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.
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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?
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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…
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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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Dear Irmo
Historians trace the first advice column to 1690, and in the three centuries hence, the heartsore, woebegone, and perpetually puzzled have turned to these "agony aunts" (and uncles) to solve their most debilitating dilemmas about family, work, and of course, love. Choose one of our real advice columns, tweaked just slightly, for your prompt. 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
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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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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 really enjoyed this -an unusual episode but crucial to Elrond's story of course. I really like the perspective- and the glimpes we get of key characters, like Maedhros and Maglor. The idea of Amras dying ainfully was really effective and eventually Maglor giving him something- that felt very real and credible. Great story telling.
I was really interested by your take on this: all thesedetails of the withdrawal from Sirion that form the background of what happens to Elrond and Elros and their impact on Maglor's decisions and what to do with the children.
My browser crashed and I lost a ridiculously long and detailed comment! Argh!
I am loving the pace and details of this story. It is wonderfully imagined and grippingly narrated I love observing Maglor (and everyone else!) through Elrond's eyes. I love what a leader and administrator Maglor is and yet find the time to dedicate himself to doing what he believes is right and just for the boys.
I love the education! The idea of using his song-method. Wow! To be a little bird or a mouse and watch listen to that. This would make a wonderful film
Maglor had them sing the tengwar song, the number song, the Valar song, the song of the Music, and more they didn’t already know. There were songs for history and mathematics and the patterns of nature. When Maglor decided they knew them well enough, he brought out slates and chalk and had them practice their letters and numbers. The lesson-songs stuck in Elrond’s head as the repeated figures and made words on his slate. He could bring the music out into the lines and curves of his name as if making a visual representation of the tunes themselves. Elros did his numbers faster, and when he was done, he drew grotesque monsters slithering out of the edges of the slate to eat them.
The changes of the seasons and the passage of time are wonderfully handled and, for the boys, the single constant thing is Maglor's determination and his care and his attention to their education. Would have been so easy to let it slide!
“I will not send you back to your people ignorant and illiterate,” he said, and watched over them as they grudgingly put their chalk to their slates.
The descriptions of Maedhros are terrible to read, but convincingly written. When he is moved to speak or interact, he makes as much sense as anyone else does in that terrible time. How painful and difficult those days are, yet Maglor is like a beacon of hope. Caring for the boys and worrying about Maedhros somehow keeps him going. It's all so believable and real.
I hope you do continue with this. I will be watching for it!
This second chapter is every bit as beautifully written, as precise and detailed as the first.
'Everything seemed shabby and sad and slowly losing what little dignity it had left. The great house in the center of the compound was no different, for all it was older and bigger and built entirely in stone. A corner of it was crumbling and the roof was mostly moss. No banners flew from the two small towers on either side of the double doors, which did not match. Some of the windows were boarded up. It looked like a tired, bruised face.'
Perfect description for the poor, degraded House of Feanor, a tired, bruised face beaten by that dreadful Oath and Elwing's refusal to give up the Silmaril (I have no symapthy for her I'm afraid!)
In the end they found four shirts, two tunics, three pairs of trousers, one winter coat, exactly three socks, and a left sandal in good condition.
Another beautiful image that just perfectly tells you this is neglected, dispirited. I love the three socks and one sandal- it is really very domestic as well as neglected.
And the gradual disintegration of thier power base is just perfectly told- the slow move away, abandonment. (I assume the reason for the abandonment of Balar is because the army has arrivved from Valinor? My Silm knowledge isn't good enough to work out anything else but I love that sense of mystery - how they are in the dark from the rest of the elves.)
Each left their sword at the front door of the great house.
What a poignant message.
And then again, this lovely scene of domesticity- I think this is the best fic I have read about this part of the SIlm. I love the way you write the brothers- all four, and the gradual tenderness. I htink too, it is convincing that they have Maedhros on suicide watch so his final end is actually an escape from Maglor rather than a surpise.
became part of their winter routine. Maglor had them sing the tengwar song, the number song, the Valar song, the song of the Music, and more they didn’t already know. There were songs for history and mathematics and the patterns of nature. When Maglor decided they knew them well enough, he brought out slates and chalk and had them practice their letters and numbers. The lesson-songs stuck in Elrond’s head as the repeated figures and made words on his slate. He could bring the music out into the lines and curves of his name as if making a visual representation of the tunes themselves. Elros did his numbers faster, and when he was done, he drew grotesque monsters slithering out of the edges of the slate to eat them
I so enjoyed that idea of Elros and his monsters! Such beautiful writing.
I have sympathy for Elwing as well as the Feanorians, and that conflict will come out more in future chapters. I see it as just a bad situation where no one did the best or smartest thing possible, so none of them were necessarily "right."
Thank you! Yes, the War of Wrath has started, but they're too isolated to know anything about what's going on, and the scale of the war is too big to know where they are.
I really like the description of Maglor as a teacher and Elrond as a student:
It became part of their winter routine. Maglor had them sing the tengwar song, the number song, the Valar song, the song of the Music, and more they didn’t already know. There were songs for history and mathematics and the patterns of nature. When Maglor decided they knew them well enough, he brought out slates and chalk and had them practice their letters and numbers. The lesson-songs stuck in Elrond’s head as the repeated figures and made words on his slate. He could bring the music out into the lines and curves of his name as if making a visual representation of the tunes themselves. Elros did his numbers faster, and when he was done, he drew grotesque monsters slithering out of the edges of the slate to eat them.
I love the earthquake and the rescue and how you use it to move the relationship forward between Maglor and the boys.
Maglor, holding Elros close in one arm, scooped Elrond up in the other—Elrond clung to his dusty tunic and buried his face in his hair and both boys cried for a long time, unashamed and unaware of everything else around them.
“I am so glad you two are safe,” Maglor said.
“Right, it would be hard to tell the king that they got squashed in your care!” someone joked nearby.
“That is not the only reason.” He squeezed Elrond and Elros close. “Far from it.”
Also really love the instruction from Maedhros in swordfighting. Thankful to finally seeing him do something other than rant and rave and be crazy. Maglor is right again; they are very lucky to get him as an instructor. (I'm hoping that might be good for Maedhros too--whatever, it's your story and I trust you at this point to tell it well.)
Terrific chapter. So much to love here--the boys growing up, the piercings, the descriptions of Fingon, and the suspense/pain of Elrond dealing with gifts or curses of empathy, foresight, and memories not his own. Loved the boys delight in the dwarves.
I'm loving how you deal with elements beyond the natural by describing them in realistic detail. I'm not very articulate today, but wanted to comment on these chapters now despite that to let you know how thoroughly engaging this story is for me!
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.