Silmarillion Writers' Guild

The 1940s was a decade of contrasts. It contained humankind's deadliest war and ushered in its biggest baby boom. European powers nursed their war wounds, the United States and Soviet Union rose as superpowers, and the first stirrings of decolonization inspired millions to seek independence and the right to self-governance. All of this occurred as swing music and the first jukeboxes played in the background, and technological advancements brought space travel, the atomic bomb, and Tupperware.

This month's challenge focuses on the decade that both contained the first teen crooners and saw literature and film turn to noir. Prompts come from the 1940s, and you are welcome to choose any from the list below. As usual, you can use any part of the prompt—dig deep into a novel or film or the lyrics of a song if you want, or use the title, book cover, or movie poster—anything goes! We welcome you to combine prompts and interpret them as creatively as your imagination requires.

Find the Swinging 40s prompt collection and fanworks here.

Thank you to Pages for this month's stamps!

In order to receive a stamp for your fanwork, your response must be posted to the archive on or before 15 August 2025. For complete challenge guidelines, see the Challenges page on our website.

A rustle of silk, the song of a sword unsheathed, the rhythmic clop of hooves on cobblestones … Period dramas take us back in time—to the good times, that is, and an escape to a past where we aren't asked to endure the absence of antibiotics, electric lights, or basic rights for most of the population; when people and clothing were beautiful (and had all of their teeth), no one stunk, and toileting practices are left to the imagination.

This month's challenge is a Matryoshka challenge, where you will choose a prompt set based on a level of difficulty, revealing one prompt at a time as you move through your fanwork. Prompts are based around common tropes found in period dramas. It is important to note, however, that your fanwork does not need to be a period piece itself. Any genre, topic, and approach to the prompts is welcome!

How a Matryoshka Challenge Works

Matryoshka dolls are also known as Russian nesting dolls, with each doll containing a smaller doll inside. A Matryoshka challenge works similarly, requiring creators to fit their response to each prompt within a fanwork already underway for previous prompts.

You will use multiple prompts for a Matryoshka challenge. First, choose your difficulty level: Beginner (two prompts), Easy (three), Medium (five), or Difficult (seven … and good luck!) You will include each prompt in your story, opening them one at a time as you create your fanwork. (See below for how to use the prompts for formats other than fanfiction.) Prompts will include directions about when you can open the next prompt. Prompt sets can be found below.

If you want to create a fanwork other than fiction for a Matryoshka challenge, you can use any of the following approaches to your prompt set:

This month there is a special stamp available for nonwritten fanworks made using the Matryoshka prompts! This would include artwork, audio, link collections, playlists, videos, and multimedia fanworks. Writing is allowed but should also include one of these other types.

Thank you to Zdenka for this month's banner and stamps!

In order to receive a stamp for your fanwork, your response must be posted to the archive on or before 15 June 2025. For complete challenge guidelines, see the Challenges page on our website.

On March 14, 2005, the SWG arrived in the small hours of the morning. It was still in very embryonic form, actualized only as a Yahoo! Group with no members and a series of very cringey posts on Dawn's LiveJournal (she had no idea how LiveJournal worked, having joined just that day to post these cringey posts in her insomnia-fueled effort to launch the SWG).

Twenty years later, this challenge debuted in recognition of two full decades of existence of the SWG. Each day, we will post an event that is an important hashmark on the timeline of the SWG's history along with three prompts that (at least in the challenge mods' mind) are associated with that event: a single word, a snippet of poetry (with a link to the full poem), and a public domain image. As always, you can use any aspect of the prompt to inspire your fanwork, including fragments of prompts or parts of the poem not included on the challenge page. The history snippets are fair game as prompts. You do not have to create or share your response on the day a prompt is posted. You can go back to past prompts, and you can stitch prompts from different days together into fanworks in cool and bizarre ways.

You can find challenge prompts for Birthday Bash here.

In order to receive a stamp for your fanwork, your response must be posted to the archive on or before 25 April 2025. (Note that this extends the challenge past the usual deadline of the 15th so that those who wish to create for the later prompts in the challenge have the opportunity to do so!) For complete challenge guidelines, see the Challenges page on our website.

We always like to start the new year fresh and with creativity. To that end, we begin the year with an amnesty, allowing you to create a fanwork for any of the previous year’s challenges. To celebrate the SWG’s 20th anniversary year, we’re expanding that in our second ever Jubilee. (Yes, we know Jubilees are traditionally every 25 or 50 years. We’re not that patient, so we’re making our own Jubilee tradition—do one when it feels right.)

Any challenge from January 2017 onward is fair game for the amnesty this January! If there’s a challenge you’ve been eyeing that was before your time, or one you’ve been kicking yourself for missing, this is your moment. If you started a challenge response but never finished it, here’s your chance. Done them all? We are in awe. Also, you can create for any of them—just make sure you post to the Jubilee challenge to get your stamp.

If you’re all worn out from all 2024 threw at you but ready to go on a fanworks binge, the Jubilee includes commenting stamps.

During the Jubilee, you can collect any existing challenge stamp. The only new stamps we’ll be giving out are the Jubilee-specific ones. We do have a few caveats and mod requests regarding particular challenges—all are available on the challenge page.

In order to receive a stamp for your fanwork, your response must be posted to the archive on or before 15 February 2025. For complete challenge guidelines, see the Challenges page on our website.

While the SWG hopes to inspire creativity, we also look to foster community. To that end, we’re trying something new with our Matryoshka challenge format. (This is something of an experiment, but we’re hoping it gets SWG members talking, newcomers and long-timers alike!)

This month, if you would like to attempt the challenge, regardless of the difficulty level you choose, you will be given only one prompt to start you off. The rest of your prompts will come from interacting with other SWG members, whether that’s in comments, conversations on our Discord, on other social media, or in-person. (The interaction does not have to be on the SWG website itself, or even necessarily in SWG spaces.) When giving prompts to others, you are free to pass on any of the prompts you have. The mods will also have a few prompts up their sleeves to give out in interactions rather than requests for starter prompts, so feel free to talk to us, too!

As part of the challenge, we will also host a live Instadrabbling event the weekend of February 17. (Participation is not required for the challenge, but will be a good opportunity to collect prompts!)

In order to receive a stamp for your fanwork, your response must be posted to the archive on or before 15 March 2024. For complete challenge guidelines, as well as how to get your first prompt and a list of other participants, see the Challenges page on our website.