The Lyrical Quill

• Those emotional scenes you’ve planned will never be as good on page as they are in your head. To YOU. Your audience, however, is eating it up. Just because you can’t articulate the emotion of a scene to your satisfaction doesn’t mean it’s not impacting the reader. 

• Sometimes a sentence, a paragraph, or even a whole scene will not be salvagable. Either it wasn’t necessary to the story to begin with, or you can put it to the side and re-write it later, but for now it’s gotta go. It doesn’t make you a bad writer to have to trim, it makes you a good writer to know to trim.

• There are several stories just like yours. And that’s okay, there’s no story in existence of completely original concepts. What makes your story “original” is that it’s yours. No one else can write your story the way you can.

Absent: preoccupied 

Agonized: as if in pain or tormented

Alluring: attractive, in the sense of arousing desire

Appealing: attractive, in the sense of encouraging goodwill and/or interest

Beatific: blissful

Black: angry or sad, or hostile

Bleak: hopeless

Blinking: surprise, or lack of concern

Blithe: carefree, lighthearted, or heedlessly indifferent

Brooding: anxious and gloomy

Bug eyed: frightened or surprised

Chagrined: humiliated or disappointed

Cheeky: cocky, insolent

Cheerless: sad

Choleric: hot-tempered, irate

Darkly: with depressed or malevolent feelings

Deadpan: expressionless, to conceal emotion or heighten humor

Despondent: depressed or discouraged

Doleful: sad or afflicted

Dour: stern or obstinate

Dreamy: distracted by daydreaming or fantasizing

Ecstatic: delighted or entranced

Faint: cowardly, weak, or barely perceptible

Fixed: concentrated or immobile

Gazing: staring intently

Glancing: staring briefly as if curious but evasive

Glazed: expressionless due to fatigue or confusion

Grim: fatalistic or pessimistic

Grave: serious, expressing emotion due to loss or sadness

Haunted: frightened, worried, or guilty

Hopeless: depressed by a lack of encouragement or optimism

Hostile: aggressively angry, intimidating, or resistant

Hunted: tense as if worried about pursuit

Jeering: insulting or mocking

Languid: lazy or weak

Leering: sexually suggestive

Mild: easygoing

Mischievous: annoyingly or maliciously playful

Pained: affected with discomfort or pain

Peering: with curiosity or suspicion

Peeved: annoyed

Pleading: seeking apology or assistance

Quizzical: questioning or confused

Radiant: bright, happy

Sanguine: bloodthirsty, confident

Sardonic: mocking

Sour: unpleasant

Sullen: resentful

Vacant: blank or stupid looking

Wan: pale, sickly

Wary: cautious or cunning

Wide eyed: frightened or surprised

Withering: devastating

Wrathful: indignant or vengeful

But you have to remember a few things:

He swore the Oath of Feanor, and participated in all three kinslayings. He chose to help burn the ships at Losgar. Only after the third kinslaying is he mentioned as having any remorse.

He owned and defended the large plain known as Maglor's Gap for centuries. He had absolutely zero cover from Morgoth's forces and the only thing that forced him out was the dragon Glaurung. This guy is a warrior, if not one of THE best warriors of the first age. He was a general during the Wars of Beleriand, including the war of wrath. He was also one of the only two, alongside Galadriel, of the 16 grandchildren of Finwe to survive the first age.

When the easterlings betrayed Caranthir, Maglor personally hunted Uldor down and killed him. You calling that gentle?

His name is Kanafinwe, which means "strong-voiced" or "commanding". Not just sweetly singing lullabies or mournful lamentations but also commanding armies. "Maglor who's voice is like the sea." Not just soft and gentle tides but also like a mounting wave. The sea that is both loved and feared.

People treat him like he's this sweet baby cinnamon roll who's just following orders but the thing is just because he felt bad for his crimes and cared for Elrond and Elros doesn't automatically make him this poor little sweetheart. He's a hardened, traumatized warrior who's a leader in his own right. He's a commander, a fighter, and a force to be reckoned with.

As his father before him, who infused his craft with a part of his own being, so too did Maglor— his voice was given to his song, and his song, after long ages, was given to the sea with the Silmaril he had cast away.

Minas Morgul by Artem Demura