Henneth Annûn Story Archive

a good description of uncertainties when you don't know what's going on elsewhere (and you don't have an escape route).

I was really struck, when I thought about it, by how distant the siege and the battle for the Pelennor might have felt from the Houses and the Citadel, if the geography of MT really is as I (and to some extent PJ) have always pictured it. It clearly takes ages to trudge up from the First Circle to the Sixth, especially the way the gates are offset so you can't go straight up the hill. So I imagine the only messengers going to and fro during the siege would have been the strictly essential, strategic ones (to Denethor, later Gandalf and Imrahil, and possibly also to the Warden of the Houses, but not to all and sundry).

Great fun for fanfic authors, as we can play dramatic-irony games with who finds out what about the state of play elsewhere and when...

 Good luck writing! I'm looking forward to the next chapter.

Thank you! So am I - I know what happens, RL just has to butt out of the way long enough to let me get a writing head on...

Cheers,

Azalais 

The end of this chapter, you really hit hard with Wulfdan. Made me cry. I think the understated way you show this seige is some of the best writing I have ever seen in fanfic. It is , as you have done consistently throughout this story, been an oblique look at the epic events, but personal and from a woman's perspecitve. I like htat she is not fighting but healing, much more convincing than some, that sh eis frightened and that ehr mother is now sleeping. Wonderful. Utterly compelling and convincing.

Ziggy - I'm honoured that it moved you so much. (I made myself cry when I wrote Wulfdan, so I'm always evilly glad when it has the same effect on readers...)

As for "some of the best writing I have ever seen in fanfic"... [blinks] Wow. Coming from a storyteller of your calibre, that's quite a compliment. Thank you, indeed. All through the writing of these Minas Tirith chapters I was very conscious that everyone already knows how the siege and the battle turn out, so I had to create tension in other ways - hence very much writing from the POV of minor characters outside the main action, who don't know what's happening. I'm delighted that works so well for you.