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…
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.
OMG! Dawn! You made me cry. It is very good! What a sad, sad story. Love is never easy. Not even for one's family members. The costs sometimes are almost overwhelming. But still I should be happy that this one does have a redemptive quality of a sort. I know you are capable of writing much sadder ones. There is so much love in that family the way you create them, because whatever they are to one another good and bad, there is never indifference in the equation.
Thank you! Wow, I am glad you liked it so much. :) I had kinda forgotten about this one. It was in that huge glut of holiday stories that went mostly unread (because I posted them right before Christmas--bad timing on my part!), and I thought when I saw the title on my list, "It is probably trite." I have trouble with holiday stories because there always seems the need to put in a cheesy "true meaning of Christmas" moment like all the bad (and even not-so-bad) holiday movies and shows out there. I was pleasantly surprised when I reread this one, and there's a ton of Felakverse stuff in it that I had totally forgotten about. (I need to do some serious rereading before working in my own verse again! How sad is that!?)
Thank you so much for this comment; you are making this process of archiving my ancient history far more pleasant than I thought it would be! :D
Oh Dawn, I am getting all side tracked here (you know, the newsletter), but I had to re-read this again. First... oh my gosh, has it been 8 years?
And again I am just wondering what could have been if he had not given her up, how his mood could have been tempered, how many children they might have had... And he never gave that ring to Fëanor. Yeah... it says so much doesn't it?
I had kind of forgotten about this one, but I reread it and discovered that it wasn't as bad as I'd worried it would be! Actually, I rather like it, in retrospect. (When I can't remember a story very well, I worry that it was because it was not worth remembering; in this instance, I think it was more about writing about 20 stories in one month! :D)
Thank you for rereading and for your kind comment. And, of course, as this story signifies, for the many years of friendship and inspiration!
Celegorm was the first character from the Silm that I wrote in any serious way, and it was because I struggled to like/sympathize with him. In my own mind, I've run with the idea that he shared this talent with Feanor (languages), but he was always pulled in so opposite a direction, toward nature and Orome rather than the constructions of human hands and Aule, that there was always this rift that he could not repair. He wants Feanor's affection so badly--and indeed his skill with languages should make him the favored son!--but his own nature seems to repel it. With that, I was able to explain (and therefore sympathize somewhat) with his character.
Thank you for dusting off this old piece to read and especially for commenting! :D
Since you put your name on the 'don't need to ask' list, I would like to explore Terentaulë's side of this story. There's something about growing up in Washington that immediately makes apple symbolism so very appealing. ;)
That would be awesome! She's a regular OC in my stories, though I've never gotten around to writing from her PoV. Please let me know when you've posted it; I'd love to read it!
....and haunting story. Curufinwë and Tyelkormo love the same elf, and Tyelkormo gives her up for the ring that his brother forged as a gift for their father. His feelings when he gifts it to Curufinwë and Terentaulë's son (and she has left his brother to stay in Aman) are of love for his nephew and only now he is happy.
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.