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!
Sign-Up to Hand Out Scavenger Hunt Prompts Our May challenge will be a Matryoshka built around a scavenger hunt. If you'd like to hand out prompts (and receive comments on your work for doing so!), you can sign up to do so.
New Challenge: Everyman Create a fanwork about an ordinary character in the legendarium using a quote about an unnamed character as inspiration.
Cultus Dispatches: Fanworks, AI, and Resistance by Dawn and Grundy The fan studies column Cultus Dispatches returns with a history of how Tolkien fanworks fandom has reacted and resisted generative AI by drawing strong boundaries in a way that is not typical for the fandom.
Inspired by collecting the prompts for the Everyman challenge, this essay considers how ordinary people are subsumed and silenced in The Silmarillion, which begins a three-book arc that ends with the rise of the humble and ordinary.
A Teleri fishing boat captain turns to farming on abandoned Noldor lands after her ship is stolen. A Noldor farmer returns with Finarfin to find that his land belongs to the Teleri now.
In his old age, Isildur's former esquire Ruinamacil, known to later histories only as Ohtar, writes his own account of his escape from the ambush at Gladden Fields and journey to Imladris, and the history of his friend whom Isildur ordered to flee with him.
These were simply flashes, a hint of a wider, greater world. A tantalizing glimpse of more, always at the edge of awareness, never within reach. Míriel would grasp it, if something as intangible as the concept of color could overflow in bounteous wonder over her hands.
Everyman
Create a fanwork about an ordinary character in the legendarium using a quote about an unnamed character as inspiration. Read more ...
Random Challenge
Sibling Rivalry
Create an AU fanwork where an original character--you!--tries to influence his or her canon sibling in some way or in which you choose a sibling to influence you. Read more ...
By definition, fanworks fandom does not draw a lot of boundaries, but community archives and events have taken a strong stance against AI-generated fanworks due to ethical considerations and member input.
In a book as full of death as the Quenta Silmarillion, grief and mourning are surprisingly absent. The characters who receive grief and mourning—and those who don't—appear to do so due to narrative bias. Grief and mourning (or a lack of them) serve to draw attention toward and away from objectionable actions committed by characters.
This presentation for Mereth Aderthad 2025 discusses the parallels between the concept of abnegation in the scientific work surrounding the atomic bomb and in The Silmarillion. The relinquishment of self-interest in favor of the interests of others, abnegation was identified by Tolkien as a powerful act of spirit and reason. The legendarium has many examples of the complexities of abnegation, which parallel similar discussions held by physicists during and after World War II.
Bilbo, the strange old hobbit with the wandering feet, senses something special in young Frodo the first time he sees the lad; as they become close, they find in each other a cameraderie not well understood by other hobbits. Five poignant moments between Bilbo and Frodo Baggins over the course…
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.
This came up as a random story--I re-read it and realized it doesn't have a review on this site. It's got so much going for it that that doesn't seem right... I love the ending.
Aww, thank you so much. It did look a bit like an orphan, I guess. They're not a pairing I write, and had I known it was for Tal, a brilliant writer who coincidentally owned a Gil-galad/Elrond archive, I might have defaulted on that swap. It did get me thinking about the land across the sea though, and what might have been Celebrian's final fate, so those are good things. Thank you for feeling it was worthy of a comment :)
I must have read this years ago. Must have commented on it somewhere! It's lovely and very elegant in its construction. I love how you write the same characters and throw them into different circumstances and situations and yet manage to kept their personalities and essential core the same. I love these two so much.
This especially makes me think of my first experience with your young Elrond--was chatting with someone yesterday about how you made me fall so madly in love with him.
”First time I saw you was on the beach, watching the birds. You were all dark hair and huge eyes…I think I was in love with you before you even opened your mouth…”
I wrote it for one of the Slashy Swaps and at the time I was in the middle of Doubt and you can imagine the mental gymnastics needed to write Elrond/Gil-galad when in Doubt theirs was very much a platonic relationship. This sent me off to read it for the first time in years.... Celebrian's story got expanded in Beyond the Sea, other bits and pieces found their place elsewhere too, Gil is quintessentially Gil )I don't have another way to write him) and Elrond is himself but a bit better behaved and more subdued than in Doubt. Ilye_elf supplied the title and the final line, I remember. Thank you so much for reviewing this Oshun, I've had a lovely stroll down memory lane!
Comments on All Else Lost
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.