Talk:A Knife in the Dark
New Summary[edit source]
This chapter is one of the densest I've summarized so far. It is twice as long as the previous one, and to make matters even more complicated, it is absolutely full of occurrences, including at least five separate "stages" of different events. And if that wasn't enough, there are plenty of things happening here that either interconnect with each other or connect to events later in the novel.
All this has made summarizing incredibly complex. I cut out a lot of descriptions and even bits of conversation - anything that I could justify to myself. I was surprised to discover that the end result is still somehow NOT twice as long as the previous chapter's summary; but it still feels incredibly long.
I'm not sure much, if anything, can still be cut; but one thing I absolutely want advice about is the story of Tinuviel. Naturally, I did not quote any of the Song of Beren and Luthien, since there was not much reason nor space to do so; however Strider's explanation of the story is a whole page long (out of 20 pages of the chapter), so I felt like it should be summarized with at least some detail. I don't know how I've managed to stuff the whole thing into a single paragraph, but I admit it felt dirty to do so.
What do you guys think? I could easily expand it to two paragraphs... or remove the whole thing. I feel like it has to be mentioned somehow, since it mirrors the romance between Aragorn and Arwen later on, but all of this lore has no actual bearing on the plot. I could use some advice about this, and of course any other part of this chapter.
P.S. Also note that the next chapter is also quite long, and there's the Council of Elrond coming up which would likely be twice as long even in summary...
