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.
So sad! I am old enough to know better, yet it is always sad and unbelievable to see people change so drastically and grow estranged. This piece shows that so well! I love how we see how different both A and P are, yet we see the companionship they share very vividly too, all the more poignant because we know how it all ends. Great work!
They really did grow in different directions didn't they. I don't think Amandil fully understands at the end of the story quite how involved in the mission's failure Pharazon was. I'm glad you enjoyed it, and thank you for the feedback.
A funny story; and I loved Azare's determination to bed Gil-Galad! It's refreshing but rather sad to see Pharazon and Amandil as friends; I remember Tolkien mentioning it in HoME...And the use of Numenorean names is very effective.
I'm glad you liked Azare. I must admit that I enjoy causing a would-be Mary Sue to make a complete and total idiot of herself-and then have to deal with the likely consequences of her actions. I'm glad you liked the parrot. One of my earlier ideas had to Gil-galad give it to Cirdan who then walked around with it on his shoulder... but Cirdan is really not very piratical and it didn't fit with the story as it worked out. I'm glad you enjoyed it, and thank you for the feedback.
I am halfway reading this story and it is just fabulous! I love the air of the two cocky men you captured here: the brash Pharazon and the curious yet trying to be diplomatic Amandil. Then of course the cultural differences between the two races, two worlds grown so apart... And oh, monkeys, who wants monkies: that had me nearly choking on my beverage. But this, oh this had me roaring from laughter:
Amandil watched in horror as some nearby elves turned interested expressions their way. "Bush of whizzish..." one said, obviously trying to puzzle out what the captain was saying. "What's a whizzish bush?" he asked.
Amandil thought frantically, and decided that a little white lie was the best part of valor here. "The whizzish bush grows only in Numenor," he said. "We make a special alcoholic drink from the fruit and he thinks he's had too much of it."
It is that I am in need of sleep, but I could read many more chapters of this utmost goodness!
The whole bush of whizzish thing started off as a voice dictation error. I looked at it and suddenly realized that it opened some wonderful opportunities for mayhem and went with it. I'm glad it worked as I hoped it would. Thank you for the feedback; it really helps me to know when what I'm doing is working and when it isn't.
Hi, Aiwen. i started reading this, and I really enjoy your Amandil! I love seeing the friendship between him and Pharazon. It's not often that perspective is touched upon. I look forward to reading more!
They are an odd pair, and that part of the story was interesting to write because I was never quite sure how it would work out. I'm glad you enjoyed it and thank you for your feedback.
I did not know that there were more than one chapter! And I'm so glad I found the rest of it ;-D What a fun, witty, clever, hilarious, intriguing, insightful story! The different misunderstandings and blunders were too much fun to rrad but, at the heart of it, the knowledge that both kindreds had drifted toomuch apart to be reconciled quite so easily.
Little did Amandil know that his heirs would make friendship with those same Elves...
My idea for the story started off as one blunder after another but when I actually wrote it down I realized that the subject matter was serious enough I had to treat it with a little more respect than I had originally intended. I'm glad that two levels came across properly. Thank you very much for the feedback.
What a wonderful depiction of a diplomatic mission! The awkwardness feels very believable, and the parrot had me snickering madly! Seeing Amandil and Pharazon in their youth was a treat also. Great job!
I'm glad you enjoyed it. This story grew in dribs and drabs in my head for several months before I wrote it down. Diplomacy afflicted by ill will and Murphy's law...
This was a humorous story with definite undertones of the seriousness of the matter. The culture clashes were well-handled. And the differences in personality and the later conflicts between Amandil and Pharazôn were superb.
"Now if you want a difficult castle in the hands of enemies why don't you go attack Barad-dur?" "You never know," Pharazon said with a smile. "Someday I just might."
These were my favorite lines of the piece. Obviously meant in jest here, but so foretelling. (Make me wonder if they rememberd this conversation when it did happen.)
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.