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.
Thanksi, Himring! Glad you liked it! Folks like the Big Three of Imladris, Celeborn & Galadriel, and especially Cirdan have seen (and heard) it all, I guess :)
And there we have it. Ten excellent vignettes to read on a quiet, rainy afternoon in Boston. I thoroughly enjoyed each and every one of these, maeglin, in particular An Ally of Lightning (outstanding description of Tulkas' force, like a nuclear blast without the radiation), Not So Like Lúthien After All (a grim reality here - that in essence, Arwen will take her own life), and finally, Nameless, Named (OMG! I loved this! Rockbiter! Just perfect).
I often find that reading good fan fiction is an effective means for me to jumpstart the Dark Muse (poor fellah - I have enslaved him for months serving the powerful regulatory overlords of Pharma-dûr), and I honed right in on your series of ficlets. I'm glad I did.
Aw, thanks Pandie! Such praise - I'm blushing :). Yup, I've always thought that that's what Arwen's choice meant. Elves who love mortals always seem to die when the mortal does -- in Aegnor's case, even if they don't marry. And hmm, I guess one could think of Tulkas' blast in those terms -- glad the imagery meant something to you. And I'm really happy you liked Rockbiter! Never thought I'd work a Neverending Story reference into a Tolkien fanfic, but there it is. Or even thinking about it more canonically, Gandalf says the Nameless Things are older than Sauron, which is ... pretty damn old, and must make them strange beings indeed! Anyway, I'm glad you liked these stories :).
I'm delighted you told these stories! I stumbled in here looking for fics featuring Cirdan as a major character, and was treated to a whole treasure trove.
I enjoyed a pleasant hour or so reading through all of these.
Pedantry gave me a chuckle, as did Elros' pedantic insistence on not being half-elven.
Ahh, but Arvedui's ill-fated estel breaks my heart.
I love the image of a hasty Gandalf throwing a name over his shoulder as he chases the balrog. (And that Rockbiter could have so willingly squished the balrog too!)
And the true cost of fighting a war involving the Powers was vividly described—I do imagine Tulkas as rather like a bull in a china shop on a very large scale.
I love your solution for the origin of Rog's name - and his delightfully cocky attitude is so fitting for one of the unbegotten, and it warms my heart that he is friends with Beleg.
The happy AU of Andreth and Aegnor and their children was lovely to slip into. (Well, happyish, this is the Silm after all and Fate has a nasty sense of humour in it.)
And I'm with Finwë wondering whether he had been right to bring his people West... although of course I have the benefit of hindsight. Or foresight? Or readersight? Whatever it is.
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.