as I am forging my new work, I am keeping these newly learned lessons in mind.

 

I want to read my Bible so I am going to say one more thing about LOTR and then be done with this.

 

As a writer, it is sometimes hard to feel like I am glorifying God in what I do. I feel like people think I should be a “Christian writer” or something. Like Philip Yancey or Donald Miller or something, but I don’t want to do that. I just want to write stories; that’s where my heart is. But Tolkien has encouraged me lately.

 

In LOTR there is an epic battle between good and evil, Mordor and free Middle Earth. If you know the tale you know a fellowship of different races is forged to help Frodo in his quest to destroy the Ring, the manifestation of everything evil. The fellowship is made up of four hobbits, two men, a wizard, an elf, and a dwarf. Each member of the fellowship is fighting for the same cause but does so in a different way. Each member of the fellowship battles against evil with their own specific talents. You can fight for the same cause in a million different ways. You can fight the same evil in a million different ways.

 

And that is where my hope lies. I pray and earnestly hope that I am serving the cause of our Lord in my writing, because I long to serve Him.

 

Peace.