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
Turgon's Rock Opera
On the anniversary of the publication of "The Silmarillion," we’re reflecting on the importance of music in Arda with prompts that come from rock songs. 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.
And you've reduced me to a fit of incoherent squeeing with those verses taken from one of my favorite passages in PL! Those verses are so bloody appropriate.
Thanks so much! This ficlet was spawned this morning over my second cuppa Tanzanian medium-roast. It may very well become the centerpiece of a chapter in Eregion (if I still have the energy and guts to tackle that). If that chapter ever materializes, I can see it titled "Into This Wild Abyss." :^) *Shiver* Milton has a way with words.
Wah! Very powerful. At the start it feels as if he's teethering on the egde and then he takes the plunge with so much confidence. And somewhere in the outer voids, Melkor is screaming. :)
Thanks muchly, Rhapsy! Glad to know that you noted that moment of hesitation followed by that supremely arrogant confidence which indicates (my version of) Sauron is in character.\r\n\r\nIn my \'verse, Melkor can scream all he wants. No sound\'s going to get past that accretion disk. ;^)
Very good indeed - if such an adjective can be applied here!
The two bits I really, really like are the phrase 'the temptation of beautiful minds...' and also the blisters on his hand. But every word in there counts!
And, of course, there is only one possible answer...
I can see the B2MeM project is really contagious, hmmm? :D And I will only say YAY (what a rhyme...) for the themes that inspire such great ficlets as this one. Both poetic and vivid, scary (in a good way), mysetiorus, and simply a splendid work of art. Thank you.
Thanks, Binka! You know, I actually have a picture painted in my head of this scene, but executing it is another matter. Maybe once I complete my "legendarium" I should take a class or two to reactivate my art n' design sensibilities and illustrate my own work! :^D But for now, I'll just "paint" with words.
A pivotal scene in Annatar's "existence" and you managed to paint it in a few words. Your Annatar just makes my skin crawl when you place him in scenes like these.
Thanks muchly, Raksha! Given the plethora of Tolkien fic out there, I'm sure this has been addressed somewhere, but this is how I see it fitting into the Pandë!verse.
I have goosebumps! This is just wonderful, not happy-skipping-tra-la-lally wonderful, but dark and evocative and definitely thought-provoking wonderful. :^D That brief moment in the middle where Sauron shows that he has doubts somehow make the physicality of it worse in the end; it's so much easier when he's not sympathetic.
Thanks so much, Dawn! Although writing a villain with a conscience and self-doubt presents its own challenge, I think it poses a greater hurdle for many -- but thankfully not all - readers.
Pssst..have a look at Binka's illustration of the fic. It's fantastic!
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.