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All Work and No Play by Lindelea	3 Review(s)
Mirkwoodmaiden	Reviewed Chapter: 3 on 10/24/2025
Lin! Review pt 2. "‘Comfort me not with wizards!’ was spoken by Denethor in “The Siege of Gondor” in The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien, when Pippin tried to reason with him during the dark hours as they watched over a stricken Faramir." Nice touch that Pippin should quote Denethor...though a bit worrisome. (Thinking about earlier discussions about how the relationships that Pippin had with Denethor and Merry had with Theoden. I think Merry got the better out of that bargain. :-) (((hugs))) MM Advice needed. in Ch. 37 Eowyn has a nightmare where she wants to die (as is stated on ROTK: Here is the text: "Eowyn looked around the battlefield and saw nothing but dead bodies. She scanned the entire boundary contained by the ruin of the Rammas Echor and saw no one left alive. “You have all died and left me here.” She grabbed for a sword that lay in the hand of a fallen Gondorian soldier and tried to end it all right there, but the sword blade transformed itself into a red ribbon and would not cut. “Why have you all left me to look after beds for no one. Why?” She screamed. “This is not my life, This cannot be my life!!” My question is should I place author notes at the top of the chapter to warn people? It needs to be there in the story because she is truly this low but I also don't want to upset anyone. Thanks! MM Author Reply: MM! In the interest of smoothing the way for Chapter 37, here's my advice (and pardon me for being long-winded or too detailed; I'm feeling foggy today, probably the sudden change in the weather): What I typically do when a chapter has material that could be triggering is to place a warning at the top of the chapter. I wish I'd thought of it earlier, actually. I should probably look back through a couple of the older stories with an eye to providing some buffers/warnings/summaries. Thus, at the top of this chapter, your warning might say something like: Trigger Warning: This chapter describes (Provide a brief summary of chapter) and includes a potentially upsetting description of thoughts of self-harm. Finish the trigger warning by telling the reader your solution and giving them the choice to read or skip. For example, you might arrange for the reader to skip the entire chapter, promising to put a summary at the top of the next chapter. Alternatively, you might use formatting tricks to set off the "problem" text (see next paragraph) and tell the reader in your warning text what part of the chapter to skim over/skip. If this is the chapter where Éowyn meets Faramir and you don't want readers to miss the whole chapter, you might put the dream part in italic font – in the warning at the top of the chapter, you'd inform the reader to skip the part(s) in italic font. Or if part of the chapter is upsetting but the rest is not, and the upsetting part can be separated from the rest, you can tell the reader in your warning to start or stop reading at the "break" (in my chapters, breaks are indicated by a line containing only three asterisks *** ), depending on where the upsetting material occurs in the chapter. In A Took by any Other Name, I ran Chapter 5 by Nilmandra to ask her if it was too graphic for the site. It was too graphic for her (ouch), but she helped me with the site features to make the chapter work. There's a setting when you publish a chapter (which I've seldom needed to use as I try to keep everything PG13 or under) that pops up a protective wall of sorts warning that the chapter contains material of a serious or graphic nature and asking the reader to check a box to verify that they are an adult. In addition to invoking that function, I put the following note at the top of the chapter: Warning: This chapter contains material of a violent and graphic nature. If such disturbs you, all you need to know is that Esmeralda, Diamond, and finally Estella, clarify the treatment of Orcs of their captives, according to Diamond's understanding from having overheard Pippin's nightmares over the years. I think that providing a brief summary like this can help the reader avoid that FOMO feeling. (fear of missing out, just in case that acronym is unfamiliar. Even with the amount of time I've spent online over the past decades, I still run across acronyms here and there that I have to look up.) In A Matter of Appearances, I hit on the idea of placing a note at the top of the web page warning sensitive readers not to read the chapter, and promising to put a summary of the problematic chapter(s) at the top of the next chapter to be published. Here's the series of notes that resulted as I figured out this strategy: Chapter 25 Note to the Reader: We now enter the territory of true horror, and sad to say, this chapter split itself in half. The next chapter is, if anything, worse. If you are sensitive, please skip this chapter, and chapter 26. Firmly PG-13. Chapter 26 Note to the Reader: Still horror, but the tide is beginning to turn by the end. If you are sensitive, please skip this chapter. Firmly PG-13. There will be a short summary at the beginning of Chapter 27, so you won't miss any plot points if you choose to skip the horror. And thank you for your patience. Chapter 27 This chapter is milder than the previous two, but still PG. Summary, as promised: In Chapter 25, Woodruff, having come down with a high fever, interrupted Ferdi’s burial, insisting that she be lowered into the grave to check for a heartbeat. While in the middle of this endeavour, she fainted and was borne away, and the burial resumed. Meanwhile, Sam’s part of the muster found the club-wielder’s back trail and began to follow it in hopes of finding the rest of the ruffians, and Farry. Eventually they found that there were two ruffians at the Three-Farthing Stone, and so they split up to pursue both trails. At the same time, Farry was being used as a visual aid in a lecture on how to cut up kidnap victims (lecture only, demonstration to follow). The lecture continued in Chapter 26, and upon its conclusion the youngest ruffian was ordered to take certain “tokens” from Farry, to be left where hobbits would find them and bring them to Farry’s father. The plan was to distract the Thain with grief and horror, affecting his ability to lead a muster, allowing the ruffians to make their escape. However, the young ruffian, finding a stray lamb stranded in some thorn bushes, was at the chapter’s end considering a substitute for the requisite items... Anyhow, I hope some or all of this helps. Woo-hoo, Chapter 37 is on the way! Please convey my thanks to your beta-hubs. (((hugs))) Lin Author Reply: Ah. I found an example of where I used a "break" symbol as mentioned in my earlier reply. At the top of Chapter 39 in A Matter of Apperances is a note that reads as follows: A/N: A little bit of housekeeping here, tying up a loose end or two, and since EF did the research for me I have gone ahead and written the details into the start of this chapter. There is a bit of uncomfortable detail in the first half of this chapter, where Sam and Tolly finish their vigil just outside the Bounds, preparing to take the word back to Tookland that the last of the ruffians have been dealt with. If you do not wish to read the details, please skip to the second half, which begins immediately after the three-asterisk (***) break. Take heart. The celebrations are about to begin. With the conclusion of this chapter we leave death and horror behind.

Mirkwoodmaiden	Reviewed Chapter: 3 on 10/24/2025
Lin! Finally, Ch. 37 is off to the editor (commonly known as my husband! :-) ) so I have a free day to read! Oh dear! Farry certainly does seem to be cut from Tookish cloth. Well done discussion between the three cousins. Poor Pippin does seem beset by worries. (((hugs))) MM P.S. Chapter 37 should be up by tomorrow! Author Reply: MM! I will await the appearance of Chapter 37 with bated breath! Free days to read are precious (deliberately not said in Gollum's voice). I am glad to hear from you and hope you're enjoying this story. It has worked out to be much less angsty than some of my previous efforts (there's still some angst, of course, despite the temptation to write fluff and more fluff and nothing but fluff...). Of course, the angst in these early chapters is more or less left over from the previous stories leading into this point on my timeline. I'm having way too much fun with young hobbits in the later chapters... I love writing scenes where Merry and Ferdi draw on their shared experience (they're only one year apart in age) in dealing with Pippin. I'm so glad you liked the discussion here. Alas, poor Pippin. Y'know, I loved the brave-carefree-cheerful-resourceful tween so much in the book, I probably wouldn't have made him Thain if Tolkien hadn't already done so. The best I could do was to emphasize how much hobbits hate having to take leadership roles, as a norm (though there are exceptions, like Lotho), and how seriously leaders like Merry and Pippin and Sam take their roles as a sacred duty to keep the Shire and Shire-folk free and relatively untroubled. Whew, I'm feeling much too philosophical at the moment. I need to polish up Bill's next chapter and post it while I'm still in the mood to type and the cats are still feeling mellow and leaving me in peace (at least for the moment). (((hugs))) Lin

Larner	Reviewed Chapter: 3 on 8/24/2025
Aha! So Diamond doesn't know as yet! No wonder he's let his tea go cold! Now to see if he's as good at convincing his wife as he was with his sister! Author Reply: Hah. I'm sure he told her all about the original plan, but you're right... he hasn't quite figured out how to tell her about the revised plan at this point, even though he knows that sooner would be better than later. Thanks!

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