So, per the ongoing (?) readthru, ExOttoyuhr and others had some great thoughts about how we should divvy up talking about the book (and fic) into major story sections.

I think we should do this by having a thread for each whole series of chapters, and then reading thru chronologically and coming back to each thread and deciding which section is most important to be discussed / or for me and potentially others to work on. What do you think?

If we discuss it this month I might be able to resume writing in January -- hopefully in collaboration with The6thMaster and others -- to provide me with a better grounding in dialogue and other areas where needed, especially in the context of framing devices -- and read thru the book in the meantime.

mathwiz, if you're busy, we might consider polling the people as to whether you want to spend the time to do audio? (maybe we poll people on Crossovers if anypony there is interested enough for us to do audio, since I'm pretty sure the only people here heard about it in Crossovers) -- or read along with the book instead and just post our reactions and story comments?

Depending on who else is following along. (e.g. if the other people have the book already, or can pick it up, or if it's just three or four of us) then we could just do a thread on it as you read along. But if you find it fun and helpful (to folks like Prof. Celestia and Triforce_Cutie_Mark who haven't read the book) to post the audio, that's cool, because your reading so far is a good one! Posting your reactions might be easier too in terms of eliciting discussion from non-readers and fans.

Anyhow, I wanted to know what sections we might want to thematically divide it up into, in terms of discussion threads. In the context of the readthru, I suggested two options in the index thread, but there's a third even simpler suggestion that Otto suggested which I kinda like:

#1. Divide the story into major thematic segments, and post one big thread for each. Given that there's not a lot of activity in the forum since Fimfic is geared to allowing lots of little forums like this one and folks may not even see us here -- This might be our best bet of having a cool discussion. It would make it more difficult to do the readthrough initially as audio, though. But if mathwiz and others (is anypony else reading the book with us?) are simply saying "ok, next chapter. my thoughts are --" then we could simply carry on in each megathread in text-only fashion, with people commenting as they reach that part, and generate a lot of discussion. My breakdown (sort of similar to Ottoyuhr's) would be --

• Prologue (2 chapters) -- current thread
• A. Chapters 1-13 -- Fëanor Arc (including all the setup in the Undying Lands and the origin of Middle Earth)
• B. Chapters 14-19 -- Beren and Luthien Arc (including all the setup in Beleriand as a location for the story)
• C. Chapters 20-21 -- Húrin and Túrin Arc (including the battle of unnumbered tears)
• D. Chapters 22-24 -- Gondolin Arc (end of the story)

This is how I'd do the Silm if it were a movie series, BTW. ;)

• Epilogue (2 chapters + Appendix)-- similar to the Prologue books, and can be grouped with it in the pony version as it recounts events outside the Silm (i.e. separate accounts by Tolkien of events before and after the First Age) which may or may not be relevant to the Pony version as, at present, the universes diverge at the end of the 2nd age, i.e. around the remaking of the world and the Battle of the Last Alliance.

See the thread entitled Silmarillion Read-thru - Index for the full chapter listing.

#2. Chronological readthru, but divided into large clumps of chapters that are thematically linked, so we'd be going thru more chapters in each thread of the readthrough. This allows us to come back to each thread, as above, and discuss the story and adaptation for each part of the story out of order (after we finish the readthru). It would also allow us to finish the readthru quicker, if you think that would be more likely for people to follow along on a fanfiction forum which is probably true depending on people's reading habits. My suggestion for this was: Prologue (2 chapters) -- current thread, followed by:

If you want to move through the story faster, we could consolidate chapters 1-4, chapters 5-9, chapters 10-15, chapters 16-18, chapters 19-20, chapters 21-22, chapters 23-24 into single threads, and do one a week. If we divide them up into additional threads, like in the original post, then the threads would be more topical -- for discussing that section of the story, rather than discussing immediate reactions as we go along

#3. Chronological readthrough, one or two chapters per-thread essentially -- by small groups of similar chapters, post new threads rapidly as we go along for 2-3 chapters each. I don't know how long people want to spend on the readthrough, or if anypony is following along, which is the downside -- the other being -- it's harder to go back and continue discussing isolated groups of chapters in sequence. So if we post a thread per chapter, or a thread for groups of 2-3 chapters, we'll have a lot of empty threads. I.e. we wouldn't be able to really use the threads for thematic discussion if it's one thread per chapter, or even one thread for every 2 chapters. But my suggestion for this was in the original post:

Prologue (2 chapters) -- current thread; Distant Backstory (chapters 1-2 of the main story); Origin of the Elves (ch. 3-4); Undying Lands (ch. 5-7); flight of the Noldor (ch. 8-9); backtracking exposition recounting historical events elsewhere (ch. 10-12); historical chapters about Beleriand (ch. 13-15); Maeglin (ch. 16); fourth battle (ch. 17-18); Beren and Luthien (ch. 19, big chapter); fifth battle (ch. 20); Túrin (ch. 21, big chapter); Doriath (ch. 22); Gondolin (ch. 23); Earendil (ch. 24). Whew.

Let me know what you think.

Also note that except where specified, i.e. we would highlight passages we might want to allude to or carry over to the pony version such as ponified poetry, choice lines and so forth, but the chapter order of the pony version and the chapters may diverge quite a bit as the story progresses, depending on how the story progresses, and as Otto said, there's no reason not to write it out of order, since the Silm is a compendium of myths that is set in a framework of historical exposition chapters.

If I do attempt to ponify (rip off) Silm chapters directly like I did with the Ainulindale, it would purely be to produce a working "retranslated" historical document (draft) which could then be referred back to as an adaptation aid or "properly translated" "source material" for the actual fic, which would be written afresh. But I would probably do that chapter by chapter to try out adaptation ideas, and see what works. Similar to Tolkien using references to his earlier drafts as background quotations and such.

I could also use this same approach to integrate independent writing into the final product.

(Note that the Prologue chapters are not technically part of the Silmarillion and were supposedly written by different elvish authors, as were the bits of poetry and so-forth.)

(which I actually quite like the Llaúrendalë -- as a tongue-in-cheek pony exegesis -- although it's still in draft form and a bit too close to the source text, i.e. retains source material where not needed for the pony version in parts -- but folks on Ponychan who hadn't read the Silm actually liked it, and I didn't go in expecting to be able to ponify it that far back -- so it actually gelled and helped me establish the logic for the existence of the pony divine beings, similar to that Marvel comic where the One-Above-All is the writer himself.)

I don't know which of these three options you guys want to pursue, but we can only do one or another.

Sorry about the readthrough not coming along - I've been busy. Should be able to do a chapter tomorrow, though.

If we do multi-chapter threads, if folks want to follow along by audio, you could post new audio in the same thread, and simply edit the OP to include multiple Youtube videos, one for each chapter (or however much you recorded).

I.e. Silmarillion Readthrough - Chapter 1 would become Silmarillion Prologue (2 chapters) ... etc. with the videos up top.

If we go by story arcs like Ottoyuhr suggested then we could have threads titled things like Silmarillion Chapters 1-13 (Fëanor Story Arc) and simply post new youtube recordings as replies to the OP. That way if there's a break in audio, we can still continue discussing it by text. I wish forum threads could be crossposted so as to allow more people to see it.

Hopefully Otto will chime in on how we want to divvy up the chapters, since I'm worried that if there's too many threads, there won't be any replies (not enough people here, grin).