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.
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.
[Writing] No Time Have I by Flora-lass
A Silmarillion acrostic.
[Writing] I called it Fate that I should fail by AdmirableMonster
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…
[Writing] All of you by chrissystriped
Elrond and Celebrían celebrate their anniversary with their family.
[Writing] Lament for the Singer by daughterofshadows
A short thing about Maglor, death and grieving.
[Writing] Cosmological Poems of Arda by AaronAzrael
I would like to share my revelations of Tolkien's Universe in the form of narrative and emotional poems.
[Writing] Eä's Redemption by AaronAzrael
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…
[Artwork] Map of Valinor by Aprilertuile
My newly drawn map of Aman, as complete as I could make it.
Bollywood
Prompts this month are films, songs, and tropes from India's dazzling film industry, Bollywood. Read more ...
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 ...
Fandom Chocolate … or Authors Love Comments by Dawn Walls-Thumma
[]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.
Passing Ships by Simon J. Cook
[]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.
Fanfiction and the Serious Business of Writer's Craft by Dawn Walls-Thumma
[]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.
[Writing] Staging a Battle by StarSpray
[]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.
[Writing] From whose bourn no traveller returns by losselen
[]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.
[Writing] Sand Sorcery by StarSpray
[]It is well known that Psamathos does not leave his cove. He does not like to get his feet wet, and prefers to spend his days dozing under the sun.
Fellowship of the Fics: Summer Stories 2024
Fellowship of the Fics offers four weeks of summer-themed prompts during the month of July.
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.
July 2024 Call for Papers and Proposals
Conferences and publications that have open calls for papers and proposals in July 2024.
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.
This is wonderful! I love that you've chosen to explore a time period and location that most fanfic writers pass over, and I love the dynamics between Elrohir and Elladan as they unfold. It's such a cool scenario, and I'm excited for where this is going next! Also: Ot the camel; he is perfect.
Thank you for letting me know you enjoyed this! It is wonderful to hear that people enjoy what I wrote. The sequel is coming together nicely.
Ot was my favourite character to write, I learned a lot about camels while researching him. Unfortunately Elrohir and Glorfindel won't be bringing him along to Rivendell ;-)
I read this last night in one fell swoop. What a thrilling ride! I really like the idea you are exploring here, and how you have given voices to people and places that we normally do not see a lot of in fanfiction. I love the Haradrim here, they are just as I imagined they would be. And you hint at so many great ideas about them, through the imperfect lens of Glorfindel and his prejudices. Spending time among them, and trying to understand how to convince Elrohir to come back with him. I could definitely feel the harsh environment of the desert, and hear the complaining bellows of the camels.
The battles between the Haradrin and the Umbarians are great - they must be so hard to write?!? For all that this is a nearly blank spot on Tolkien's map (here be dragons indeed!), of course there must have been differences in opinion and ways of life, and I enjoy seeing that here, even as it has developed into a cynical and harsh conflict.
Elrohir is a tortured spirit at this time, and not, I think, what Glorfindel expected to find. That it is the thought of Elladan that will eventually drive Elrohir back to Imladris is really poignant. I look forward to the next part, and where (and how) Elrohir ends up going!
Thank you for reading and commenting, this lovely comment made my day!
Tolkien did not give us much to go on, but what we do know about Umbar is that the Numenoreans colonized it in the second age. The Numenoreans who settled there were the King's Men who worshipped Melkor and cruelly oppressed the native peoples of Middle-earth. The details of the conflict between the Haradrim and the Umbarians are made up, but the heart of the matter is very much canon.
Elrohir is having a very hard time indeed, and Glorfindel is trying his best but they have very little common ground to start from. Imladris is going to be a culture shock, to say the least. I almost feel sorry for torturing the poor boy like that.
I'm working on the sequel, it's coming along nicely.
Thanks again for letting me know you enjoyed this story!
This story had me on the edge of my seat the entire time!
I love how palpable Glorfindel's frustration is, and how fleshed out the Haradrim are. I like the contrast between Glorfindel's age and experience, and his enforced reliance on Elrohir due to his lack of knowledge about the desert. It makes for an interesting leveling of the playing field between them.
Great story! I look forward to seeing what happens next!
I'm thrilled that you liked the story!
Much of the Haradrim way of life is based on what I could find about the real-world Tuareg people from the Sahara desert, Arab nomads and camel caravans along the Silk Road. I learned lots of interesting camel facts while researching this story.
Under the circumstances Glorfindel and Elrohir do meet as equals, which I think is the only way Glorfindel could have convinced him. I'm working on a companion piece showing their first meeting through Elrohir's eyes. turning the perspective around is an interesting exercise. The final result should appear here over the summer.
Thank you for reading and commenting!
I blazed through this in one sitting; it's terrific!
I enjoyed it all, but I especially like the way you've made these Men (in striking contrast to Third Age Gondorians) celebrate their direct relationship with Eru.
This is much belated, but thank you so much reviewing.
Where the Elves fall under the responsibility of the Valar, Men supposedly cut out the middle man and answer directly to Eru. In the east and south of Middle-earth many took to worshipping Morgoth instead, but Tolkien explicitly tells us that some did not. i imagine that the Haradrim are among those peoples who preserved their original religious beliefs.
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