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.
Oh wow, I really love this! The vision in the pool is so vivid and Daeron as this strange child full of songs and questions and visions is really wonderful.
I like the dynamic between these two and the setting you chose! It strikes me how confidently Daeron interprets his vision and how Beleg accepts that reading. The vision is stunningly described, but does not seem all that easy to read (except with hindsight)?
Thank you! Not easy to read, and I don't think they know what it means other than BAD. I like the concept of foresight but it's tricky to work with, since your characters knowing too much risks making them and their choices less interesting. Or foolish, depending on the choice. It also seems to be how foresight works in Tolkien. More 'foreboding'. I also hc that Daeron's power of foresight, beyond the standard elven ability, also meant he would often misinterpret it, or just couldn't interpret it. Melian helps him cultivate the skill, but it's still troublesome (as in Hearken Still Unsated). Anyway, thank you for reading!
I love everything about this! Daeron's curiosity and how he sees the world, Beleg's approach to Daeron's questions (truly, children ask the most difficult questions of them all). Absolutely wonderful and a joy to read!
I do love the eerie turn this takes so unexpectedly. It's sweet up to the point Beleg looks in the water (which of course was almost certainly the point) but it's just such a sudden change, it really impacts! <3
It is not a question the Lindai like to ask themselves. Waiting and searching for their chieftain is simply what they do
When I read this part I was like " ok, this is at 100% a thing that the elves of Doriath would say" I loved it sooo much! And the Song is beautiful! It almost make me wish to invent a melody to accompany it. Beautiful, very very beautiful!
Thanks for commenting! I feel the Sindar who remained to look for Elwe are really defined and held together by that aspect of their experience. I am glad that made sense for you. And you are welcome to invent a melody for the song :D.
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.