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
Turgon's Rock Opera
On the anniversary of the publication of "The Silmarillion," we’re reflecting on the importance of music in Arda with prompts that come from rock songs. 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.
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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.
Of course he overthinks it--how could he not?! But I love how he reaches out to Elrond--not wanting Elrond to feel slighted or lesser. Takes a brother to know that. And what a lovely letter, so tender, funny and self-deprecating. Vintage Maedhros.
brilliant epilogue to the story but I'm still hoping for more.
Wow, thank you so much for your lovely comment! I'm so glad the decisions Maedhros made felt realistic and true to form. And yes, grumpy Erestor is best Erestor. He's such a mom friend.
I hope you like the new chapter, and thanks again!
Oh dear nostalgic Gil! We all have those favorites from our youth--sometimes they taste the same and sometimes the wish remains unfulfilled.
I like the idea of challah and matzah. And yes matzah would have been the bread of the journey.
poor Erestor! I torture him with Fëanorian issues in my fics too.
Dear distractable Maglor. His idea to bake together is lovely--he might even have a clue how to do it, since I assume chores were shared in Fëanor and Nerdanel'a household!
but I have a feeling Cook would have preferred to make it rather than have this lot mess up the royal kitchens!
Aww, I'm glad you enjoyed it! I had a lot of fun with these characters. Maglor, when left to his own devices, I always imagine as rather daydreamy - althogh he's certainly clever and cunning when he needs to be. After all, we saw how he charmed Erestor, even if it was just for some bread! And yes, I think the cook will only allow them in the kitchens on the condition that they clean up after themselves! But I think Gil is relatively informal with his household, and they know him well enough to know he'd clean up after himself anyways.
THEY TOOK BETS!! I'm dying. I love Maedhros deliberating over what to say and Fingon just diving in! So in character. But Maedhros actually divulged more than I expected. He's mellowing amd Fingon is rubbing off on him.
Erestor is SO DONE with this family--pretty much every generation of it and I love that. I feel a great amount of affection for this story. Really love it.
Oh my gosh, thank you! It means so much to me to hear that. I am a big fan of angst with happy endings - and I figure the whole of the Silm is the angst part, so it's up to me to come up with the happy ending. I'm always nervous about my characters feeling like themselves, so I'm glad that came across - thank you for your lovely comment!
I like how much you get out of the epistolary form: you keep finding telling descriptions of the ways in which the letters are written and read, as well as of course the text of the letters themselves.
Thank you! I was never entirely satisfied with the novels I've read that were entirely epistolary, so I wanted to have a sense of what was going on in the background. (And as someone who teaches writing, I couldn't resist showing the process of actually composing the letters!) So glad you liked it!
Thank you! I've always found it very powerful when I go to museums and remember that real people made and used the things I was seeing. (My favorite is a tablet from several thousand years ago complaining about a shady copper merchant. That one really resonated, haha.) And in a similar vein, it's fun to explore the more personal moments with these characters. Sometimes it's so awkward you've just gotta laugh! Thank you again!
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.