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.
The end gave it so much extra context... doing that awful task and all the time afraid she would never be able to go back to the life she loved because of who she had married. A small piece that made a strong impression on me.
I think being alone, while she was doing it, would make those fears stronger.
On the other hand, her being away on her task would give the Teleri closest to her, who may have been sending rather mixed signals in the first shock after the event, time to work out that they really didn't want to lose her over this.
Ouch! Painful to read and so well done. I often wonder what Maglor and Curufin's wives suffered after they left. The idea (which I also follow in my personal story canon) that Maglor's wife was of the Teleri adds an entire additional point of pain for her. I can also relate on a highly personal level.
Thank you very much, Oshun! I'm glad the story is relatable. Not glad that it gives you pain!
People write more about Nerdanel's sufferings, usually. We know a bit more about what was there for Nerdanel to fall back on than for her daughters-in-law: her father Mahtan, her friendship with Indis, her art.
The Telerin connection goes back to Dawn's Felak-verse, in my case as in yours, I guess, although this isn't (and never was) Vingarie.
This is how far I follow you, Makalaure. My heart! So glad that the Teleri appreciated her work, rather than casting her out for who her husband was. That was a huge relief after the sadness of the tale.
I completely agree that Elves would require some kind of funeral - aside from the graves you mentioned, there's also the Hill of the Slain after the Nirnaeth, and the fact that Feanor burns up and has "neither burial nor tomb" is explicitly mentioned as a strange thing, so it can hardly be Elven nature to not leave a body. :/ Thank you for this story! It was sad but satisfying, and answering a question that isn't often asked: Who takes care of the bodies?
Because I'd already written about her after the War of Wrath, I knew she would come out okay at the end. Or rather okay-ish...
It is sometimes overlooked just how many of the Feanorians and other Noldor already die by this point, because of course people are thinking first of all of the dead Teleri. And I thought, somebody will have had to deal with all those dead people.
I was quite surprised when I first encountered that idea about elves not needing graves! I forget what bits of canon were cited, but I felt the underlying inspiration was probably movie-verse, because PJ's elves do look a bit as if they might not need them. I haven't seen it about recently, but mentioned it as the plot depends so much on that work being required.
Yes, she does. She is there through all the trials and tribulations, all the loss and grief as well as some good times. My hc from her prospective, shows the slow slide of her husband and their life together, from passionate, loving and protective husband and father to a possessive, cold and calculating stranger and how this impacts on her and Celebrimbor. Her story doesn't end in Beleriand either, but I better not give away too much just in case you feel like reading it in future.
I'd love to read the story of how Maglor's wife came to learn of the Noldolante and the little glimpses of your version of Curufin's wife too, if you wouldn't mind.
I see! I've always been interested in other people's story lines where one or the other of these wives goes along to Middle-earth, even though in my 'verse that doesn't happen. For Curufin's wife, it would be even more heart-wrenching than for Maglor's or Caranthir's. I will keep an eye out for this. I think you haven't posted it anywhere yet, have you, although maybe you have and I failed to spot it?
Here is Maglor's wife and her encounter with the Noldolante:
Oh, this is wonderful. I'd never thought about all the Noldorin bodies needing burial… but here it is. The pain and her very personal fear of rejection; it's an excellent fic!
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.