![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7I just went and did my first restaurant review. Squee!
I squandered the rest of my "weekend" rereading all of a 57-chapter, 500,000-word fanfic Epic WIP that I've been following for like, wow, years now. It's on HASA (so I can't link directly to it, but if you're signed up over there, by all means), and it's by Anglachel, the main programmer behind that site. It's called Hands of the King, and it's impossibly dense and good, dealing with Denethor and Finduilas, and Thorongil, and... well, there are something like forty characters in it by this point, and not a single one is a flat character. Every character has a life, and is round-- as in, changes and develops-- over the course of a story. From Denethor himself and Thorongil and Finduilas, down through the Steward (Ecthelion), and off into the original characters (the cook, Finduilas's bodyguard, Thorongil's lieutenant, the head of the Ithilien Rangers, Denethor's older sisters), every single character is a real person. Every character has complex responses to changing circumstances, every one is drawn in detail. It's an amazing piece of work.
You couldn't do it in commercial fiction. It requires too much space. Who would read a 800,000-word novel? You wouldn't, unless you already had something invested in it.
The main problem for me is that it is so seamless, I have no idea what she's created and what's really the Professor. It is unlike a great deal of fanfiction in that it is not precisely Tolkienian, but rings thoroughly true to Tolkien. It feels as real to me as the original books.
I'm done dorking out for the moment, but it was a hell of a way to spend like um all of yesterday and yeah, last night.
Now I have to go write 900 words about batty Buddhists and tea houses and oh my goodness, was that ever some good cake.
And oh-- I bought some violas and pansies today. squeee!
I squandered the rest of my "weekend" rereading all of a 57-chapter, 500,000-word fanfic Epic WIP that I've been following for like, wow, years now. It's on HASA (so I can't link directly to it, but if you're signed up over there, by all means), and it's by Anglachel, the main programmer behind that site. It's called Hands of the King, and it's impossibly dense and good, dealing with Denethor and Finduilas, and Thorongil, and... well, there are something like forty characters in it by this point, and not a single one is a flat character. Every character has a life, and is round-- as in, changes and develops-- over the course of a story. From Denethor himself and Thorongil and Finduilas, down through the Steward (Ecthelion), and off into the original characters (the cook, Finduilas's bodyguard, Thorongil's lieutenant, the head of the Ithilien Rangers, Denethor's older sisters), every single character is a real person. Every character has complex responses to changing circumstances, every one is drawn in detail. It's an amazing piece of work.
You couldn't do it in commercial fiction. It requires too much space. Who would read a 800,000-word novel? You wouldn't, unless you already had something invested in it.
The main problem for me is that it is so seamless, I have no idea what she's created and what's really the Professor. It is unlike a great deal of fanfiction in that it is not precisely Tolkienian, but rings thoroughly true to Tolkien. It feels as real to me as the original books.
I'm done dorking out for the moment, but it was a hell of a way to spend like um all of yesterday and yeah, last night.
Now I have to go write 900 words about batty Buddhists and tea houses and oh my goodness, was that ever some good cake.
And oh-- I bought some violas and pansies today. squeee!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Hands of the King
SPOILERS
because I didn't (and still don't)think that there was at that point, and maybe even now, much about the hands themselves, and where was Arwen, or her influence, in all this? So I still await each lengthy and satisfying chapter with bated breath. She is so realistic, not one who ducks a real life issue and not afraid to break with current fashion in fanfic writing - she tells it as it is in personal relationships. And she leaves tantalising clue hooks: makes me think of Dorothy Dunnett for complexity of plot and challenging the reader!
Yes, that is where the name helloder came from, and like you was one that I chose at short notice. Glad that you interpreted it the same way that I meant it to be!
Re: Hands of the King
Date: 2006-04-22 01:55 pm (UTC)What chapter have you read to? How long have you been on HASA? I've been following HotK for like a million years... I think the title is a bit uninspired, but then, it's not really about the title. The chapter titles are thoroughly forgettable-- in fact I don't even notice them... Titles aren't her strong suit.
> that is where the name helloder came from
What is where? I don't know what you're referring to-- I don't think I have discussed your name with you. I had assumed your name was just a phonetic adaptation of the phrase "hello there" but wasn't sure. I'm not sure what this paragraph of your comments is referring to-- might you have confused this with another conversation you were having? I didn't choose my name on particularly short notice...
monikers
I've been looking at HASA for some time now, and am up to date on HotK. I used to review, but the HASA "advice" recently about how to do this has put me off, big time!!
Incidentally, I hope that you will be glad to know that your lj commentary on the US taxation rules for wait staff has made a deep impression on me: TOH and I usually tip 10% here in UK (if not unhappy) but I have now registered the "inequity" as you report it of the US tax system and the next time I am that side of the pond I will be better educated. Does this vary from state to state? Here it is assumed that whoever waits on you must be paid at least the minimum wage, and you are taxed on declared not "anticipated" income - maybe unions here are stronger?
It's interesting following the ups and (some) downs of the writing of your novel. I don't suppose that that is the adjective that you would use at least recently for that exercise! But you have made so much progress since you changed your hours, have you not? And as Gandalf would say, " ... and that is a good thought, is it not?" (or thereabouts anyway!).