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.
Fingon returns to Barad Eithel after a late-autumn hunt, finding someone unexpected with his wife. The night takes an even more unexpected turn for all three of them.
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…
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
Heroes
Create a fanwork about a hero, whether the typical saves-the-world type or the unlikely, unsung, and accidental, those who have been forgotten or perhaps were never noticed at all, who made their worlds a better place. 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.
Loaded with fabulous details that define setting, characterization, and backstory. I am no expert on architecture or design, but you've convinced me of the authenticity. Love the discussion of the strangeness of adjusting to the new light. Beautifully paced and lovely language.
Loaded with fabulous details that define setting, characterization, and backstory. I am no expert on architecture or design, but you've convinced me of the authenticity. Love the discussion of the strangeness of adjusting to the new light. Beautifully paced and lovely language.
Thank you so much! I'm still at the point in my fiction writing where I'm doing it by instinct, and I get very nervous when I have to put some of it out there for other folks to see. It's so much easier to do that knowing there is appreciation for what I am trying to do. The story I want to tell (which is at heart about thingmakery/subcreation) is perforce set at a time of enormous social and even cosmic change. It's important to me that I both stick as closely as I can to whatever canon is available and also make some attempt to have my characters grapple with what is going on around them, from delight to PTSD and everything in between.
Glad you like it! I'm trying to imagine how it must have been for a princess to be as displaced in as many ways as Galadriel was at the beginning of the First Age.
Thanks! One of the things I want to explore about Galadriel is her identity as a sort of Yavanna-Jesuit, that is, one of the most deeply educated in the branches of knowledge for which Yavanna is renowned. (As I look at her history in Middle-Earth I see the influence of that early education playing out across especially Eldarin but also Edain culture, and I will be writing more about it as this series develops.) I imagine that her meeting a sentient being who is also clearly tied to Yavanna would have set up a form of religious resonance for her, especially in the first full spring season of Beleriand under Anor. Perhaps Galadriel's hunting cousins would have preferred to meet Ents rather than Entwives, given their shared ties to Oromë!
Wow, it's a really interesting and original idea that the elves could communicate to the trees like this, and that they could mutually shape trees' future. Well done!
Thanks! I feel like I've always known how Galadriel (and others) would and could talk to trees, but this is the first time I've had to consider at length how she might have gone about "encouraging" them.
As for Teleporno, well, he's an old-fashioned kinda guy. He'll probably not let that phrase slip again for years!
By rights it should be, yes. :-) But honestly, I don't think I am ready for the emotional turmoil of telling Galadriel about her family's woes. It's hard enough writing her side of things, which she is repressing very determinedly.
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.