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.
Excellent! I have deep respect for those who can write a good drabble, and this is a splendid one. In 100 words, you capture the shades of a northern winter. The subtlety of the relationship between Arwen and Gilraen is nicely done. I especially liked this: "...changing it into a colourless landscape where snow and chalk cliffs rival over the whiter shade."
Heh. What struck me immediately about this drabble is that it is largely dialog (and an effective dialog at that), which seems very much in character for the Amanyar and what I guess would be their love of language/speech.
OK, I am a pushover for all of this. This short piece amplifies the brutality of the crossing of the Helcaraxë and that the civilized Firstborn must revert to their more ancient origings. And muskoxen! YES!
"Írissë secures two, for Elenwë and for Itaril, wreathing them in the long furs, and the women sit, foreheads together, while the wind fails to rip away the little warmth between them."
The above leaps fully painted in my mind's eye.
Each of these short pieces is quite sensual, Elleth. You make use of all the senses - sight, sound, sense of smell, subtle sexuality (subtext titillates me more than explicit :^)), and the sensation of bone-chilling cold, but thereis warmth amidst the chilly scenes of winter, too.
Having heard the howling winds of winter storms, I can relate, but I have always been in warmer quarters than Írissë and Elenwë are. I definitely can relate to the chattering teeth! The bone-chilling cold is so palpable here.
"the gates to Mandos swimming in her mind..."
Very effective way to show that these women are at the brink of dying.
Now let me appreciate my hot cup of coffee and my cuddly Ugg boots that are keeping my toes warm...
Thank you very much for the r/r marathon, Pandë! I'll lump everything in one comment, but the reviews are all very, very appreciated!
I'm especially glad the subtlety appeals - femslash isn't just about the smut, after all, and that's part of what I was trying to convey here - and I imagine explicitness would be much harder to write effectively without devolving into what a friend calls Ikea Erotica ("touch slot A to slot B now"), especially in the limited scope of a drabble... though I seem to have managed to succeed with vivid descriptions at the very least, which is a great relief - I missed drabbling after delving into longfic for a while, and it is fun to come back to and tinker with.
"Girithron" is a winter month, yes - it's the twelfth month of the Númenorean calendar, which clashes somewhat with Doriath, I know... but the Calendar of Imladris seems to be based on a Noldorin one, so the clash is even greater there, and a case could be made for a Doriathren ancestry of the Númenorean one, but that's merely a theory of mine. I'll be sure to add a note of clarification in the end notes of the chapter.
Baraneth is going to make another appearance; I have her and Tauriel listed again for the 13th, then hopefully with a glimpse at Dorwinion - it's much too tempting to play with, and you've just given me additional incentive with Fell Meats ch. 2. :^D
Astute observation on #5 - both Elemmírë as a minstrel/poet canonically and Findis as a budding scholar in my 'verse are very involved with words, perhaps even a little more than the Amanyar as a whole, so the dialogue seemed like a natural route to take here - I'm glad it worked!
Araman and Helcaraxë especially must have been utterly brutal, and the crossing of both equally so, with desperate measures and desperate moments both! I hope the Ugg boots and the coffee help drive the chill away! Thank you so much again, and I hope the next installments continue to tickle you.
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.