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.
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Bollywood
Prompts this month are films, songs, and tropes from India's dazzling film industry, Bollywood. Read more ...
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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 really enjoyed this; I love the parallel structure of the two parts: Maglor & Elros and Maedhros & Elrond. When Elros says, "But it's so far away," that is heartbreaking.
I look forward to the longer version, even if it does take years. ;) Thanks for sharing this!
I'll be quite interested in your story when it's finished. There's so much to explore with Elrond and Elros. These two moments are poignant and enchanting. How do they know that the new star is Earendil? I guess I'll have to wait for the whole tale.
Thank you so much for the encouragement! I have done some more work on it, but the story is very...huge and daunting. The War of Wrath is such a bleak time, and only the naivete of childhood is preventing my story from being very dark indeed....
Ah yes this was a teaser!!! Now what can we do to get to read more of this? Again you do an admirable job to give all such unique voices. My heart went out to Elros the most when he whispered "But it's so far away." Poor Elros, he misses his parents so much. Elrond is pictured so differently, less whistful but so curious! The observations of Maedhros and Maglor reminded me immediately of the short scene in the Simarillion where both discover that a Silmaril is in the sky now, it feels to me that both now try - in their own way - to transfer that knowlegde. Yeps, where is the rest? ;)
A teaser you say...? Could you please hurry with the rest? ;)
I enjoyed this story very much. The beginning, with Maglor and Elros, was very touching, but the part with Maedhros and Elrond was the one that really moved me. Somehow, I recalled the scene of the council of Elrond from the movie and suddenly I saw Elrond, as he appeared in the film -- speaking about the Ring (regardless of the fact whether Hugo Weaving was a convincing Elrond or not) -- but in a different perspective. And I thought, gods, this man had once had a chance to talk with the sons of Feanor. He was a living and walking legend. This thought alone made me envious. Why, one can ask? Because we, modern people, can't be faced with legends such as Elrond. We can only admire what is left from the past: ruins, debris, scattered pieces of art, but no living evidence. We cannot ask them to tell us what was like to live 3 thousand years ago. Thanks for invoking such thoutghs and for sharing the story with us.
I really enjoyed this; I love the parallel structure of the two parts: Maglor & Elros and Maedhros & Elrond. When Elros says, "But it's so far away," that is heartbreaking.
I look forward to the longer version, even if it does take years. ;) Thanks for sharing this!
Thank you for the kind words! Hopefully, it won't take me years to finish Part 1 (which this is the end of). But...it will be awhile, certainly. Elros and Elrond must be very different people (if they choose separate fates), but at the same time, they must be incredibly close as twins raised apart from their people. I wanted to split them up for this scene so I could get parallel but unique reactions.
I'll be quite interested in your story when it's finished. There's so much to explore with Elrond and Elros. These two moments are poignant and enchanting. How do they know that the new star is Earendil? I guess I'll have to wait for the whole tale.
Hehe, they don't. This conversation takes place a few days after the conversation Tolkien recorded between Maglor and Maedhros - so they know it is the Silmaril that went into the Sea with Elwing. When Maglor says, "You are not an orphan," he merely means that, somehow, Elwing must have lived. Earendil's fate will not be learned until later. Since my tale will span several years, I have to work out who knows what when and at what age.
Thank you so much for the encouragement! I have done some more work on it, but the story is very...huge and daunting. The War of Wrath is such a bleak time, and only the naivete of childhood is preventing my story from being very dark indeed....
Ah yes this was a teaser!!! Now what can we do to get to read more of this? Again you do an admirable job to give all such unique voices. My heart went out to Elros the most when he whispered "But it's so far away." Poor Elros, he misses his parents so much. Elrond is pictured so differently, less whistful but so curious! The observations of Maedhros and Maglor reminded me immediately of the short scene in the Simarillion where both discover that a Silmaril is in the sky now, it feels to me that both now try - in their own way - to transfer that knowlegde. Yeps, where is the rest? ;)
I do not have time at the moment - and won't til Thanksgiving, AHHHH! But when I *do* (you know, sometime in 2008..9..10), would you be interested in being tapped? You'd get first peak then :)
A teaser you say...? Could you please hurry with the rest? ;)
I enjoyed this story very much. The beginning, with Maglor and Elros, was very touching, but the part with Maedhros and Elrond was the one that really moved me. Somehow, I recalled the scene of the council of Elrond from the movie and suddenly I saw Elrond, as he appeared in the film -- speaking about the Ring (regardless of the fact whether Hugo Weaving was a convincing Elrond or not) -- but in a different perspective. And I thought, gods, this man had once had a chance to talk with the sons of Feanor. He was a living and walking legend. This thought alone made me envious. Why, one can ask? Because we, modern people, can't be faced with legends such as Elrond. We can only admire what is left from the past: ruins, debris, scattered pieces of art, but no living evidence. We cannot ask them to tell us what was like to live 3 thousand years ago. Thanks for invoking such thoutghs and for sharing the story with us.
I'm sorry! Of my two longish Silmarillion WIPs, I think this one is on the back burner at the moment. I'll see what I can do about finishing the other one up and getting it posted, and then get back to this one. Though I did think of a name for this one just yesterday - "On the Edge of Ruin." We'll see if it sticks.
I love the scene in the movie where Elrond says, "I was there, Gandalf." It just drives home how *ancient* he is. And of course calls to mind the passage in the book where Frodo is hit by the same realization when he blurts out, "You remember?" As you say, he's a legend!
I'll try to share more of this with you later, but I must ask for your continued patience. Thanks so much for the review!
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.