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 really enjoy these stories that knock Luthien off her pedestal and in the process make her a much more interesting character. It makes perfect sense that somebody who dared to steal a Silmaril from Morgoth's head cannot be a fragile maiden who spent all her life dancing in the forest as Beren seems to believe. Skinning deer, tracking, surviving in the wild are all skills that we may reasonable expect from her. And she had to be a strong character to get Huan to switch his allegiance from Celegorm to her.
"It makes perfect sense that somebody who dared to steal a Silmaril from Morgoth's head cannot be a fragile maiden..." That's exactly where I was coming from, so I'm glad it worked for you :D
I really like your take on a non-glamorous Luthien! You've managed to make me appreciate her more--what with having her get her hands (and other anatomical parts) dirty.
Based on my feedback in Skinkworld, I think that you're well aware I am tickled by your gritty Lúthien and by Huan who is such a dog here! The digging up of the corpses is done in delightfully grisly detail. Lúthien's "voice" is so refreshing, too -- resourceful and determined -- which she had to have been as a faerie princess donned a stinky bat-hame and who tricked a dark god. You also capture a good sense of the landscape, too -- love the crows bursting from the alders! Beren's less than impressive singing voice was a hoot -- and she loves the big lug all the same.
I have to say that I like your Luthien very much because you made the original, kind of flat character a real woman: she is made of flesh and blood, and seems unafraid of getting her hands dirty. ;) Like your other reviewers pointed out, here we can find the heroine capable of stealing a Silmaril and cheating Morgoth :)
Thsi popped up on the random story bar and I realized that I might never have commented here. I love this story. You actually made me like Luthien. Something I had never expected and Huan as a dog is wonderful. Very funny. Fairly incredible how it changes the whole feeling of the story to see it told in a realistic manner. Just amazing. Definitely one of the most memorable fanfics I have read. Is on my "must read" list, if anyone ever asks me! Great story, Moreth!
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.