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: Potluck Bingo Sit down to a delicious selection of prompts served on bingo boards, created by the SWG community.
Bingo Cards Wanted for Potluck Bingo Our November-December challenge will be Potluck Bingo, featuring cards created by you! If you'd like to create cards or prompts for cards, we are taking submissions.
Tolkien Meta Week, December 8-14 We will be hosting a Tolkien Meta Week in December, here on the archive and on our Tumblr, for nonfiction fanworks about Tolkien.
New Challenge: Orctober Orcs on a quest for freedom seek a place sheltered and safe from the Dark Lord. Fulfill prompts to gather the clues needed to bring them to freedom.
Fingon returns to Barad Eithel after a late-autumn hunt, finding someone unexpected with his wife. The night takes an even more unexpected turn for all three of them.
A series of articles featuring fan-made maps of all the lands of Arda. Part III explores the island of Númenor and mainland Middle-earth during the Second Age.
Created for the 'Geography/Maps/Places' prompt on the "Tolkien meta" bingo board, this is a collection of maps marked with the various people groups showing how they arrived and moved about Beleriand. This collection focuses specifically on the time from the arrival of the Teleri, Vanyar, and…
Current Challenge
Potluck Bingo
Help yourself to a collection of prompts on bingo boards designed by members and friends of the SWG. Read more ...
Random Challenge
Heroes
Create a fanwork about a hero, whether the typical saves-the-world type or the unlikely, unsung, and accidental, those who have been forgotten or perhaps were never noticed at all, who made their worlds a better place. Read more ...
A series of articles featuring fan-made maps of all the lands of Arda. Part III explores the island of Númenor and mainland Middle-earth during the Second Age.
A reworking of the 2018 article for Long Live Feedback that includes data from the 2020 Tolkien Fanfiction Survey, pointing to a lack of comments as related to skill, confidence, and community connection.
Part of our Themed Collection series for our newsletter, this collection features fiction, artwork, and essays that transcend the idea of Orcs as the enemy, instead considering their humanity.
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.
Lord of the Rings Secret Santa 2024
LotR SESA has been ongoing for twenty-one years and is running again this year as a prompt meme hosted on AO3 for all genres of Tolkien-based fanfiction.
Kiliel Week 2024
Kiliel Week is a Tumblr event for fanworks about the Kili/Tauriel pairing.
November challenge at tolkienshortfanworks
The challenge for November has been posted to the tolkienshortfanworks community on Dreamwidth. Thematic prompt: refuge. Formal challenge: include imitation of a sound. As always, these can be filled independently and also freely combined with SWG and other challenges. New participants welcome!
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.
Thank you! :D I was hoping to highlight the differences in his and Tyelko's characters here: Tyelko is too impetuous to even lie while Curvo has a whole ruse cooked up with a few seconds of warning!
I have 13 years of practice! :D I don't drabble much anymore, but when I started in fandom, drabbling was the Cool Thing, and I used to instadrabble pretty frequently with my friends.
It's a tough and pretty merciless form! Usually I cave at least once and say, "This one will be a double-drabble!" so I'm proud of myself that I didn't do that at all this time. ^_^
I don't know, in terms of the Felakverse, how I think it happened yet; I'll get there eventually! I wrote this drabble on Thursday, the night after I wrote a different version of Terentaule staying behind in my TRSB story. (These instadrabbles are a way to play with ideas I'd probably never actually consider--part of what's fun about them! :)
You know that after Tolkien, Beowulf is my scholarly turf. :D And since if Middle-earth is our Earth, it made sense to me that some of those Beleriand-based myths might become Northern myths ...
Me too! I totally believe him when he says he would die if they were broken. He's a bit old at that point in the story to be engaging in adolescent dramatics (which is otherwise what it sounds like; "If I can't have them I'll just DIE" *flounce*). I don't know that this is *exactly* how I imagine it going down, but with 100 words to work with, it gets to the point!
This is a scene I've had in mind for well over a decade by now; I even alluded to it somewhere (maybe AMC?) but this is my first time writing it. It was the only addition to the NSFW channel and people wanted more of it ... if I ever get to write the AMC prequel (I will!), it will be in there. :D
Thanks for reading and comment on all of these. <3
I adore that idea. RPF of Tolkien stumbling upon sone hard evidence! Stop throwing these plot bunnies at me! I'm already imagining the lecture he could give about his findings. I will NEVER do this. I think you should.
LOL--maybe someday! You should see my writing to-do list for the summer: two scholarly articles and finishing a novel and the TRSB story. I started one of them ...
I'm sorry I could not make the leap to be able to understand this one. I need things spelled out. It did entertain me. Reminded me of the Dorothy Parker poem by the same name and how it could be suitable for Andreth:
This I say, and this I know: Love has seen the last of me. Love's a trodden lane to woe, Love's a path to misery.
This I know, and knew before, This I tell you, of my years: Hide your heart, and lock your door. Hell's afloat in lovers' tears.
Give your heart, and toss and moan; What a pretty fool you look! I am sage, who sit alone; Here's my wool, and here's my book.
Look! A lad's a-waiting there, Tall he is and bold, and gay. What the devil do I care What I know, and what I say?
Basically it is Andreth lamenting what we mere mortals complain about all the time: that history repeats itself and those in power don't look back to the past for lessons. There is a cycle of hope followed by disappointment and despair. They migrated north in hopes of breaking the pattern and beginning anew, which is ironically more of the same in hoping that the past pattern won't hold true ...
It's a pretty dark and gloomy one ... (Also I know "Anthrabeth" is not your favorite text.)
I like this as an explanation for why there is never mention of Celebrimbor's mother- it seems entirely plausible and there is a rela sense here of HER and her motivation- the dream of glory and the reality.
Your Nerdanel is the only one for me- she is complex, loyal though she refuses Feanor in the end, loving, a mum and mother. She never stops loving them and never stops thinking of them but doesn't regret.
Poor Maedhros- how he disintegrates in grief, and this made me think of AMC (partly because I am re-reading it AGAIN:) and how loving he is, how they all waited for him to be a father because he was born to be just that. The fact that Tolkien has him search tells us that he was not lost, and although it is Maglor who persuades him (apparently) to take Elrond and Elros, all of this suggests he would never haveleft children alone in that place or this. Lovely writing- senseof ghosts without revealing it.
the retching Light that poured in fluid past my lips, dry and cold and bright and burning, leaving me complete, leaving me hollow.
The moment of his changing -where he loses everything else hecared for. You express this perfectly with the contrast between all that he ignores tocomplete the work and never recovers.
This is just lovely- I have never really felt anything for these two, being sucked into the Maedhros story and so HATING them for denying him- but this just is like a picture, so perfectly have you chosen the images and phrases. I wish I could paint this as a fic-gift but it would be an insult:) stick Elu and Melian probably not doing you justice!!
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.