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.
Subscribe to the SWG Newsletter
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'm glad you enjoyed it. I'd had the mental image of Gil-galad, Finrod and the toy for a long time, but it wasn't until Curufin intervened that I had a story. Thank you for the feedback. The accidental review of my own work was me trying to reply to your review. Sorry, my brain is obviously numb.
Nice! You've managed to give Celegroma nd Curufin very believable reasons to be resentful of their cousin Finrod, which certainly makes their later behavior more understandable. It would indeed be ablow to their pride to be refugees instead of rulers.
That chapter was basically a character study to spell out the relationships between the characters. I find the ways people think and interact very interesting. And just because I admire Finrod doesn't mean everyone else likes him or that he is easy to live with if you have a guilty conscience. Thank you for the feedback.
I'm glad you liked it. I find JRR Tolkien has a tendency to leave women nameless unless they are directly involved in the story, with the result you abruptly get female characters appearing from nowhere in the later HoME books as required. To be fair, Argon does that too so it isn't exclusively female characters.Thank you for the feedback.
The pun on the names (if pun is the proper word for this kind of word play) is very well done. But what makes it even better is how it fits into your characterization of Celebrimbor here--and, of course, the idea of the encounter itself, which seems a very logical thing to happen, but which I don't remember having read a description of before.
The only thing that is perhaps slightly confusing is the name of the apprentice. Did you want it to resemble that of Celebrimbor's uncle? If so, I can't quite see why?
Carantir is an OC from Rings of Pride and Ruin who was of the Gwaith-i-Mirdain and involved in the Rings of Power fiasco. The name isn't intended to be confused with Caranthir and I don't think thir and tir are from the same root. I'm not sure about that. I was using tir, as in tower (tirith), so the name is supposed to mean red tower. In this story you see Carantir's earlier history as one of Celebrimbor's apprentices and one of Curufin's people who stayed in Nargothrond. Iwanted to get some continuity between these shorts and my longer stories.
I'm glad you like it. You did mention your fondness for Annatar-the-owl before, but I really like having the feedback. You'll probably enjoy the next installment, which stars Annatar in owl form, Celebrimbor, and a dead mouse.
An excellent glimpse of T&C's first meeting, Aiwen! Completely believable, and very well-executed. And your take on Agarwaen/Umarth is very interesting! This part of the canon is far more gap than story -- all Tolkien actually says about C is "In that time Celebrimbor the son of Curufin repudiated the deeds of his father, and remained in Nargothrond." Most people (for whatever reason) take that to mean C --renounced-- his father. Personally I take JRRT's sentence literally as written: "repudiated the deeds of" falls way short of renouncing his father (let alone his whole family, as some seem to write him). You seem to take a very believable middle path :)
I'm glad you like it. I think Celebrimbor hates what the House of Feanor is becoming and refuses to follow their current path, but he can't change the fact that he is Feanor's grandson and a craftsman is what he IS. He lives and breathes creating things and learning. To stop inventing and creating would be to stop being alive.
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.