[Roisin]

Do you have to pick one or the other, or can you have elements of both?

There are some things I honestly like better about the movies, the main one being the shorter time frames (no seventeen year layover in the Shire in the beginning). OTOH, there are characters of whom I'm very fond (like Elladan and Elrohir) who do not appear at all in the movies.

Roisin

[Dragon]

I always thought that you can have elements of both. They both have different strong points... the movie is especially good for letting you visualise things... and also lets you see the orcs more as individuals (and really made me become a fan of the Balrog). Many people enjoy writing stories about Aragorn and Legolas before the Lord of the Rings which is mainly based on the movie, but also include the characters Elladan and Elrohir which are bookverse. Most people are also influenced by the physical appearance of the elves in the movie... I know it brought the books alive for me.

When I'm writing fanfic I mainly write about characters that were not in the movie, but I usually base by descriptions of the surroundings on what was in the movie as I prefer the movie version of Lothlorien to the way it is described in the book for instance. Although with characterisations that were changed a lot in the movie, you'd have to be careful with combining the two - like I can't imagine the Arwen who rode to rescue Frodo sitting at home and stitching banners like she does in the books. I would say that it's fine to pick and choose from whatever you like best, but then I'm never going to get my purist stripes.

[NancyBrooke]

Sure! You can have elements of both, around here we're not too picky. Just, please, add a disclaimer. I find they're really helpful in getting me situated.

e.g.

If you change the plot dramatically - AU;
If you have movie events but with book culture and background - I think that's movieverse;
If you just have movie appearances but book events, just explain!

I'm sure most readers will want to come along for the ride provided they know where the bus is going.

Nancy

[Gaslight]

I think a combination of book and movie verse is the best of both worlds! For my Boromir-Lurtz fic, I wanted Sean Bean's Boromir to be the one in peoples' minds, but I didn't want to be constrained by rock-stupid Uruk-hai, so I stuck to book verse for that. I also threw in a elder, calmer Theodred to counter the rash Eomer, as well as memories of the Battle of Osgiliath and even a mention of the Pukel-men! By the end, it was mainly all bookverse except for Sean Bean. But still, that bit of movie element didn't hurt the imagination none. I labeled it AU anyway because it was part movie. That covers all the bases and issues that some people might bring up.

[Ellbee]

I also think it's perfectly acceptable to mix book and movie verse. Frankly, there are some things I think PJ handled better than Tolkien himself did. For instance, years before the movie, I thought it was really silly and not terribly practical or plausible that Aragorn had been wandering the wild and protecting the peasants with a broken sword.

And really, even with stories that are strictly book-verse, I know that I myself can't picture anyone but the actors as the characters, so it's like automatic movie-verse.

-Ell