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.
Pandë, I am so glad to see this piece posted for the SWG's Fifth Birthday Original Characters theme, and to see this glimpse of your superb Mélamírë in something that is everything a truly 'transformative work' should aspire to be.
One can see her powers, but also her very human fear of the “Zigûr”, her intelligence, her courage, and her manifold talents.
She's a marvellous OC, and in this work, you step out of the familiar surroundings of Tolkien's universe and meld this with the legends of our own world. It's simply an exceptional piece of writing.
Thanks so much, Spice. What with The Man Who Grew Tomatoes posted on the SWG, I figured it would make sense to post The Jinn here. I'm glad (and relieved) that you like Mélamírë so well. As we have discussed elsewhere, OCs are dicey ventures in Tolkien fandom, but OFCs even more so. And you know I love blending mythology like ingredients in a curry. :^)
I agree with Spiced Wine above, delighted that you finally decided pull this one out of the desk drawer and to add it here. It's another one of those flights of creative imagination that make me so jealous. I just have to get over myself, or quite being so lazy and be more daring. I love everything about the setting and characterization and the extension of the world to marvellous and expected places! Lovely work.
Thanks so much, Oshun! I figured it was about time to post The Jinn here, largely because of the OC theme, but also to link into The Man Who Grew Tomatoes. You shouldn't be jealous. You have your flights, too. I love Ulmo's Palace, and *ahem* Elves in Manhattan is a wonderful flight of fancy and daring if I may say so.
I'd love to write about the Blue Wizards in Bharat and the Lands of the Dawn (Middle-earth China/Japan) but dang. Not enough hours in the day nor days in the year!
So very glad that you posted this here! I loved it the first time I read it, and reading it again was just as nice. Nimir is such an interesting character and I'm so looking forward to more stories about her.
I'm so, so, so glad that you posted this here! Mélamírë is a fantastic OFC, and I love the Middle-eastern feel to this piece and the link to 'Man Who Grew Tomatoes' and to your other fic.
Thanks so much, Steel! I figured it was about time to migrate The Jinn over here, what with the connection to The Man Who Grew Tomatoes. I'd love to get the Blue Wizards' journeys tied into this part of the Pandë!verse, too.
"Mélamírë is a fantastic OFC"
And thanks muchly again! That's quite a compliment from an author who has created one of the most memorable OFCs in Tolkien fandom. :^)
Hey, thanks so much, Ithilwen! I hope to revisit the Eastern Lands multiple times. The Blue Wizards (or at least my notion of them) are champing at the bit to get some air time in the East and to be interwoven into Tales of Bharat and the Lands of the Dawn!
Pande!verse is such a wonderful blend of Tolkien's mythology with many other motives, hints, allusions, and other mythologies that is a real pleasure to discover. I don't know much about the mythology of the East, but being a devoted fan of the Greek and Roman ones, I do appreciate the seamless way you've put them together. The story itself is intriguing, excellently written, and I love the idea of the Blue Wizards as the gods of the Lands of the Dawn.
Beautifully done!
PS. Of course, the Istyanis herself is the brightest star of the story :D
Interesting use of eastern mythology and religion.
I really like Melamire. I've seen a few characters that are offspring of Sauron, and she is by far the most interesting. Actually, she is one of my favorite original characters in any Middle-earth based fanfic. Intelligent to the point of brilliance, stubborn, courageous, hating to have anyone control her, unconventional, logical but not so powerful that her abilities warp Tolkien's work into AU, tendency to be very blunt when arguing a point... I really like her.
I don't know if I've mentioned how much I like most of your work. It makes me think, and some of the new directions it takes my thought end up influencing my writing. For a particularly noticeable example, after reading the apprentice I started wondering what might have happened if Aulendil had chosen not to make the One Ring and had stayed in Ost in Edhil.
I never ended up writing a story based on that, but the idea would not leave me alone. It eventually warped into a original universe tale involving multiple alien species, time travel, teleportation, faster-than-light space travel, a very large war and assorted other oddities. It also bears precious little resemblence to anything either you or JRR Tolkien wrote. I haven't managed to finish the dratted thing but it has been a lot of fun to play with. Thank you for providing such interesting mind food.
My apologies for the delay in responding, Aiwen...
"I really like Melamire."
Thank you so much! I strive to make her consistent with her milieu (my imaginary tertiary world of Tolkien's secondary one): human but Other, too.
"I've seen a few characters that are offspring of Sauron, and she is by far the most interesting."
And thanks again. I did a bit of research before launching into her character. One "offspring of Sauron" I found was also a daughter and became a powerful dark sorceress. See http://www.invasivedesigns.com/otherhands//archives/articles/5/queen_of_shadow.html. It's dated 1994 -- some sort of RPG based on a 1989 story -- wonder if that was in a fanzine? I found that after my conceptualization of Mél and was amused to find a few similarities, but only a few. The name indicates someone unfamiliar with Elvish. One thing that struck me was that the originator of the storyline apparently was not a parent. Kids are odd creatures in that they are not carbon copies of their mothers and fathers, and kids do not do what we, as parents, think they should. Anyway, that RPG assured me I had a far more mature and perhaps realistic idea.
"Actually, she is one of my favorite original characters in any Middle-earth based fanfic."
That's high praise indeed! Folks claim it's easier to write original characters in Middle-earth as opposed to canon. I'm not so sure I agree with that.
"Intelligent to the point of brilliance, stubborn, courageous, hating to have anyone control her, unconventional, logical but not so powerful that her abilities warp Tolkien's work into AU, tendency to be very blunt when arguing a point... I really like her."
I hope there are aspects of her -- very human aspects -- that the reader finds accessible.
"I don't know if I've mentioned how much I like most of your work."
Well, you have now, and I'm honored. Likewise, I get a huge kick out of your writing. Sauron-as-an-owl kills me as do the monkeys in Lindon and five things that didn't happen to Sauron. :^D
"For a particularly noticeable example, after reading the apprentice I started wondering what might have happened if Aulendil had chosen not to make the One Ring and had stayed in Ost in Edhil."
Did the Elves of Eregion wind up concocting rocket fuel and sending a mission to Ithil? ;^) Your o-fic sounds fabulous (I am in origin a sci fi fan before I discovered fantasy).
Thank you for the wonderful comments, and I am more than happy to keep providing mind food as long as my Dark Muse remains in the kitchen cooking.
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.