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…
My newly drawn map of Aman, as complete as I could make it.
Current Challenge
Bollywood
Prompts this month are films, songs, and tropes from India's dazzling film industry, Bollywood. Read more ...
Random Challenge
Holiday Party
No matter if you're in the Northern or Southern hemisphere, it's a time of year to think about holidays. Whether you're bundling up in blankets or slipping a swimsuit into your suitcase, we invite you to an SWG holiday party! 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.
Subscribe to the SWG Newsletter
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.
Oh how delightful! I just love what compels him to check out these two Elves!
Your descriptions of the two, Miriel occupied w ith her craft, the primitive crown Finwe wore, were a nice touch. I also love Gandalf being fascinated with the curiosity and compassion he saw in Finwe's mind (the same qualities that would later attract him to hobbits).
Best of all was him playing Cupid! Just such a subtle little nudge, to let them know their feelings were requited. Adorable!
Thank you! I'm glad you liked it. :) I realized that the quote could have meant that he traveled among the Elves unseen at many points in their history, but I could not get Cuivienen out of my mind. Which opened the obvious possibility of him advising them about Valinor ... but that seemed too heavy (and I'm not sure that "wisdom" in that case was actually going to Valinor). I like the idea of Gandalf's influence coming through the small and the humble, so this seemed a good instance of first contact.
Eee! I could absolutely picture Olórin doing something like this. And the description of Elven thoughts vs. Ainur thoughts, the similarities and differences, is great.
I love this. It is just so charming and imaginative. I really will be unable to imagine young Miriel and Finwe any other way in the future. Finwe's crown! I adore it and love him in it. Oh, Dawn. This is perfect. I needed this today.
I really love Finwe and Miriel, but Olórin also is one of my all-time favorites!
Aww, thank you! :D I loved Dreamflower's prompt, which was something I'd read a hundred times and never really thought about. I always envision Finwe as a rather playful and childlike character, despite his accomplishments. I suppose the cliche way to say it would be that he "has a big heart"! :) He wants badly to love and be loved.
I haven't written too much Miriel, but all the talk over how fast *I* talk of late makes me feel connected to her, so I kind of wrote self-insert!Miriel, I guess. ;)
Olorin, of course, is the most challenging of all for me, but he's ultimately a fun character, which is nice.
Thank you again for reading and commenting! (Let me know if you want a story. I feel like all you've been through, you deserve one.)
I enjoyed this--the amost inconsequential way it starts and the angle it gives on the characterization of Finwe and Miriel.
I never imagined Olorin doing that sort of thing at Cuivienen, already, or indeed concerning himself with people's love life at all, so that came as a delightful surprise.
Neither did I! :) But when Dreamflower requested a ficlet about that particular line, I couldn't get Cuivienen out of my mind (even though the quote certainly doesn't even *imply* it). And I was thinking, "What kind of wisdom might he have passed on there?" I couldn't see him encouraging the Elves to accept the summons (because I don't find that particularly wise), and there are only a limited number of characters present there at all. So I happened on this idea. :)
I loved this--the characterization and the descriptions--such richly imagined details and such a light touch in hinting at the feelings at the core of it...
I really like this! The characterizations are wonderful. So are the details. (I'm especially fond of the pen borrowing and Maglor's unspoken thought about it not being returned. I'm guilty of keeping track of things like that, too.) And then Fëanor having to practically run out of Maglor's room in order to avoid being caught!
Thank you, Indy! I'm glad you liked it. :) I am guilty of the thing with the pens too: When I was in middle and high school, I hated lending pens to peers because, if they forgot to give them back (which they usually did), I couldn't forget it, yet I was too shy to ask for the pen back, so I'd just watch them using it day in and day out and think, "THAT'S MY PEN YOU" *ahem* Anyway. So yes, that one was true to life, I'm afraid! :)
LOvely- such a visual image, the dye running crimson, her hands lifting the garment, his mind wanting to mend and fix. And I love that you have Olorin's voice tell this- curious and gentle.
Another lovely glimpse into their lives along the lines of AMC-for which I love you deeply. Love the chaos, the absorption of the various sons, the slightly potty way they live and work and are genius!
I'm laughing at the bird brain! :D I honestly hadn't thought much about the Eagles as characters until Baranduin's request. But the usual urge to write unusual perceptions made this an interesting piece to write (even if I was worried enough about it to hold onto it for months ... when I wrote it, there was still snow on the ground! A lot of snow!)
Wow, this is awesome. I suppose I've always presumed the Eagles' consciousness to be as human-like as it is eagle-like; this is a fascinating look at a much more eagle-with-a-lowercase-L consciousness with well-timed infusions of humanity.
I'm glad you thought it was awesome! :) I wrote this piece months ago and could never quite bring myself to post it. Mostly because it's weird. And then a comment from Baranduin over the weekend on something entirely unrelated made me think, "Dawn, you're being pretty silly and pretty rude at this point, to hold a requested story this long without posting it." So I posted it finally. (Now I just need to WRITE the rest of the Mythmoot mathoms!)
I enjoy writing perspectives on the fringes of humanity (or unusual perspectives generally). I hadn't thought much about the Eagles as characters before this piece and could see going just as easily in a more human-like direction in the future, but this particular perspective was too tempting to resist this time.
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.