What I learnt from rereading Lord of the Rings

When I was about 13, my dad introduced me and my sister to The Lord of the Rings. We watched it together over about a month, watching the movies every Sunday evening, starting with The Fellowship and ending with The Battle of Five Armies (I do think The Hobbit had good movies, they were just not as good as the book). Ever since then, I have been a LoTR fanatic. I read the books back then but, to be honest, they flew right over my head. So I reread them, and here's what I learned:

The books themselves are masterpieces, full of interesting characters and magical beings. The description is beautiful and the world-building is so intricate it feels like Middle-Earth should be real. But, there are a few things that I noticed - things any author or editor would tell you to avoid. These things include lengthy passages of exposition, 'side quests' that have nothing to do with the plot and descriptions that go on for pages and pages. Why do people tell new authors to avoid these things while Tolkien's works are so successful with them?

When I started writing I found one of the coolest websites for writers: Mythcreants. It is a great blog with articles and podcasts about writing, worldbuilding, and more. At the start of my writing journey, I read every writing article possible and listened to all their podcasts. This significantly improved my writing style, but it also produced an unfortunate side-effect: Imposter syndrome.

This was during the time of my first complete book (The one I talked about in this blog post), and reading those articles made me realize how bad my writing was. Which was, in retrospect, a very good thing. But it made me overthink every word I wrote and ultimately scrap the whole book. The stories I tried to write afterward were never good enough or 'perfect' enough in my eyes. There were always small problems and issues that made me think that they would never be successful, and it became a cycle of failures. This went on for a long time until I completely stopped writing, convinced by myself that I would never be a good writer. My new WIP got me out of this ditch; I was too excited and passionate about it to worry so much about the small things. And going back to edit it now, I still find a lot of mistakes in my writing. But now, instead of discouraging me, the things I learned from Mythcreants are helping me improve my writing. Another resource that is helping me a lot is Jed Herne's YouTube channel - he provides a lot of writing help and advice, especially for fantasy writers, which has helped me start the novel, never mind begin editing. But while I was editing, I wondered when my novel would be ready for publication; how would I know when it's finished? Would it ever truly be ready to be published?

Here's where Tolkien's writing comes into this: While I was asking these questions, I was reading Lord of The Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. As I read, I noticed a lot of things that I would completely avoid in my own writing, things I mentioned at the start of this blog. And yet it is such a good book that kept me hooked until the end. This made me wonder if books and stories should really be flawless. If they were, would they be worth reading? I think a perfect book would be the most boring thing in the world. 

And that's what I learned from LoTR: My writing doesn't have to be perfect. There can be lengthy passages of exposition, side-quests, and eternal descriptions. People don't want perfection; They want a story that will capture their imagination and take them to unknown worlds on dangerous adventures. This advice I give to any writers reading this: Stop worrying about your writing. As long as you have an interesting story, intricate world-building, and relatable characters, people will like your story. I'm not saying you should publish your very first draft. Make improvements so that it will be easier for your story to be liked. Imperfection is not a flaw. If you don't believe me, read any book that ever existed; I'm sure you'll find some imperfections, even if it's the best book you've ever read.