Writing in Canon Settings (microblog)

Working on the Middle-earth Hexcrawl Project has made me want to articulate some brief thoughts I've had on writing material for canon settings. This is a microblog, unedited, stream of consciousness, and written while drunk.If you just faithfully reproduce the things that Tolkien directly talked about, Middle-earth would seem very empty indeed. You can see in Idraluna Archive's map that much of the setting feels empty because nothing is as built out as the Shire.I have three approaches to filling in the empty space. I wouldn't call them contradictory, but they are different ways to get at the same problem.One approach is resonance. If I invent something whole cloth, it needs to feel like an appropriate inclusion. In the first edition of The One Ring, Francis Nepitello did a great job with this. The River-maidens aren't mentioned in any of the canon material, but they feel so resonant! Europe is replete, East and West, with water women that wreak havoc. And you know from Goldberry…