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…
Current Challenge
Bollywood
Prompts this month are films, songs, and tropes from India's dazzling film industry, Bollywood. Read more ...
Random Challenge
Pride
Create a fanwork using a prompt from an LGBTQIA+ person, choosing from music, art, poetry, and quotations. 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.
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.
Scribbles & Drabbles 2024
A chill Tolkien event, where artists make art, and authors write little stories in response. Begins in June and ends in November.
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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 like this. The idea that the Avari had solid reasons for not wanting to make the journey doesn't get explored very much. (I also don't think "because Melkor" is much of an explanation...more like editorializing on the vehicle's part.)
Thank you! (Indeed, the chronicles are written by the Noldor who left, so they probably don't bother to understand the movitations of those who stayed behind (or actively want to make them look misguided). It's so unfair!)
I love this. I love that it answers so many arguments in the Silm and L&C, either directly made or implied against the Elves who chose to stay. Morwe asks hard questions, as I imagine the Elves must have. And he has foresight--I can't help but wonder if Finwe will stand on the steps of Formenos, facing Morgoth and his death, and remember what his friend predicted so long ago.
I don't think it's a matter of faith either. At it's heart, this was a moment where people were being asked to upend their lives and choose how they wanted to live. Morwe makes a strong case for staying where they know they can survive, where they were born, and where even they they were placed by Iluvatar. I think he believes all that Finwe has witnessed; he just wants something different.
Precisely! Calling the Avari stubborn or misguided (or even just "unwilling"), or reasoning that they, too, would have gone to Aman if only they had been present when Orome first arrived (... bzuh?!) is missing the point completely, I think (and I can't help wondering whether Rúmil himself believed it, or whether even he just made it up to quieten his own doubts! Oh damn, here we go with the authorial bias again!). It is perfectly possible to "have faith" (in whatever) and believe that Aman exists and the Valar are (at least) benevolent, and yet decide against the journey. Glad if I managed to bring that across here!
Yeah, my heart bleeds at the idea of sending Morwe to Mandos, but it seems kind of worth it just so he and Finwe can discuss everything they've learned since, and perhaps really tell each other that they were both right. Or were they? *dun dun dun* (Of course, I'd want Morwe's people to build a spectacular kingdom of Southern Avari first. So many ideas, so little time... ;))
I like how free of the fear Morwe appers here that according to canon seems the main motivation of the Avari and also how Finwe is both entirely convinced of his goal and nevertheless entirely respectful of Morwe (regardless what canon says later).
Thank you! I'm sure the Avari did have their fair share of fears that were part of their decision, but I just can't believe that with all the dangers they're used to, fear would be their main motivation. Not simple fear of the unknown, at least! And I'm glad that you like the respect between Finwe and Morwe. I felt it was important to show them both as reasonable and level-headed, and moreover to paint neither of them as genuinely wrong (let alone "evil"), and I'm glad that works for 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.