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…
Current Challenge
Bollywood
Prompts this month are films, songs, and tropes from India's dazzling film industry, Bollywood. 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.
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.
Scribbles & Drabbles 2024
A chill Tolkien event, where artists make art, and authors write little stories in response. Begins in June and ends in November.
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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.
Very interesting and appealing character development. Findis as you write her thinks for herself and makes her own decisions.
The storyline you set up makes me wonder what will happen when Finarfin returns. Why would be people who stayed in Valinor under such strong and certain leadership want to yield the authority of kingship to a returning Finarfin? It's an interesting concept to pursue.
Question: What does this mean: "Nerdanel had the thousand rangar stare of one who has lost everything, a look previously unknown in these lands."
I found rangar in the texts as a unit of Numenorean measurement of height. I am not sure if that is how it is used in this sentence?
Or perhaps rangar in an obscure word in English or from another language? So curious.
All that aside, it's a wonderfully written story and compelling!
Thank you. I'm still mulling over what happens when Finarfin returns - he ended up king at some point, but I think that happened on Findis' terms and in a time and manner of her choosing. I've got a couple different ideas on how it might have happened, but I haven't settled on which one I prefer yet.
I appropriated rangar from the Numenorians to substitute for yard(s). I thought that as a natural measure of length, a pace, ranga could also have been a measure for the elves long before Elros became the first king of Numenor. (I doubt that it was their only measure of length, I'm sure they must have also had a more precise one for use in architecture and craft, but many older units of measure were based on physical things that people could see - foot, hand, ell, etc- or experience in daily life - rod, furlong, acre. So I suspect the elves would also have had such 'natural' units before developing more scientific ones.) I generally use Parf Edhellen to check my elvish vocab, and they list it as Quenya, so I don't think I'm stretching ridiculously using it in an elven context. Though now that I think on it more, maybe for elves, a 'thousand yard stare' wouldn't really be long enough...
An interesting take on things! If loyalty to Finwe demands staying in Valinor, as Fingolfin argues at one point, then Findis indeed is the most loyal of his children...
Thank you! I thought of Findis as loyal to both her father and her people- and strong enough to stand her ground and tell her brothers and sister when they're doing something crazy.
Oh, this was fantastic! Findis is so easy to overlook, but if it was bravery that made Finarfin turn back, it must have taken equal bravery for her not to go off with her brothers. And it makes perfect sense that, as Finwe's only descendant left in Valinor (at this time), she would become queen. A good thing that she is prepared for her inheritance, having done administrative duties all these times... and in a way, she does get to work as a healer, too! In conclusion, I loved this story. What a brilliant response to this challenge.
Thank you! I'm glad you liked it. It seemed to me that the children in Finwë were on the whole pretty strong-willed, so it seemed odd that Findis wouldn't be. And standing up to all her siblings took as much strength or bravery as Finarfin turning back or Fingolfin choosing to cross the Ice. (I think there will be more at some point, but I am not sure yet when that will be.)
I'm slow! I like 'a thousand yard stare' and I, for one, allow no weird impossible feats of vision in my stories. It does not work for me as a physical trait. Magic and telepathy is fine, but weird telescopic vision isn't.
I do not think you are stretching at all to use it in an Elivish context. I just did "get" it. Like I said, I'm slow. I did like the sound of it, however, even when I was not sure of the meaning.
You're not slow! We don't necessarily all get the same thing out of what we read, and that has nothing to do with being quick or slow.
(As far as the vision thing, I just shrug and go with the elvish distance vision - else Legolas is a dirty liar claiming he was counting the Rohirrim when they were still way off where Aragorn and Gimli could barely see them.)
I can't get over a certain Elf running on top of snow either! There were huge discussions in fandom back in the early days right after the LotR movies came out trying to explain that! Someone suggested that maybe the Quendi had hollow bones like birds! I'd might find it easier to accept if they were not the same species as Mortal Men. I know. I know. With fantasy fiction people have different things they are willing to accept or alternatively cannot swallow. That is why I am very accepting of other people's interpretations of canon!
I love the burning eyes (flame-eyes, or lachenn eyes) of the Elves from Aman, however, and love writing about the reaction of the Sindarin to those astonishing eyes. To each his own improbable fantasy elements!
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.