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
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 ...
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.
I love this! It is very... atmospheric. It captures the mood and feeling of a place in time in just a few short sentences. It also feels very homey, and sweet too the way Fëanor and Nerdanel kiss.
I forgot to add that I loved the juxtaposition of the solitude of Fëanor reading by candlelight, and the connection of sharing it with Nerdanel. I think it came across very well. It is very much in character, I think.
Maedhros' feeling more tortured by the look in Findekano's eyes and the loss of those he loved than anything Angband can throw at him, shows what type of Elf he was.
Nothing wrong with fried potatoes every now and then! I laughed at Celegorm's friends' jokes. And then the laughter sort of stuck in my throat when Celegorm comes home and knows that his father is going to disapprove of travelling and conversing with animals without the intention of writing about it later! Can't be easy to be a jock-type guy in that brainiac family. I really liked this!
I love the descriptions in this. I love Maglor's sense of disorientation, and Elrond following the stars rather than properly knowing where to find him. Above all, I love the idea that Maglor is going to find a home with Elrond, at least for a while!
Oh, gosh, thank you! I just need them to be happy! I like to imagine Maglor becomes official chief babysitter for his kids and lives happily ever after.
The light of the fire illuminates the soft curve of Haleth’s cheeks, catching the edge of the crinkles in her skin around her eyes and mouth—wrinkles, they are called. They are beautiful, he decides. She is beautiful.
This is adorable! I like to think Celebrimbor had a wonderful upbringing with his father and uncles before everything began to fall apart and the dradle fits perfectly into this as something Curufin would think to design for Celebrimbor to enjoy. Plus, children and candy...no surprises there.
This is rather nostalgic for me. I too was taught about Hanukkah as a child. Apparently I had a Jewish great grandmother on my father's side and my mother wanted to teach me a little about my background, including the dradle. I don't remember a lot of it now, though.
Thank you! I tend to envision Curufin pretty darkly, and I thought it would be a nice challenge to write something happy and loving for him. Like you point out, no one starts out that way, and not everything that happened to him was his fault. I enjoyed writing him this way!
I'm so glad the piece touhed you -- and if you ever want to play a game, just come visit! :)
Aww, it's so nice to see Curufin being a good dad! And if anyone would come up with a toy/gambling game involving letters, it's bound to be this family. Great idea! :D
Poor Amras. Losing a twin must be harrowing. Yearning to have that other piece of yourself there with you but not being able to feel it, or be one with it on a level he was used to, must be a type of torture.
I hope this musing doesn't sound weird in any way. Just trying to understand what being a twin means.
Oh! I love this! The Avari and Atani becoming Amrod's people.
It fits him perfectly.
I don't know why but I've always seen the twins as a bit of an oddity compared to their older brothers. Almost like they don't fit the Feanorion norm. Or don't fit into the mould of a Feanorion. I see them as a wild pair-maybe that's why the Avari and Atani suit them so much.
Thank you! I've always seen the twins that way as well -- they struck me as more independent than any of their older brothers (and far less interested in all the drama). Many peoples passed through or settles in their lands, and I'd like to think they enjoyed a happy relationship with those peoples. I'm American, so I grew up on the very idealized rhetoric of "the great melting pot," and so I saw an outlet for that in the context of fiction. :)
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.