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.
Subscribe to the SWG Newsletter
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.
"...but having allowed me to serve the mightiest ruler in Arda is already a lavish favour."
HA! Mairon's feigned obsequiousness reminds me starkly of a guy I used to work with during mmy first gig post-post-doc. Said co-worker had a combination of charm and a certain, well, Dr. B. wasn't sinister exactly, but trusting him was at your own peril. In RL, the stakes were not the destruction of an island and almost wholly wiping out a civilization.
Anyway, a very neat double drabble! Is this the first time you've written first-person Sauron?
I'm glad he reminds you of someone real, I've met one or two "charmers" in the corporate world, too. Maybe not truly sinister but definitely of the backstabbing kind.
Yes, this is first time first person Sauron for me, except for the mixed first / second person (not sure what it is, actually) piece in "Five Things..." where I couldn't use the letter "e". But this time my choice was deliberate, not forced by what words were out of bounds.
Thank you for popping by and leaving a review, Pandë!
Ooh, this is nice! The last line is such calm request but also so sinister because we know what's coming. And I get the sense that Sauron is pleased by (and responsible for?) Pharazon's physical frailties.
Hi GG! I could have written pages on this scene alone, it was hard to refrain from adding more. Yes, I imagine Sauron watching like a hawk for signs of ageing or weakness in the King, and perhaps offering his own remedies. Pleased, definitely, because he's been playing on Pharazôn's fear of death and finally his arguments will find a far more fertile soil and thrive, as we know.
Ha ha, yes, he is blind to flattery, isn't he? But then, hindsight is a wonderful thing to have in the world of the Silmarillion. I also feel sorry, but not for him, if he was arrogant enough to think he could hold Sauron hostage as a sort of trophy. I feel sorry for all the people of Númenor.
Thanks for popping round to leave a review, Himring!
I reread this today and realized I didn't leave a thank you here! You've shown the relationship between the patient spider Sauron and the increasingly feeble fly in the web, Ar-Pharazon, so beautifully and succintly here. "Build him a temple." *Shivers* Thank you for your kingly gift.
You're so good, I didn't expect more thank yous after so long. I'm glad you liked my spider-like Annatar. I actually wrote him thinking about yours, as smooth and seemingly compliant after ten years of faithful service in Númenor as when he first seduced the king in "Elegy". I enjoyed myself writing in his POV, too.
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.