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.
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.
[Writing] No Time Have I by Flora-lass
A Silmarillion acrostic.
[Writing] I called it Fate that I should fail by AdmirableMonster
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…
[Writing] All of you by chrissystriped
Elrond and Celebrían celebrate their anniversary with their family.
[Writing] Lament for the Singer by daughterofshadows
A short thing about Maglor, death and grieving.
[Writing] Cosmological Poems of Arda by AaronAzrael
I would like to share my revelations of Tolkien's Universe in the form of narrative and emotional poems.
[Writing] Eä's Redemption by AaronAzrael
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…
[Artwork] Map of Valinor by Aprilertuile
My newly drawn map of Aman, as complete as I could make it.
Bollywood
Prompts this month are films, songs, and tropes from India's dazzling film industry, Bollywood. Read more ...
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 ...
Fandom Chocolate … or Authors Love Comments by Dawn Walls-Thumma
[]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.
Passing Ships by Simon J. Cook
[]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.
Fanfiction and the Serious Business of Writer's Craft by Dawn Walls-Thumma
[]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.
[Writing] Staging a Battle by StarSpray
[]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.
[Writing] From whose bourn no traveller returns by losselen
[]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.
[Writing] Sand Sorcery by StarSpray
[]It is well known that Psamathos does not leave his cove. He does not like to get his feet wet, and prefers to spend his days dozing under the sun.
Fellowship of the Fics: Summer Stories 2024
Fellowship of the Fics offers four weeks of summer-themed prompts during the month of July.
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.
July 2024 Call for Papers and Proposals
Conferences and publications that have open calls for papers and proposals in July 2024.
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.
I really liked this. I think you portrayed the irrational fear that came over Elwing during this particular event quite well. The debate rages about her but we can't know what any of us would do in that circumstance. Maedhros memory of the kitten in Tirion was so poignant and I love how you juxtaposed his smile with how Elwing saw it. Perception is everything.
Thank you very much!
Yes, perception is everything--or at least counts for a lot. I'm glad that Elwing's reaction seemed convincing to you!
It is difficult to know what anyone else would have done in those circumstances, yes. Also, we don't even have all the details and different fan writers do interpret what canon gives us quite differently.
I think you balance the pro/anti-Elwing sides quite believably. She has a truth to herself, surely, but it's not the entire truth. As a fellow sinner when it comes to Feanorean greywash, I deeply enjoyed reading this from Maedhros's perspective. I especially liked how his thoughts wandered on and off the actual situation, how his mind brought wild and irrealistic (or sometimes outstanding) visions in his head, just as comparing Elwing to a kitten. (And remembering that he used to be someone who rescued kittens).
I loved (I mean, really hated, but when it comes to evaluating your work, 100% LOVED) how the image of Amrod's and Amras's death recurred at certain moments. I also loved how Maedhros intended to help, right until the last moment, despite knowing that no one would believe his good intentions. It was also a good idea to show a few moments from Elwing's perspective... well, I admit I would really enjoy reading this scene from the other way around (perhaps as a chapter 2).. all along from Elwing's eyes. It could be a great emphasis on this scene, because even if Maedhros cherishes benevolent thoughts, he must look horrid to the eyes of the outsider. I think. (I'm not saying that your work misses this perspective, only that I'd have enjoyed more of it).
I also really enjoyed your style: you seem to place the exactly sufficient number of words and level of detailing everywhere, the text flaws beautifully and it's dynamic. And I liked that line about Eonwe being punched in the face! I actually laughed out loud, it seemed so out of place - but it worked.
All in all, I'm really glad I stumbled upon this fic!
One last thing: I've had a look on your review-list (the one you posted on your profile) and I guess I'll check some of these authors out when I have the time! :) I think this is very important to mention because reviewers - in general - are underrated. Kudos to you for doing this!
Have a great day/evening/anything else,
Laerthel
Thank you very much!
I'm really glad that the way I chose to handle Amrod and Amras's deaths worked for you. It seemed to me that those deaths would have affected Maedhros profoundly, but at the same time he didn't really have time to think about them, at that stage.
Maedhros--that is, my take on Maedhros--is not entirely sane anymore, after all he's been through (but I don't at all mean to imply he's completely insane, either), as well as deeply disturbed by the situation. So his thoughts are spinning and a little out of control. I'm glad you like his perspective! Canon does say that the letters the Sons of Feanor wrote to Elwing were friendly (or at least intended to be so), so I feel his reactions are not entirely uncanonical.
I have to confess that that short switch to Elwing's perspective was all I could cope with! If someone else wants to write a remix of this scene from Elwing's perspective they'd be welcome to, of course. Fics describing the encounter between the Sons of Feanor and Elwing from Elwing's perspective do exist.
Good to hear the bit about Eonwe worked, too, as I had intended!
And I'm delighted that my review list is going to be of use. This is an older rec list. Quite a lot of different rec lists for various types of fan works were posted to this year's B2MeM on livejournal, by various participants, so that might be worth investigating as well, if you're interested: http://b2mem.livejournal.com/tag/format%3Arec%20list
I love the way you place the Third Kinslaying in the context of the entire First Age. It's not just about Elwing or the Silmaril or the Oath; it's also about Doriath and Aqualonde and the Nirnaeth and the centuries of war and loss - all the pressures of the First Age coming down here. It's so effective and true to Tolkien's epic.
I also found the 'Amrod lies at the gates, Amras lies at the market square' refrain very effective. You make their deaths a moving and present fact, and I admire how economically you do it - no long death scenes, just a sad chorus. Elrond's appearance at the end is well-done, too. Maedhros, of course, is a mess; you bring out the conflict in him very well.
And you have me thinking it would be scary to be yelled at by Maedhros ... (I felt sorry for Amrod and Amras, though I realized that inasmuch as they were advocating kinslaying, they probably didn't deserve it.)
Thanks for sharing this story! It's an excellent look at the Third Kinslaying.
Thank you very much! I'm glad you think it's a convincing look at the Third Kinslaying!
Yes, "all the pressures of the First Age coming down here"--that was exactly what I was driving at.
I'm pretty sure it would be scary to be yelled at by Maedhros. Especially by my Maedhros. Because my Maedhros practically never even lifts his voice...
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