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.
I have been meaning to comment for a good long while on The Night the Sea Came In. Oshun called my attention to it around the Slashy Santa reveal, as she thought I'd like the story. She was right. I devoured it. Characters are well-drawn per your exacting standards, and the storm and the sea? Holy moly. Brilliantly done!
I'm thrilled you enjoyed this, Pande. Thank you so much for such a positive review, it quite made my day. Loved writing this and I'd like to try a prequel later, I suspect Maedhros might have a better idea of what was happening in the north than they did on Balar.
So good to see this posted here so that I can now tell you "officially" how much I like it. It's so much characterized by the more low-key heroics of survival--if that way of putting it makes sense? But of course the danger is anything but low-key and impressively described! And it is very much an ensemble piece--everyone working together to survive and getting their share of loving attention from you.
I also like how you've expanded the end with a bit more detail of the later life in Lindon--it feels very satisfying!
Ooh, you originally saw it before I posted the end piece? :D I had it outlined but needed sleep before fleshing it out. (I posted as Red revealed the stories, I really was that close to the deadline, lol)
*low key heroics of survival* Yes, that's it precisely. People in a dire situation doing their best. I knew it should be a 'couple' story and had I not known the recipient well I might have tried to keep the Gil/Lindir relationship more centre stage, but it would have felt artificial, so it was a relief to just write it as I saw it. I'm so glad you liked the end result, that means a lot to me. Thank you :)
I have never thought much about the effect on the coast of Beleriand- the description of the storm was really fantastically done- I was there, under the table, unable to see but only hear and feel the effect. A real masterclass.
I had a great time writing this, trying to imagine how it would have seemed from the pov of elves on the very edge of the main action. I'd also never thought about the effect of drowning that huge landmass - never even realised how much went under the waves till I came across a map while I was researching for the story. I'm delighted you enjoyed it and that the descriptions worked for you - that's a great compliment. Thank you so much for making time to review.
I am almost completely certain I have already given you feedback on this, if I haven't I certainly intended to. The breaking of beleriad was such a huge thing and I love how you caught the horror and sheer wrongness of the event, the callousness behind all those lost lives, lost land, lost histories... It was a horrific event and you captured it so well from that small group of elves that experienced it together.
I don't remember if you commented on this anywhere - I think it's on lj and AO3, or possibly the old Slashy Santa archive, but it is so incredibly cool to get another review for it. I have always loved this fic, had so much pleasure in writing it, but it kind of sits between worlds, too first age for the second and third age readers, too second age for the first age fans and so it's tended to get overlooked. I was smiling so much when I read this. That was the heart of it yes, the lives, whole cultures gone, breeds of animal never seen again, all for an objective that rendered them expendible. Thank you so very much, sweetie!
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.