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've been looking forward to your story for a while now, as you know. :) I am not disappointed! This was one of the best depictions of the kinslaying at Alqualonde that I've read: You capture so well not only the senselessness of it but the surrealism that Elves on both sides must have felt. I liked that you didn't heap blame solely on the Noldor or (worse) the Teleri, as some writers have a tendency to do, but showed it as the complex, heartrending conflict that it must have been.
Also, Finrod's parting from Amarie was excellent! Having seen this moment so often mired in melodrama, your brief and very poignant vision of it was a lovely contrast!
I am really looking forward to reading on. If I allow myself a chapter a night, that's two weeks to look forward to, right? ;)
Since the battle for the ships drew me strongly when I was reading and considering the fic prompts, I am deeply pleased you found things to like in this chapter. Oshun and Keiliss had a lot to do with helping me write the fic. Oshun told me how the Noldor could not swim when the Teleri pushed them into the sea. I have Keiliss to thank for pointing out that the elves leaving Aman did not plan on their return being barred to them, which shed a lot of light on that scene with Amarie. The whole story was written among a long litter of helpful discussions.
I puzzled at length over the events Silm recounts in Aman, so your heart-warming compliments are all the more welcome. Thank you!
The scene in which Calyaro tells his tale of the Noldor -- the Stars' Lament -- through his music is stunning. Your cexcellent hoice of words and phrasing created sight and sound which took me to another plane (one of the reasons I enjoy fantasy).
Your story has everything that appeals to me in Silmarillion-flavored fiction: memorable characters (in particular a distinctive OC), fabulous details of culture and infrastructure, a realistic and gritty look at the Firstborn and the realities of the harsh environment they faced, and an excellent blend of description and dialog that sets a compelling pace.
And kudos to you for making me believe in a moon and a sun that are not so conventional in their orbits. Not many authors can do that. :^)
I keep looking at the words you’ve used and feeling warm and pleased. Thank you!
It’s lovely when a passage you secretly dared to hope had some life is picked out by a reader. Calyaro is not an extrovert, so I guess in music and song he expresses things he might not show at other times, and he’d been brewing that piece for years. I’m pretty delighted you speak so kindly of it.
I still feel like a cat in cat-nip that you found the story ingredients to your liking and that the style worked for you, but oh, the moon and the sun are a joke on me – it never once occurred to me to take any part of the Silm as myth for the purposes of a Silm story, and so I painstakingly took it literally. Pretty funny, in hindsight. I‘m glad I gave it a good shot, at least :)
From Finrod's heartbreaking farewell to Finarfin (which choked me up far more than you'd expect!) to the poignant final scene, this is excellently crafted!
Of course, you already know that I'll *squee* about Finrod's practicality :D And look - he even sharpens his sword! Regularly!
Watching Finrod and his warrior minstrel work through their (very believable) difficulties will delight me every time I read it :D
I love the phrase you’ve used there, ‘warrior minstrel’ :) Thank you for enjoying the details as well as the relationship – it’s such a treat when someone picks up on some small specific, or mentions a scene. And yes, I imagine a warrior always looks after his weapon *g* (I love it when you *squee* *beams*) I feel delighted by these comments – I’m extremely touched and pleased you have enjoyed it in this way. Thank you so much!
Thank you Lissa: thank you for enjoying reading something I enjoyed writing but felt uncertain about. Your comment is very kind, and is making me smile, when I have just been agonizing over another piece for two and a half hours. So truly, thank you very much.
A very beautiful story. When I was first brought here by jdav I promised her that I will read it in 2 weeks. She said the story will keep me glued to the monitor. Then I started and went on and on. I completed reading it in 3 days.
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.