New Challenge: Bollywood
This month's challenge offers songs, films, and tropes from Bollywood, the world's largest film industry based out of India, as prompts for fanworks.
Founded in 2005, the Silmarillion Writers' Guild exists for discussions of and creative fanworks based on J.R.R. Tolkien's The Silmarillion and related texts. We are a positive-focused and open-minded space that welcomes fans from all over the world and with all levels of experience with Tolkien's works. Whether you are picking up Tolkien's books for the first time or have been a fan for decades, we welcome you to join us!
New Challenge: Bollywood
This month's challenge offers songs, films, and tropes from Bollywood, the world's largest film industry based out of India, as prompts for fanworks.
Cultus Dispatches: Fandom Chocolate … or Authors Love Comments
Tolkien Fanfiction Survey data provides insight into how comments benefit authors and which authors are most impacted by a lack of comments, with a digression on authors' perspectives one-click feedback like kudos.
A Sense of History: Passing Ships
As Tolkien's characters in various texts gaze out to the sea, what do they see? What is brought by the ships coming out of the West?
Beta-Reader List Now Available
The beta-reader list and profiles have been moved into our new system and are available again.
[Writing] No Time Have I by Flora-lass
A Silmarillion acrostic.
[Writing] I called it Fate that I should fail by AdmirableMonster
Nimruzimir, a natural philosopher recently out of his apprenticeship, hardly considers himself very important to anyone, least of all his colleagues. When his strange, prophetic fits bring him to the attention of the High Priest, however, he may find that his existence is less superfluous than…
[Writing] All of you by chrissystriped
Elrond and Celebrían celebrate their anniversary with their family.
[Writing] Lament for the Singer by daughterofshadows
A short thing about Maglor, death and grieving.
[Writing] Cosmological Poems of Arda by AaronAzrael
I would like to share my revelations of Tolkien's Universe in the form of narrative and emotional poems.
[Writing] Eä's Redemption by AaronAzrael
This is my new poetical attempt to add my own interpretation to Tolkien's Cosmology as to Eru's Creation and the Valar's minds and behind-the-scene providence reasons and mechanisms.. I often review Eä as part of our own world, just in another dimension, this is why I have always seriously…
[Artwork] Map of Valinor by Aprilertuile
My newly drawn map of Aman, as complete as I could make it.
Bollywood
Prompts this month are films, songs, and tropes from India's dazzling film industry, Bollywood. Read more ...
Plot Thickens
Create a fanwork that depicts characters in the act of plotting something. Read more ...
Fandom Chocolate … or Authors Love Comments by Dawn Walls-Thumma
[]Tolkien Fanfiction Survey data shows that authors view comments as driving their motivation to create fanfiction. However, perception of comments by authors is part of a larger shift in fandom around how and how often fans interact with each other.
Passing Ships by Simon J. Cook
[]The arrival and departure of ships across the Great Sea carries mythic significance for the peoples of Middle-earth. The image of ships crossing out of and back into a mysterious West appears as well in Beowulf and is alluded to in Tolkien's tower analogy in his lecture "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics," where the tower allows those who climb it to observe the passage of the ships.
Fanfiction and the Serious Business of Writer's Craft by Dawn Walls-Thumma
[]Tolkien Fanfiction Survey data shows that while most authors self-identify as taking their craft seriously, a growing subset of authors may be pushing that norm.
[Writing] Staging a Battle by StarSpray
[]He and Diamond were visiting, though Pippin had been disappearing every afternoon, and taking Frodo and Elanor and most other lads and lasses in the neighborhood with him—though why they couldn’t use Pippin’s own pony, Sam couldn’t imagine.
[Writing] From whose bourn no traveller returns by losselen
[]So gathered they were to Bree, what lieutenants who could be spared, from their scattered watches west and east, for their chieftain had returned from his long sojourn in lands godless and mountains strange.
Aragorn returns from the South to tells his tales. Halbarad listens.
[Writing] Sand Sorcery by StarSpray
[]It is well known that Psamathos does not leave his cove. He does not like to get his feet wet, and prefers to spend his days dozing under the sun.
Fellowship of the Fics: Summer Stories 2024
Fellowship of the Fics offers four weeks of summer-themed prompts during the month of July.
Elrond Week 2024
Elrond Week is a fandom event dedicated to Elrond Peredhel that will run from July 10th to July 16th on Tumblr.
July challenge at tolkienshortfanworks posted
The tolkienshortfanworks challenge for July has been posted to the Dreamwidth community. The thematic challenge is: original character or unnamed canon character; the formal challenge: fixed length of multiple of 50 words. New participants welcome.
July 2024 Call for Papers and Proposals
Conferences and publications that have open calls for papers and proposals in July 2024.
Teitho June/July Challenge: Mentor
The June/July prompt for the Teitho challenge is "mentor" and invites fanworks about this relationship in Tolkien's works.
Dawn, this was a real pleasure to read. Of course, you know I am a big fan of your prose and style (you, along with Darth and elfscribe, are among those writers for whom I sigh and say "I wish I could write like that!"), so I'll emphasize that it is the wonderful and strong characterizations here that stand out for me. That and the way you treated two races of humans and their view of their fates captivated me and had me nodding vigorously in agreement. Finrod's voice is excellent -- authentic and distinct. And I loved that touch of his runny nose in the cold air. :^)
Thank you, Pandemonium--that is a high compliment coming from one for whom I sigh and say, \"I wish I had her imagination ...\" ;) I ended up with this prompt quite by accident; the originally assigned writer couldn\'t complete it, and I was just about the only Silm writer left in the group and a mod at that, so it was inevitable. I had no intentions of writing anything for any challenge/event this holiday season, for obvious reasons, but the prompt really grabbed my attention once I started it. I\'m glad I took it, in the end. :)
I appreciate your underscore of humans because that was certainly (I\'m sure it doesn\'t surprise you to know this) one of the primary ideas that I wanted to express here: the shared humanity of both peoples. Hence Finrod\'s running nose. ;) It was fun, too, to have the ancient Elf disarmed by his circumstances and taught by a \"mere mortal,\" unlike the more popular tendency to have incompetent and child-like Edain gazing up in saucer-eyed rapture to the \"Elder Beings\" to instruct them.
Oh, I liked this. Finrod's sense of 'where did time go' with his friends aging is poignant. The details of the festical itself are just gorgeous, too.
Oh, and I liked that this was the first meeting of Beren and Finrod!
Thanks, Steel! The festival was such fun to imagine and write. I didn\'t intend the kid to be Beren when I first started; I wrote the first section and then, realizing that I\'m no expert on the history of the Edain, put a timeline together for myself and realized that it would work; it was too good an opportunity to pass up! :)
I don't even know where to start - I meant to wait until I could come up with a poignant review, but I think I'll give up on that and just gush incoherently.
Loved your Finrod, loved your Beör, loved the interactions between Finrod and the mortals. The whole piece made my inner anthropologist happy. And the emotional aspects made me happy (because it's so human, and so believable) and wibbly at the same time.
In conclusion, wonderful.
Thank you, Lyra! That is a high compliment from someone whom I admire for creating such believable cultures in her own writing. :) I\'m glad you liked Finrod too; he\'s so challenging for me because I generally start characterizations by working out from a character\'s flaws, and JRRT doesn\'t give me a whole lot to work with there! The Edain were challenging too since I don\'t often work with them and very much wanted to show them positively, even when compared to Finrod. Thank you again for the review--you have made my night! :)
With the previous compliments, it had all been said. And yet, I loved this piece and I thought you'd want to know it.
I loved Finrod and his simplicity. I loved him being true to his feelings and acting as a humble being and not a typical Noldorin king.
I was moved to tears by his ache at the sight of his friend aged to almost being unrecognized.
Thank you for a beautiful touching tale.
Thank you, Scarlet! I\'m rather fond of Finrod, which is probably pretty obvious. *ahem* ;) However, he\'s always been a challenging character for me to make believable (to myself), so I\'m glad that my early attempts here are resounding with people. I wanted to convey all of what you said you liked in your review, so you\'ve made me a very happy little writer! Thank you again for reading and for taking the time to tell me how you felt about the story.
This was fantastic! I love how Finrod was so uneasy at the idea of celebrating the longest night of the year, and how unoffended Beor was when he admitted his concerns. It implied that Beor was pretty savvy to the elves' preconceived notions about the edain.
I especially liked this description:
"Faces sprang from shadow, laughing, throwing back hoods and warming their hands, now tossing apples to one another across the golden river. For a moment, there was summer on those shores: light and laughter and feasts of plenty."
The part when Finrod breaks down when seeing Beor again (and his acknowledgement of how surprised the other edain were by it) was really powerful. I also liked the bit about Finrod's eyes and nose watering worse than Beren's, haha...for different reasons, of course! Portrayals of the elves where they're less perfect and more subject to mundane problems make me oddly happy.
The idea of Arafinwe wearing extra cloaks so his children could pretend he's Ingwe and practice their introduction's made me laugh.
Eh, I just realized I somehow did this review in reverse chronological order...oops?
Anyway, I also wanted to tell you "good luck" on the paper and presentation you mentioned in your reply! I don't think there's a way to respond directly (I could just be oblivious...) but I hope the conference goes well. (My first instinct is to say "have fun" with your presentation, but I'm probably the only person who thinks oral presentations are "fun.") Take care!
(P.S. Hope this finds it's way to you in the midst of the "Great Notification Debacle of 2015" hehe. Sorry if you get this after the fact :D)
Thank you so much ... for everything! :D You've been so kind to me lately, and yes, I'm slicing and dicing the paper as we speak (well ... not *precisely* as we speak since I can't type in two places at once, but you know what I mean! :) so the encouragement is timely and very much appreciated.
When I think of Finrod meeting the Edain, I can't help but think how unpleasant a surprise mortality must have been. Certainly, Elves had experienced mortality among animals--presumably, they were sad when their loyal pets and horses died--but immortality being the norm for humans in their mind, to discover a people simultaneously so alike and so unlike them at the very cores of their natures must have been a painful surprise.
I am rather fond of imperfect Elves myself. I've made a ten-year fandom career off them even! :D
Also, I like giving presentations too. I'm a high school teacher, so I often say I perform in front of one of the world's most difficult audiences every day. Stuff like this is a cakewalk in comparison! The preparation is more worrisome than the actual talk, which I know I will have a great time with.
There is presently no way to reply to replies, so you're not oblivious. :) Threaded comments are on our wishlist and I'd love to see them in the new version of eFiction, if it ever sees light of day. If not, if I ever learn PHP well enough, it'd be something I'd place high on my to-do list to work on. And, as you can see, the Great Notification Debacle of 2015 has been solved! \0/ So thank you again for such a perfectly timed and lovely comment. You made my night!
Oh this was so beautiful!!! I wept when Finrod kissed Beor's hands! <3
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