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.
This is beautiful and compelling. You've done a great job in portraying Earwen, and the coda of your story brought tears to my eyes. Thank you for sharing. :)
Thank you, Robinka. Very happy you liked it. I had never written about Eärwen before, and the story had to be set in the Second Age. I pictured her waiting for her children to be reborn or (in the case of Galadriel) to return to Valinor. And I imagined she might have been spared (part of) the truth of Finrod's tragic death. So... it sort of wrote itself like that. Thank you for your review!
I really like what you did with the prompts you were given, especially Eärwen. There are too few stories about her, but you did the character justice here to tie her into the larger narrative of the Silmarillion. Really nicely done.
Thank you Darth! I knew nothing about Eärwen, except for who she was. So I could write anything I wanted, and it was unlikely it would be AU. I have always liked the verses about Felagund's Song of Power against Sauron and the rest, so I made him carry the plot of the story. I'm glad you liked it!
I cannot believe that I have never read this story. Real life must have intervened with a vengance around the time that you first posted this here. I love this story. It is a really great perspective upon Earwen as a woman and a mother and. although the Lays of Leithian is not one of my favorite parts of Tolkien, I have always adored the parts about Finrod! Wow! beautiful use of the song. I love this more than I can say.
Hi oshun, I actually had thought little about Earwen when the fic swap assignment was thrust into my hands (my first fic swap), and I could have done with your biography at the time. It was one of those "stare dumbly at blank screen" nightmares. I kept thinking of Earwen naked on the horse and having fun with Nerdanel, but that plot was decidedly not GenFic. Luckily, Finrod came to the rescue, all the way from the dungeons of Sauron, phew! Finrod's story is, with Maedhros', one of the most tragic in the whole legendarium, and suddenly I was much happier, I had a plot!
RL can do these things, I have many stories still to read. Thank you for reading and reviewing this one now!
As I was reading this beautiful, sad story I didn't dare to hope for a happy ending, but I'm glad I was wrong! I found it to be an interesting plot, beautifully written. Thank you!
I struggled with this story for so long, it was a swap, I was panicking I would not be able to find inspiration. In the end I took the easy way out and roped Finrod in, he is one of my favourite elves, after all, and kindly got me out of trouble in exchange for taking him out of Mandos. A good deal for both of us, I believe!
...and suddenly the reslease from bonds seems much more about Finrod and his doom than Luthien and her death. That was beautiful. I never really considered his parents knowing the story and their reactions to it, but of course they must have.
Thank you very much for reviewing, Aerlinn! That part of the Lay of Leithian with Finrod leaving Nargothrond and fighting Sauron with songs of Power is always my favourite, I've read it many times and it never fails to move me. After his horrific death in the dungeons of Sauron, I wanted to know the end of the story, his release from Mandos. Then, as you did, I realised the title of the lay could also be applied to his tale, even more from the point of view of those who waited for him to return. I'm very happy you enjoyed it. Thanks again!
I could almost feel Eärwen contrudicting emotions. The resolve to find what was kept from her, as well as her overwhelming pain at the reality.
I think it's impossible for us, adult readers, who went through some life experiences to even start to understand the innocence of a sheltered society and individuals. I think that makes Eärwen's resolve to read through, despite the known end, even more courageous.
Even though the story has a happy ending, I was left with heaviness, of the "what has passed".
You made me love the mother, and even the son, who was not even a direct part of the tale. Excellent story.
Finrod's parts of the lay of Leithian are my favourites. When I had a prompt for a fic swap about Eärwen, I immediately knew that the story had to somehow revolve about him. Given the horrific ending he suffered, however heroic, I wondered if, possibly with the intention to spare her that horror, Finarfin might have glossed over the details that he was sure to have found out during the War of Wrath. As a mother, I might have wanted to know the truth, but I can also understand why Finarfin might have withheld that painful information from his wife.It certainly made for a better plot, in my mind, that she discovered almost by accident.
Thank you for letting me know that the way I imagined her reaction works for you. Yes, Finrod came back, but you are right that the story focus in the discovery, and not in his return.
This really shows a lot of determination on Earwen's part. She's clearly being torn up by what's she's reading, but she needs to know and keeps going anyway. I guess we know where Finrod gets his tenacity from!
The subject matter is fascinating as well. The Silmarillion is so full of heroic (and not so heroic) deaths told without pulling any punches (Fingolfin, Finrod, Celebrimbor...it's a long list!) It's nice to see a story about the effects these stories have on the people close to the heroes of those tales.
Hi Athrabeth, I'm sorry it took me so long to respond to your review, I have been on holiday with terrible access to the Internet. Anyway, I agree that Earwen was obstinate, but I guess mothers usually are about their children. I always wondered how Finrod's family received the news of his terrible death. Finarfin would have asked about his son's fate as soon as he set foot on Middle-earth. Once he knew, would he tell his wife?
Thank you very much for taking the time to review, I love knowing what readers enjoy about my stories.
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.