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.
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Bollywood
Prompts this month are films, songs, and tropes from India's dazzling film industry, Bollywood. Read more ...
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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.
<i>A great number of very tall golden-haired people--it was almost a little oppressive, all that tallness and golden hair, and Elros found his gaze seeking out the slighter, darker people among them that were presumably descendants of the house of Beor--mostly by intermarriage with the Hadorians, since so few pure-blooded descendants of that house had survived the wars and upheavals.</i>
I copied this sentence because I liked it and it resonnated with me that moment I read. I liked it even more when I got to the crucial part of story where he meets the women warrior and the remnants of the Haladin. I liked the way you moved this story away from any direction that I had expected it to go in.
Thank you very much, Oshun! Glad to hear that the story surprised you in a good way!
It's interesting, isn't it, that Numenoreans seem to start out being blonde, at least in the majority, and by the Third Age are typically dark? I suppose it's the association between the Faithful and the settlement areas favoured by the Beorians, at least in part, and there is certainly enough time in between for things to change!
I found this strangely moving, Himring. Not just the idea of the remnants of Haleth's people (and you wrote them so beautifully- thier hesitation- I could SEE them fidget and twtich, look nervously around themselves) but that moment of Maglor's disapproval is intensely visual- just this lone focuses entriely on a face that although you do not describe, is detailed and so clear because of that:
Maglor's lips had thinned in disapproval, more severe than Elros had expected.
I don't really know how you did that but you did!
Love the nervousness you give Elros- the sense of it being a little overwhelming and his making it up as he goes along (from the imagie of the chair you get that perfectly right from the start).
Thank you so much, Ziggy! Really glad this was able to move you. I was uncertain how this would come across, as so much of it is just going on in Elros's head. Your comments are very reassuring!
(Thank you also for commenting on AO3 as well! And I will post it on Faerie as soon as I can manage it, as you say you'd like to see it there!)
An interesting moment in Elros' life and not one I have thought about so thank you for highlighting it.
The comment about all the golden-haired people in attendance made me laugh.
I was not expectng Haleth's people to be there and I am so glad that is the direction you took with this.
The flashback to Maglor really struck me--I am a complete sucker for any memories Elrond and Elros have that involve Maglor and Maedhros--but I loved how Maglor's disappointment with Elros' words was so clear. The veiled reference to Caranthir was great also.
Really a lovely, revealing moment in Elros' life and a tribute to Haleth and her people.
It is actually canonical (sort of) that a few of the folk of Haleth and a few Druedain went along to Numenor--but it's only a footnote in the Unfinished Tales.
I find this moment of transition really interesting, both for Elros and for the Edain!
Keiliss's treatment in Quicker than Doubt set me thinking about it, originally, I think.
I love your Elros. He's often depicted as the more impetuous and sullen of the two, and it was nice to see his thoughtful side as he begins to understand his responsibility and actively decides to meet it head-on. Loved the human little details - the folding chair, Elros' slight unease about all those overpoweringly tall blond people, his initial impulse to smile condescendingly before he thinks better of it.
Thank you! Glad you like Elros here! I suppose I've depicted him as more rebellious and angry than Elrond, myself, during the Feanorian period, although in my 'verse that's because Elrond is picking up things willy-nilly by early onset of osanwe and so is more likely to detect what is going on underneath the surface while it is happening, whereas Elros reaches some of his conclusions only later, as he gains more perspective and more experience. Even my younger Elros has his thoughtful side and as he grows up, makes his choice and tackles his new responsibilities, it comes to the fore.
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.