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.
Very interesting view at the beginnings of Gil-Galad's kingship. He was indeed faced with many different groupings who were not particularly interested in being ruled à la Fingolfin or Fingon.. So Gil-Galad must carve out for himself a new sort of role. You did a good job of portraying a young, still-learning elf in an unusual position. Lovely.
The end of the First Age was such a complicated time politically, yet Gil-galad's authority was pretty much unquestioned later. I guessed part of that might have been due to consensus politics, the rest to personal charisma? (I love playing with ideas like that, lol)
I really enjoyed writing this, and I'm glad you liked it - thanks very much for commenting :)
Again, I really enjoyed this story. I wish I had more specific feedback, but I figure it's better to let you know it was read and enjoyed than to say nothing at all. :)
I will say that I love about your work how natural the politics of the era feel. This is always a struggle for me. (My husband studied political science, but this was always a weak area for me; I have to ask for his help with stories sometimes! :^P) But this feels so natural and believable in your stories. Also, the dialogue is fantastic!
So it seems that I can provide some more specific feedback after all. :)
Anyway, thanks for sharing another wonderful piece. I look forward to more to come.
Thank you so much, Dawn. Just being told it was read and enjoyed is lovely - though I like how you expanded that into a really nice review *smile*
When I write (or read) I always wonder what's going on behind the scenes, who's talking to whom, who's trying to gain what advantage... I love the depth those kinds of detail give a story. Plus I'm South African, we're all politically aware to the point of being total pains in the neck on the subject, lol.
And I'm so glad you like the dialogue - it's the part I always enjoy writing the most :)
You already know I love this piece and want more ;) But i thought it wouldn't hurt to remind you of that fact...
As always your characterisations are wonderful and rich and believable and the world you paint feel more real than it would in most stories I have read.
There we go again - a High King less hampered by pride than those before him. He'll look to the small things, and see whether the greater ones will follow of their own accord.
I really like your take on him. And you're showing it so well in your writing.
I started writing Gil-galad almost by accident, and he's grown into someone I think I would like if I could meet him - so your comments about him really made me smile. Thank you so much, I'm glad you liked the story - and him. Your kind words are really appreciated.
I really like this story. Gil-galad ended up king in at a time when no one in their right mind would want the position, yet he manages to make a rather impressive success of it. Of course, if the valar hadn't arrived they would probably all have been dead anyway, no matter who was in charge.
The Valar's intervention might have been a mixed blessing though, what with all those lands breaking and being drowned. We're never told how many elves died during that - they couldn't all have managed to put to sea.
Yes, my mind goes in strange places, lol.
Thanks for reading and commenting, and I'm happy you liked this. I have plans to go on with the story when I've cleared a few other things - I certainly enjoyed thinking myself into the time and place and he really is my favourite elf to write.
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.