The Top 5 Writing Lessons from The Two Towers

Welcome to Mythmakers. Mythmakers is the podcast for fantasy fans and fantasy creatives brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy. My name is Juliet Golding and today we are going to complete our journey through the two towers on our author's journey and I promised that I would do a short podcast about the lessons I've learned taking a deep dive into the two towers. And it comes down to my top five things, because there are so many things that I've learned. And you can hear the detail by following along with the whole series, but I've got five things that I wanted to share with you and to appreciate the craft that Tolkien brought to his great work, which is my absolute favourite novel. So here we go with number one. So when you look at the two towers, the thing to remember, of course, is that Tolkien originally wrote The Lord of the Rings as a complete single volume. And famously, the publishers were unable to put it out like that because of paper rationing in the 50s, in the 1950s. But it does make sense. They were noticing there was already divisions in the story. It's divided into six books. Books one and two are in Fellowship of the Ring. Books three and four are in the two towers. But more than that, it structurally is very different. So if you think about the Fellowship of the Ring, The reason why it feels like a very good, complete novel in and of its own is that it's about gathering the team. So it starts off with the hobbits and then you get Aragorn and then you get the Council of Elrond and you get the other characters coming along. You lose one, obviously seem to lose one in Moria and then of course it ends with someone being lost forever and that's Boromir and the company scattering. But the actual way it's told, there are flashbacks or stories within stories that... But mostly it is pretty linear and it sticks mainly with Frodo. with some point of view moments from other characters. But consider the two towers. It's as though you've had a single river that's hit an estuary and is braiding out into lots of stories. So the first thing that the two towers teaches is how to interlace, how to interlace stories. So think about the number of plots that that are, you know, are going. You've got Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas. They stay together. You've got Merry and Pippin, who stay together until the very end. You've got Gandalf joining them. though he sort of comes into the story, we don't follow him on his own. We only follow him when he leaves with Pippin. So the rule seems to be it's those five characters, Merry, Pippin, and then Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas. And then in the other half, in Book 4, you've got Frodo and Sam. And there's only one brief moment at the end when Sam is left all alone, that he is on his own when Frodo seems to have been killed, but then we discover only stunned by Shelob. And they have another character join them, Gollum, but he isn't really a point-of-view character. Tolkien is weaving these tales and, by having, it's more complicated in the first one of those books, because you have the story switching between the three friends and the two hobbits. That's how it's done there. You stick with Frodo and Sam the whole time. Of course, in the film version, they mix it up again, because that's what you would do in a film. But this interlacing... and weaving in within those stories other stories. So Faramir's story about how he heard about Boromir, some backstory about Gollum. It's all woven in, and there are references to earlier events. So it makes sure that we feel as though we're hearing a continuous story. And that kind of interlacing is something that you would find in Tolkien's favorite texts. So if you look at Beowulf and break it down, There are stories within stories in Beowulf. Time is spent telling you the history of other great leaders, other kings, the future of some of the characters as well. And it's interlaced. It's woven into the narrative. And the narrative itself is pinned on the three famous monster fights. So it's something that he has picked up. But it's very ambitious because... When you say to your reader, actually, I want you to care about, well, at least nine characters at least, it's actually quite a tall order. And he does it so well. So that kind of interlacing, the braiding of the river is, and braiding in itself is quite a good image because though a river braids, it does come back. to join at the Estuary Mouth, doesn't it? So you've got that sense of, yeah, they're all flowing in the same direction, and that's absolutely key. That's what he does. Plus he does reminders when you're on one of the story threads of what's going on in the others. So that's a really big thing to learn, how to control a narrative when you are splitting off into lots of sub-narratives. Connected to the interlacing is... how to maintain tension. I think that we are all living in a post-screen age and Tolkien was, he would have gone to the cinema and seen things. And what you notice at the end of chapters or at the end of sections, particularly in book three, when you're flipping between points of view characters, is that you maintain the tension by doing the equivalent of the cinematic cut, where you leave one character in peril and you purposely make us wait, we don't know what's going to happen, by flipping to another character. And he does that all the way through the two towers. There are lots of moments when, particularly around the fate of Merry and Pippin, where there are signs but not sure knowledge. And I looked at that very closely when we did that section about when Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas know that the hobbits are okay. Is that the same point at which we know And when do we know about Treebeard versus the signs that they're picking up in the forest? All of that. How do you keep the tension going? Because if you write it that Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas arrive at Fangorn, and we know it's fine. The hobbits are fine. It takes away all the mystery, all the worry. We don't feel with them. We are sitting outside them saying, oh, you needn't worry about these guys. They're absolutely fine. what you do there as an author is you keep the audience waiting. You withhold. You have to be a secret keeper. And you keep that secret and to the point when you actually have to reveal the knowledge. Don't let it go too quickly or too early. Remember the the subtle hints that are dropped that maybe Gandalf is around. There's the voice that Frodo hears when he's got the ring on and sitting on the high seat. There's a fool, take off the ring. That's very Gandalf, isn't it? So even back then there was a hint. But it was not so explicit that we know. We just sort of feel ready for when the moment comes that Gandalf comes back. The same is true, of course, in the other book, the one to do with Frodo and Sam. There, you've got the tension, the cuts given by things like how is Faramir going to react to, Where has Gollum gone? These are either line breaks or chapter breaks. Well, if Frodo's alive, that's the big one, isn't it, at the end? So this is kind of basic storytelling, probably something that already occurred to you. But just watching someone handle that so masterfully underlines that story. message really that you have to keep the suspense running and it is something which you can look to the medium of film to help you learn how to do it because film does this all the time in many many ways to keep you on the edge of your seats. My third point is about landscapes and situations because the huge character in Lord of the Rings, which we all recognize, perhaps don't think that much about, is the character of Middle-earth itself. And as I was going through the Two Towers, I was reminded of how Tolkien makes use of even the most unappealing in some ways landscapes and makes them feel so real. This came up particularly in the chapters as you leave Faramir and you're heading into Mordor. There was all sorts of details in that chapter, which I how they hide in a bramble hall, which is like an echo of an Entish hall. And the knowledge of exactly what the land formation is like and seeing vistas. There's a real Tolkienian... sort of technique of putting his point of view character up on a high place, looking over a spread of territory, which sort of connects to the map. But it also connects us to where the other characters are at a distance. So over there in Gondor, for example. But nearer to, he knows exactly what the flora and fauna are, and he makes you feel as though you are walking through a real experience landscape. And I've been thinking about this, and I wondered if, I don't know, I have to find out, I have to keep on reading to find out, but I wonder if one of the ways he makes it feel real is that he is remembering, as he writes, walks he has done. And that would be a good technique for any fantasy writer. You may be setting your work on a moon somewhere or whatever, but still, if you're putting a journey through a space station down, remember the walk to the shops and transpose that into your space station so it feels like a real journey someone would take. Tolkien's obviously doing it not in an urban landscape, but in a countryside landscape. And because you feel as though you're walking through somewhere, the stones are undefeated, the breeze is in the hair, the water is wet, you know, those kind of obvious things, that it does live and breathe as a character. And packed into that landscape point, so I'm talking here about the landscapes we may not remember much about because they're not the dramatic ones, but let's think about the dramatic ones. We've got this ancient forest. We've got the grassy plains of Rohan. We've got the blasted area in front of the gates of Mordor. We have the dead marshes, that horrible rocky labyrinth that is the Emynweil, which is where book four starts. And it feels to go on forever because they're trapped. It's very powerful. It's a frustrating thing to read and the frustration is felt by the characters. But the two towers has this wonderful range of color palettes, really. Oh, and I've forgotten, of course, Orthanc, the Black Spike Tower. I mean, that's just wonderful, isn't it? It's the closest we get to one of these dark towers. So when you're thinking about the two towers, your mind can range over what feels like a whole world. And it's always a world where there is no end to the map. I remember in the early days of video games, I don't play video games very much, but I did when my kids were small. I'd often play with them or get them out of a problem. They'd ask me to navigate the way through. I remember the frustration of games where you would reach the end of a corridor and you couldn't go through that because the computer didn't know what was beyond that. And I suppose there was non-playable characters as well. You never feel as though you've reached one of those limits in Tolkien. There's always something beyond. He had this idea of there being mountain vistas beyond the vistas that you never visit, you never reach in order to give his world that thickness and credibility. It's world building, isn't it? So... The Two Towers is a masterclass in thinking up a variety of convincingly connected, because all these places are within walking distance of each other or riding distance, convincingly connected landscapes, which are like movements in music that take us through a whole sort of emotional journey as we go from one to another. Another average point four, haven't I? So my fourth point is how I kept coming up against the poetic Tolkien. It's something perhaps that we don't recognize enough in his stories. It's just how the level to which the prose reaches. There were moments all across both of the books in the two towers. I just pulled out one to show you what I mean. So in the Forbidden Pool chapter, which is chapter six in book four, it's a very short chapter, but it's full of the most wonderfully intense language that is often almost alliterative. So, for example, when they see... Gollum fishing for salmon or for fish in the pool beneath. is described like this, how a small dark thing dived and vanished just beyond the boil and bubble of the fall, cleaving the black water as neatly as an arrow or an edgewise stone. And just saying that, when you read it, you probably don't experience what it feels like in the mouth. So a good thing to do with Tolkien is to read it out from time to time when you get these passages. Yeah. There's also a wonderful moment, which is just the beauty of his language, in the same chapter, where we've seen the waterfall curtain as the sunset, where it was given a lovely description, but we see it again with the moon, with the moonlight behind it. And he says, it's now a dazzling veil of silk and pearls and silver thread, melting icicles of moonlight. Wow, melting icicles of moonlight is such, it sounds like it should be in a poem. And there were often sections where I felt as though he was almost, it was like he was riding a horse that almost got away from him, that you could feel the pulse of poetry thrumming underneath the prose. Absolutely beautiful. Which is why I think Tolkien is an underrated but premier prose writer in 20th century fiction. And certainly what I'm really excited about for when we turn to The Return of the King is looking for these moments again. and lifting them off the page just to highlight that wonderful skill. I wonder if partly it's because he is writing in an age when he's writing these things by hand. There's quite a lot of evidence now that handwriting connects you to the words in a way that Touch typing doesn't. I touch type. Maybe I'm missing a trick here. And I should be using the handwriting because it seems to me the flavor of these passages is something that he, I could just see him writing it down in his beautiful handwriting, really sort of sounding it out as he wrote. So that's my fourth point. It's the poetry of the language. So what's my last point? I guess this is the most important point, isn't it? So we're talking about a middle volume in three. It's the Empire Strikes Back issue. How do you make people care enough to come back for how it all ends? Clearly the plot has got to be riveting enough. The stakes have to feel important enough. All of that, yes, that goes without saying in a way. We want to know if that ring does get destroyed. It's simple as that. But I think there's also another pull within Tolkien, which is also the reason why we reread him. And that is to do with the profundity of what we learn along the way and the discussions, the themes and the discussions. So in the first of the books, in The Two Towers, you have that eucatastrophe. That's a Tolkien word, which means a happy outcome from what seemed like a disaster. And the one we've got there, gives the story a lift at the moment when we might have felt that the odds were stacked against them and fires us up. There's a sense of goodness coming back. And I think there is, maybe we're all too cynical and what have you. I'm not cynical, actually. I'm quite an optimistic person. But I think that promise of hope and what it makes the characters feel and how they discuss it it gives energy to that part of the story, carrying them through. And it raises everybody to a level of heroics that they won't just all go and hide in a corner. They fight on. They make the difficult choices. That, I think, sort of clusters around the return of Gandalf. There's so many wonderful things. It's in a way, probably not most people's favorite because it is tough stuff. Just the environment is so degraded and the, and dark, though of course it has one of our favorite characters really showing his stuff with Gollum and his two sides, Meagol and Gollum. Well, that's wonderful. But I think for me, when I reread it, what I enjoyed most was the wisdom. So some of the wise characters who are already wise have settled positions. So Frodo has learned mercy to a certain extent. And Gandalf and Aragorn have already been around for a few years and they're already wise people. But I think the really interesting character in The Two Towers from this point of view is Sam because he is learning mercy. how to be a hero. And he really does come into his own, which is why the last chapter, The Choices of Master Samwise, is about him making heroic decisions. And it's him who has the line about the enemy. I think this is worth reading because it is such an important lesson. It falls on page 269. It was Sam's first view of a battle of men against men, and he did not like it much. He was glad that he could not see the dead face. He wondered what the man's name was, and where he came from, and if he was really evil of heart, or what lies or threats had led him on the long march from his home, and if he would not really rather have stayed there in peace. all in a flash of thought, which was quickly driven from his mind. So Sam has this brief moment where he realizes the enemy is just another person who wants to get home. And Sam is us in this journey at many points, and I think here in particular. Whereas the orcs are othered, and you don't worry about dead orcs, because they don't have personalities. They're just like the faceless masses who are assorting whichever ministerius or whatever. Here, you've got a man from the South, and you've got Sam thinking, well, why is he here? What brought him here? What paths brought him to be my enemy? Which I think is a really interesting thought process. which gives the themes some depth. This is a war novel after all, and written during a war. And then you've got the discussion with Faramir, which comes shortly afterwards. There's a whole series of life lessons in these books. But the one with Faramir is about the nature of temptation and your word and what is wisdom. And he says, he has a line which is something along the lines of, he knows which temptations he should avoid, which he wouldn't have the strength to resist. You know, he's got more wisdom than Boromir. Again, that whole discussion, edgy debate he has with Frodo is wonderful. And then the final one of these things that really matter is the discussion between Frodo and Sam on the stairs. that chapter where they're climbing up the stairs towards She Loves Lair. And they have a really interesting thought which they share between them about where the great tales come to an end and what the heroes of those tales were like. And you don't hear about the ones who turned around and went home. It's the ones who stuck it out. And the realization that Sam has there, that they may be on the path to being one of those heroes if they stick with it. And Frodo is saying, well, you're going to be one of the main characters if you do, which, of course, Sam feels embarrassed by because he doesn't see himself like that. He is a true hero because, like Frodo, he is also very humble. But that theme about what makes a hero, which is really what they're discussing, is that the hero isn't the person who stays to swing the sword. It's the hero is the one who persists, who carries on fighting even when it seems hopeless. And so they have that discussion there, and it's really important sort of framing them as heroes as part of the Middle-earth story. And then in the very last chapter, you get Sam... staying. He has this moment where he, he thinks, he leaves Frodo. He doesn't take the ring to start with. I always forget this. He starts to leave without the ring and then he goes back and takes the ring Because he's got stuff to do. Because he initially leaves to get revenge on Gollum. And then he goes back and thinks, actually, it's more important that I take the ring. Because that would be worse than anything else if the enemy gets that. And then after all of that, when the orcs are about to carry off what is the body of Frodo, he turns around and says, I'll forget all of that. I should stick with Frodo. That's what I'm about, being true to myself. And that decision saves, eventually in the next book, saves Frodo and the mission. So that whole theme about what is a hero is, And I suppose the answer in Sam's case is the hero is the person who follows his heart and who is a good person at base. So his decisions are good as a result. That's a really important theme. And that, at the core of everything going on in Middle Earth is love, pity, loyalty, courage, bravery, resilience, perseverance, fellowship, friendship. And I want to spend time in that world. So I would feel... I was abandoning them if I didn't go on and read the next book. So there is a good reason as a writer for doing that, but also a good reason for us as people to take those messages. It's not like he's preaching things. to us or anything like that. It's wanting to be on that side. Yeah, that's what it's about. We want to be on that side and not on the side of the prideful, the domineering, the ones who ruin. So yeah, that's the message I take away. The way to put in a story something that really matters. So that was my top five. And there were many other things I learned. But I'm really looking forward to getting back to the return of the king and seeing how it all ends. Anyway, so I hope you've enjoyed traveling through the two towers with me. Thank you very much for listening. Thanks for listening to Mythmakers Podcast. Brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy. Visit OxfordCentreForFantasy.org to join in the fun. Find out about our online courses, In Person Stays in Oxford, plus visit our shop for great gifts. Tell a friend and subscribe wherever you find your favourite podcasts worldwide.