My Tale Goes Ever On and On by Kayla

My Tale Goes Ever On and On by Kayla - May 2017 Scholarship Essay

To most people, March 25th is just another day in the month of March. But to me, it’s a day to celebrate my love of stories. In The Lord of the Rings, March 25th is the day of the final climactic events of the trilogy, the day when every character’s hard work and sacrifices are finally rewarded with victory. Last March, as a devout Tolkien fan, I celebrated this day with a friend by marathoning all three extended editions of the Lord of the Rings movies. This meant two days, and just under twelve hours, dedicated to the wonderful journey of the Fellowship of the Ring through Middle-Earth. And I enjoyed every minute of it.

I love The Lord of the Rings – the books and the movies – because of how complete a story it is. The world is richly developed and the struggles of the characters are compelling, but when I close the third book or the last credits roll, I know that it’s over. This made the end of the movie marathon very bittersweet for me and my friend. For the last fifteen minutes of the final movie, during the emotional closing scenes, we stayed silent, only speaking up to repeat how sad it was, both of us failing to hide the choked-up sound of our voices. We sat through the song in the end credits in silence, and stayed quiet as my friend packed up her sleeping bag and backpack. Even after breaking the silence, we didn’t acknowledge the end, only saying goodbye to each other as she left my house. As the door closed, I went upstairs to write. The end of the movie had made an impact on me, and the best way I knew to deal with it was to capture that impact in writing.

I want to be a writer. I want to write stories that make their readers feel like I did on the afternoon of March 25th, watching the end credits roll in silence with my friend. I’ve finished many books in my life, and the best ones have had endings that stuck with me even after I read the last word. With no book is this truer than The Lord of the Rings. I first read the series in eighth grade, after my dad passed on to me the trilogy of books with taped-together bindings that his own father read to him years ago. Reading them was my first serious experience with fantasy, and it’s stuck with me ever since. Those books were a portal to a new world (the first of many) that showed me the power of writers and their creativity. Without Lord of the Rings, I wouldn’t want to be the fantasy author that I aspire to be today.

When The Lord of the Rings finishes, it’s after a year of battles, tears, and sacrifice. The characters have earned their victory. I look forward to the ending that the Fellowship and everyone in Middle-Earth deserves, but I also dread knowing that the story will soon be over. Someday soon, I hope to be able to write stories like Tolkien’s, stories where the ending is perfectly bittersweet. I want readers to put down my books and think about the world around them. Because of The Lord of the Rings, I want to create my own March 25th, a story with an ending that will inspire and affect readers for the better.