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.
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…
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…
Current Challenge
Bollywood
Prompts this month are films, songs, and tropes from India's dazzling film industry, Bollywood. Read more ...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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Comments
The Silmarillion Writers' Guild is more than just an archive--we are a community! If you enjoy a fanwork or enjoy a creator's work, please consider letting them know in a comment.
<i>He was all anticipation—until the first of the Children turned up on his doorstep, hurt, bewildered and inarticulate in their anger. Quendi! Before they had even learned to speak properly, they were already learning how to die, in terror and in pain.</i>
Loved this segment. The other literary part I truly enjoyed was the repetition of "and Findekano"--so much in those two words.
This is one of the few stories I ever read, including Tolkien himself, who made me feel sympathetic to Namo. (Poor Namo! Like he needs my sympathy.
Thank you! I must confess I was afraid you would disapprove and think I had overdone the "Gloom and Doom" part this time, so I'm relieved it worked for you!
Your rendering of the otherworldlyness of Mandos shines through; I enjoyed the fine balance of control vs chaos in Mandos as a place/plane which also reflects in the personage of Namo himself. I read this almost as I would a painting though not in terms of image, line, likeness and colour but rather as degrees of contrast and texture. The painter that comes to mind is Paul Cezanne: an artist whose work often revealed heavy brush strokes, fine washes or indeed just bare canvas.
Please do not be insulted by this next comment, believe me it is not meant offensively, but reading this left me with two words repeating in my mind: DRIP DROP - DRIP DROP...
This was... odd. There's angst, but there's also humour. It's weird, wanting to laugh and the next moment feeling like I shouldn't have found that funny. Or maybe I'm in a weird mood (a kind of post-holiday depression or something). Anyway, I enjoyed the story and am sorry it took me so long to r&r :)
He should have known better, from experience, than to extend forgiveness to a Feanorion and expect grateful acceptance ::LOL::
He feels his brothers and sisters are far too enamoured of the work of their hands—so obsessed with what is contained in those Silmarils they might as well be Noldor themselves. Really good point. I've never thought of it like that but he's right.
I absolutely loved reading this. An excellent, well-balanced mixture of angst, humor and eeriness.
(Actually, the mood of the piece corresponds remarkably well with Planescape: Torment - a brilliant CRPG I am re-playing for ca a bambillionth time right now.)
Also, kudos for strong, powerful imagery and vivid descriptions.
The idea of each sinner encapsulated in their own personal hell is very intriguing.
Thank you very much! I really appreciate your comments. I've never heard of Planescape, but am interested to hear that it chimes with the mood of my story.
I think the idea of each sinner encapsulated in their own personal hell may have been a theory of Swedenborg's, although I haven't actually read Swedenborg, just an anthology of different ideas of heaven and hell by Borges and Casares.
I love how Namo is questioning the morality of everything, in a sort of odd balance between bitterness and hope.
The way you protray the Valar is interesting. The idea that they used to play at sleep to imitate the Children, and that Namo wasn't able to articulate his own feelings until Luthien named them for him, and this line: " Namo, the mighty Ainu, who entered Ea on a one-way ticket, on a contract without escape clause, who cannot resign his job, cannot leave, cannot get out..." I mean, wow!
The way the Feanorians are tormenting themselves in his halls is poignant, too, as is Namo's reaction to it. Some lines I liked especially, were:
"He was all anticipation—until the first of the Children turned up on his doorstep, hurt, bewildered and inarticulate in their anger."
"Nelyafinwe Maitimo is wanted for the Project. Does that justify what the Project is doing to Nelyafinwe Maitimo?"
"Namo, who entered Arda knowing everything about everyone and is gradually coming to terms with the fact that, by the end, he will know nothing for certain about anyone, gathers himself and strengthens his resolution once again. It will be a long haul.
And it may be that when the One finally comes to declare his Judgement—and yet, after all this, how dare he?—and yet after all this, how dare he not?—Namo will be released to cast himself at his feet and plead for mercy for one and all, and it will be Nienna who will stand the accuser, the wellsprings of her pity having run dry. But that would be symmetrical and almost tidy—and so it is very likely not true."
Sorry to add so many quotes! I just thought those lines were so thought-provoking. I really like your depiction of Namo, and how conflicted and complex he is.
I'm very pleased that you found this so thought-provoking! You've picked up on some lines here that nobody else had commented on, as far as I remember.
(By the way--I seem to have missed reviews of yours for which I don't remember getting any notification. I've tried to respond to all I could find, but if I've still failed to respond to any, I apologize!)
Comments
The Silmarillion Writers' Guild is more than just an archive--we are a community! If you enjoy a fanwork or enjoy a creator's work, please consider letting them know in a comment.