The Tolkien Writing guide Part III:
General Rules of Middle Earth
Or: "Look out, they've got a canon!"
Just a few rules you might miss if you haven't read the books…
It's Hereditary, Right?
Morgoth kidnaps Elves and tortures them horribly. Elves become Orcs. Orcs reproduce. This results in… More Orcs. See other fantasy writers for similar odd ideas about genetics. Creationist-like passages in the Silmarillion notwithstanding, Tolkien apparently was a big believer in Lamarckian evolution.
D--- Right, It's Better Than Yours
Elves may seem to talk down to the other races more often than not, but there is a good reason for this: Elves are better. Wiser, prettier, better at making indestructible weapons, AND immortal to boot, they've got it all. Forget all that nonsense in the Silmarillion about betraying each other, being bad parents, and killing your nearest and dearest over shiny rocks. The Elves certainly have.
It's the Same Old Song
Whether Hobbits, Men, Dwarves or Elves, Characters in Tolkien can't stop to eat or rest without spending a few pages singing. This may have something to do with the lack of satellite television in Middle Earth. It's amazing how well Elvish songs and stories translate into English, that is to say the Common Tongue, considering they are a different species. Anyway, the amount of time they spend writing looooong poems may explain why Elves seem so bored with being immortal.
White and Delightsome
While (unlike the movie) every important good character in the Lord of the Rings does NOT have blue eyes, they are all extremely white. In fact, "pale" is another one of those words like "tall" that Tolkien tosses around to indicate nobility and attractiveness. And the inverse appears to be true as well – it's not just that Bill Ferny is rude, it's that he's sallow and "squint-eyed" that indicates his affiliation with "dark" powers. Dark skin is apparently synonymous with evil, with exhibit A being the Southrons. (The movie gives a nod to this by having them wear what appear to be burqas. Jackson and Co. apparently have something against body piercings as well.)
The Purpose of a Man is to Love a Woman, and the Purpose of an Elf is to Love...an Elf?
Tolkien spent a great deal of time inventing Elvish languages while neglecting at least one significant fact about his own. This is the fact that in English, humans come in two flavors: Man and Woman. He refers to the Race of Men, which despite its patriarchalism, is a typical generic usage. Besides, "Man" fits better into iambs than "Human."
However, there are also the Races of Elves and Dwarves. There does not appear to be any female word for either Elf or Dwarf. This leads to some tortuous and justly lambasted terms such as "she-elf" in fanfiction. The lack of such a term for Orcs is somewhat excusable, given that Tolkien seems to have been rather fuzzy on how they reproduce, except for the implied-but-never-dealt-with "raping thehuman women" trope (which produces half-Orcs).
We suggest, if you wish to deal with females of these species in a way other than describing their beauty and dropping them afterwards like hot palantiri, that you invent words. We personally would love to read a description of the beautiful Elves and Woelves who inhabit Rivendell. It would make our day.