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
Turgon's Rock Opera
On the anniversary of the publication of "The Silmarillion," we’re reflecting on the importance of music in Arda with prompts that come from rock songs. 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.
Subscribe to the SWG Newsletter
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 bet my bias for Elrond is showing here. He's one of my favorites. Cannot help but think he would try to track Melian after he sailed West and I believe he is just that determined. Thank you for reading it and letting me know you liked it.
Author's Response:
I bet my bias for Elrond is showing here. He's one of my favorites. Cannot help but think he would try to track Melian after he sailed West and I believe he is just that determined. Thank you for reading it and letting me know you liked it.
I really like your strange, almost alien Melian and how Elrond's interaction with her revitalizes her spirit. Elrond is always fun to write, there are many ways to go with him with all his history. I could imagine him getting weary just trying to relate it all. The ending of his return journey is perfect for his character too. Another great character piece with unique descriptions.
Thanks! Thanks! I wrote a big long thank you and somehow think I closed it without posting. I need a nap! You were good to me when I was sick and pathetic and made me feel like even with only half of my synapses firing I could still post a little ficlet and not feel shame! You are kind and warm person--kind of like Elrond the way I like him (a little smug too sometimes! Afterall, Elrond is almost half-Feanorian--the nurture half of the old nature vs. nurture discussion!).
A wonderfully entertaining read! I'm so glad I decided to visit DW and LJ after such a long absence, to discover the entries for this challenge that Dawn had posted! Yours is the second story I've read and I intend to read all of them.
Melian is one of my favourite of JRR's characters. Because I love her I've always written her as a more or less sympathetic character and I do love the "side" of her that you've painted here. She comes across as kind of scary - a witchy woman indeed. (Thanks for putting that song in my head. I'm sure it'll stay there until I can replace it with something just as catchy.)
" In the short time he had spent in Aman, he had found a most frustrating lack of any sense of absurdity among the Ainur."
This line made me laugh so hard. I'm not up on the latest lingo, but will 'As If!!'! do, or perhaps 'I know, right?' The Ainur certainly aren't known for their humour, are they?
Anyway, I do love the conversation between Melian and Elrond that you've written here.
His words and attitude almost verge on the disrespectful, yet he does sense her arrogance - she is very self-centred and I'm sure that irks him more than a little. It must have been very tiring to talk at length with her. At least Elrond seems to have a good sense of humour and managed to get through the encounter unscathed.
As usual you have written characters that seem so real!
OMG..."The Mists of Avalon" is a book I've had for ages but have not managed to pick up and read yet. I wanted to read it so badly ages ago. I don't know what is wrong with me.
Thank you so much for reading and leaving a comment!! I am glad you enjoyed it.
I am glad I made you laugh too! I was trying very hard not to write pure crack-fic but I got very close at times! My real-life is largely quasi-tragic crack-fic so I am not always a great judge. I am able to laugh at it though. So I guess I am channeling Elrond in this story! I think he has a lot of empathy with Melian, but also has a pretty dry sense of humor. Melian also occupied a human form for a long time--up to including giving birth which is quite the essentially human experience! Nothing else quite compares to that! So I believe that Elrond went into the encounter convinced that he could reach her. And I believed it too. And he finally did!
Short-shorts are really a challenge! I don't know why people believe they are easy! They are definitely not!
Too bad you did not read Mists of Avalon earlier! It's still not too late, but it does not improve with age! It's got a decent plot and a lot of great language and some terrific scenes! But it was more ground-breaking when it came out than it is now. But I enjoyed it a lot. I definitely recommend that you find the chance to read it if you can.
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.