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: Potluck Bingo Sit down to a delicious selection of prompts served on bingo boards, created by the SWG community.
Bingo Cards Wanted for Potluck Bingo Our November-December challenge will be Potluck Bingo, featuring cards created by you! If you'd like to create cards or prompts for cards, we are taking submissions.
Tolkien Meta Week, December 8-14 We will be hosting a Tolkien Meta Week in December, here on the archive and on our Tumblr, for nonfiction fanworks about Tolkien.
New Challenge: Orctober Orcs on a quest for freedom seek a place sheltered and safe from the Dark Lord. Fulfill prompts to gather the clues needed to bring them to freedom.
A series of articles featuring fan-made maps of all the lands of Arda. Part III explores the island of Númenor and mainland Middle-earth during the Second Age.
Created for the 'Geography/Maps/Places' prompt on the "Tolkien meta" bingo board, this is a collection of maps marked with the various people groups showing how they arrived and moved about Beleriand. This collection focuses specifically on the time from the arrival of the Teleri, Vanyar, and…
This is an analysis on whether the Sindar ate the Petty-dwarves during the years they hunted them, completed for the 'Literary Analysis' prompt on the "Tolkien Meta" bingo card.
Current Challenge
Potluck Bingo
Help yourself to a collection of prompts on bingo boards designed by members and friends of the SWG. Read more ...
Random Challenge
Start to Finish
Choose one of the famous first lines from the list below and use it to start your story. If you are creating a fanwork other than writing, you may use one of the first lines to inspire your fanwork. Read more ...
A series of articles featuring fan-made maps of all the lands of Arda. Part III explores the island of Númenor and mainland Middle-earth during the Second Age.
A reworking of the 2018 article for Long Live Feedback that includes data from the 2020 Tolkien Fanfiction Survey, pointing to a lack of comments as related to skill, confidence, and community connection.
Part of our Themed Collection series for our newsletter, this collection features fiction, artwork, and essays that transcend the idea of Orcs as the enemy, instead considering their humanity.
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.
Lord of the Rings Secret Santa 2024
LotR SESA has been ongoing for twenty-one years and is running again this year as a prompt meme hosted on AO3 for all genres of Tolkien-based fanfiction.
Kiliel Week 2024
Kiliel Week is a Tumblr event for fanworks about the Kili/Tauriel pairing.
November challenge at tolkienshortfanworks
The challenge for November has been posted to the tolkienshortfanworks community on Dreamwidth. Thematic prompt: refuge. Formal challenge: include imitation of a sound. As always, these can be filled independently and also freely combined with SWG and other challenges. New participants welcome!
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.
Oh, this is a lovely story. I really like the interaction with Aulë and Yavanna, especially these lines:
“We have a fox-cub present today,” Aulë rumbled, his booming laugh filling the large workspace though the nickname was fondly meant when he spoke it. Tinwië stared, keeping a hold on her father’s hair for safety but showing no fear in the face of the Vala who smiled at her.
I have a deep and abiding love for Aulë (I esp. love him in Carving a Door, which you won't have read - I removed it some time ago for rewriting purposes and then it kinda died, but the bit with Aulë interacting with his Dwarrow and with dead Celebrimbor was very good...) and particularly his relationship with his wife. I really should crosspost the rest of my Valar ficlets to SWG... Love for a Child until I do ;)
Oh, do, do crosspost! Not that I am not capable of finding them, but I do love to read things here. It's easier to find a story and to remember it in case I want to re-read. Also, gotta admit, I have spent a lot of time working on trying to make this site grow and be attractive for Silm fans.
It's on my to do list ;) I mostly struggle with defining which of my works fall under silm-fic headings ;)
So far, I feel most comfortable stating an answer such as "anything in Aman or First Age" but then where does that leave my SA fics?? I did post one of those, actually, which means I can then expand silm-fic to mid-SA mentally... but then what about my Last Alliance things - and a few years after?? What about the Early-TA - basically I'm lacking a guide, I think... I mean, I probably wouldn't post the Fourth Age Harad fic on here, but on the other hand it does have a blue wizard and draws lines back to Second Age and ARRGH.
Oh, I definitely think of Second Age fics as Silm fic according to the suggested standards here. Things that exist only in HoMe should fit also, right? There is a reason why the guidelines are pretty open, because it depends upon each writer what they reference in their stories. I have one and one only LotR fic here, but posted it because it is essentially all about an argument among the characters about their interpretations of the essay "Laws and Customs Among the Eldar."
I, of course(!), fill my LotR fics with tons of Silmarillion references much moreso than even Tolkien did, but I don't post them here. I would, personally, draw the line hard at fics based on The Hobbit. I think the site guidelines say that if one is uncertain one should drop a line to the moderator's email. (I am not a mod! So the above is just my opinion!) Generally, the idea is to be inclusive, but to maintain the site as a place for Silmarillion stories where those will not be swamped by the vast number of other Tolkien fanfiction. Around the time it was founded, ff net had tens of thousands of LotR stories and there were dozens of LotR archives and websites and only a paltry couple of thousand Silm fics on ff net and no Silm-only archives.
Good points. I'll have a think about which things to cross post. And how to structure it; on Ao3 I've made several less than 1k ficlets that really could be interlinked parts of a var focused series at least... Or should they be chapters of a story... To ponder when I'm back from this mall event :o thanks for the advice ;)
And Nerdanel is definitely her father's daughter; I have a few other vignettes to type up about these three (and Tindomiel) but right now I'm finishing a memory lane chapter so it will have to wait till tomorrow.
A sad backstory to an intriguing gap in canon—I like what you’ve done with this, and how you’ve shown a single event to shape the course of not only Nerdanel’s life, but her father’s a well.
In my head, Nerdanel is like Fëanor in many ways - she understands him in ways others do not, and part of that I theorise stems from this sort of shared lack of a mother. Nerdanel has her aunt, and genuinely loves her, but she's fully aware that Naica is not her mum, and even if Tindómë's fate is unlike Miriel's, it is still a similar gap in their lives.
Of course, this does leave Mahtan as an easily available vision of what Fëanor's own father could have done, adding to his anger towards Finwë/Indis... Even if the two situations are not the same - and Mahtan has some tiny bit of hope that he will be reunited with his wife that Finwe did not...
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.