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.
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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.
As always, I have been totally absorbed reading this- as absorbed as Meadhros, almost moving weith him, nodding ehre and there as he got it roght. I loved the note he made of the sea linking him and Maglor, and that his listening is what got it right. And he was not humiliated.
*extremely short review* I absolutely love this. The dynamic between Maedhros and Fingon (and Maedhros' dependence on Fingon especially) and Maedhros' characterization are both lovely. The last line about Maglor's wife is especially touching, and the connection between him and Maglor is beautifully written. I want to point out specific lines I love, but I've got to go study, so I'll just say that this is a very beautiful story and (I know I said this before but) I love this!
"He had seen the Great Sea as something that separated them completely, before, but tonight the thought that he and Maglor might both be listening to the sound of the waves together at the same time, although continents apart, seemed to bring a kind of comfort..."
See, now you've got me imagining that Maglor starts playing his harp across the water and he an Madhros go in for a rousing rendition of "Somewhere out there" XD
I'm not sure I could think of anything that could remotely amend the damage and rift between their respective peoples. But what's lovely is that it seems Olwe, Earwen and Cirdan and some of the Teleri are willing to forgive anyway, to move on, just on the thought alone that Maedhros would wish to make some reparation.
I really loved how Fingon took one look at him, saw he was a little distressed and knew what he needed. A little grounding. I love to see them this way. That they are so connected, know each other at a soul level. Its so beautiful.
This one had slipped from my mind, but as soon as the boatyard was mentioned I felt a warm sense of delight as I remembered how beautifully written it was, and how comforting.
My heart is so full for your Círdan here: kind, insightful, down-to-earth, honest. Patient.
I laughed at "A very unhappy goose with severe stomach ache."
And feel so much empathy for Maedhros' regret and desire to make good, and his uncertainty.
"Humiliation he could do in spades." Ai, poor lad!
"Fingon, studying his face, not the timber and tools scattered about him, said: 'I see.'" Is it possible for me to love your Fingon more?
And Círdan, noticing and stopping him when his emotions will get in the way, then quietly just showing him. He feels like a compassionate father-figure that was missing from Maedhros' life.
I totally love how he starts to hear the sea after that, as he accepts his feelings that he associated with it, and how for the first time he feels it connecting, not separating, him with his brother.
(I'm curious as to why his brothers (I'm assuming specifically Maglorand Curufin) "could not possibly be here"; is it that they would not be accepted by the Teleri at this point, or merely physical impossibilities, or something else?)
And as if its not enough to feel warm fuzzies spotting Elrond in the crowd, Maglor’s wife playing her flute...
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.