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.
What an amazing story! Glorfindel is so real, contrasts starkly to the elusive Moriquendi; his old world gone and new one ill-fitting to his size - a beautiful portrait.
Your description of the road to Imladirs is wonderfully done, mud tracks and woods and troll bait...
Thanks so much for such a lovely review! I'm very glad you enjoyed the story; I did have fun writing it, in fact I was (re)discovering the joys of narrative along the road to Imladris, so it's wonderful to hear it works. And thank you for picking up the contrast between Glorfindel and the Moriquendi, and his discomfort in the new world!
I'm glad to see that Erestor and Melinna survived the battle for Doriath!
This is an excellent story of Glorfindel's return to a considerably different Middle-earth. His confusion and terrible sense of loss are very credible here, as his gradual accomodation of and rising respect for Erestor.
*g* I'm nothing if not a canon slave (well, as long as it's explicitly set out in the Silmarillion, so, okay, plenty of space for manoeuvre), so Erestor had to survive that one. I'm glad you enjoyed this story! And again, thank you so much for so many kind and thoughtful reviews! It was a really lovely surprise to wake up to them all.
The fury of Glorfindel's confusion is very well rendered here. I like the way you've gone for a harrumphing larger-than-life personality for him - the kind I gave him in my own stories. The prose flows well and it all makes sense.
Hi, Wendy! To begin, thank you for all your reviews of this story! It's good to hear you liked my prose and the characterisation of Glorfindel here. I'm glad you enjoyed the story and I hope you don't mind me filling your in-box with replies. ^^
I love the way you've woven the other characters into this tale. Having read your story in which Erestor and Melinna featured before, I found it hard to reconcile their levity here with that fic, until I realised you were adding depth to them via their frivolity.
Since Erestor is Elrond's chief counsellor, I'd like to read your version of how he got the job...
Again, I'm glad you liked the way the story was going! The background to Erestor's place as Elrond's chief counsellor is set up in 'Wanderlust'; I still haven't written my version of how he eventually came to settle down in Imladris, partly because that may be the last serious piece of LOTR fanfic I ever write and I have quite a lot of other stuff still to be written. So it may be a while.
As for Erestor and Melinna's frivolity -- well, 'Blood and Fire' deals with a fairly atypical event, and is indeed somewhat atypically unleavened tragedy compared to my other stories. Also, of course, this story is taking place four and a half thousand years later, so while I wouldn't say they've forgotten that episode, I think it's fair to say they've learned to live with it. I hope the characterisation harmonises overall in both these and my other stories!
Brilliant! You have revealed the wisdom I thought might be lacking in Erestor and Melinna. Playing dumb is one of the oldest tricks there is, and it's worked perfectly. I like the twist of having had Erestor and Melinna recover one of Glorfindel's most prized possessions. Brilliant ideas, beautifully rendered.
Niggles:
Glorfindel and the Istar had sampled most OF the alcoholic beverages
through which [poured] the Road POURED like starlight through storm clouds.
It's great to hear that you like the twists in this chapter! And thank you so much for picking up that missing 'of' (so easily done), although I think I would prefer to keep my syntax for the Road simile. I'm not sure I intended to have Erestor and Melinna playing dumb, more that Glorfindel mistook their levity for frivolity -- his judgement could hardly have been impeccable under the circumstances, after all.
That's a perfect end to a brilliant story. The loose ends leave open opportunities to weave more tales around this theme and I love the way you end with Glorfindel getting to know Erestor and Melinna better.
That was so quietly and sadly beautiful. The way you weaved the story through Glorfindel's nostalgia and Erestor and Melinna's obfuscation so that very little was clear until the very end was quite ingenious. The confusion gave more weight to Glorfindel's emotional turmoil, which I'm sure was your intent, so well done there. Also, the way everything quietly resolved in the epilogue married perfectly with nightingale music motif. What a joy to read!
It's lovely to hear you enjoyed this story, and that the mix of nostalgia and obfuscation paid off in the end. You're absolutely right, I did want the conclusion to give weight to Glorfindel's emotional issues, once he had arrived at Imladris and was no longer able to distract himself with the journey. And I'm very glad the resolution worked out for you! Thank you so much for taking the time to leave such a thoughtful review!
I really liked this story! Erestor and Melinna were really interesting. I especially liked this part:
"“I daresay you do,” Erestor replied evenly, motionless in the shadows. For once he seemed completely unamused and his tone was cool. “And I say – very sad. Gondolin was destroyed by its enemies, as it was doomed to be destroyed once Morgoth realised that Turgon was willing to be a nuisance to him. That’s sad and vaguely heroic. If anyone other than your Lady Idril had listened to Tuor, you might only have lost the buildings. That’s sadder and rather less heroic. If you think Gondolin was the most beautiful city in Middle-earth, you obviously never visited Menegroth – and Menegroth was sacked by its allies. Twice. Now that’s not just sad, that’s downright tragic!”"
That was a really great point, about Menegroth falling to it's allies.
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.