As the story goes, Terry Pratchett began writing to pay for the installation of a conservatory in his house. He started writing professionally because it was “obvious that it was much more fun than real work”.

Terry Pratchett is a British author of humorous fantasy books, science fiction, and young adult books (which are none the less devoured by his adult fans). He is most famous for his Discworld series of books which currently contains 26 Novels (with more forthcoming), 4 Maps and a Companion (encyclopedia of the Discworld), not to mention quiz books, stage adaptations, audio-books, pottery figures and much much more...

Terry Pratchett is very conscious that his work does not always reflect on how people act. To this end, he has created Narrativium, a strange element that is present on the Discworld and causes stories to happen as stories. For instance, in many movies and stories, people act as they wouldn’t normally. Narrativium is what causes people to go on a desperate quest for revenge, or love, or something else. Narrativium allows Pratchett to justify his character’s actions as well as make a joke of many other works.

Of course, no one could write without some outside influences. Many of Pratchett’s characters are based on people or on stereotypes, often with a slight twist. While some authors would create a character based entirely on stereotypes, Pratchett would create a character who appears to be a completely stereo-typical character but isn’t.

Only an incredibly imaginative mind could create what Terry Pratchett has. What is the Discworld?

“ ...it comes into view overhead, bigger than the biggest, most unpleasantly-armed starcruiser in the imagination of a three-ring film-maker: a turtle, ten thousand miles long. It is Great A'Tuin, one of the rare astrochelonians from a universe where things are less as they are and more as people imagine them to be, and it carries on its meteor-pocked shell four giant elephants who bear on their enormous shoulders the great round wheel of the Discworld.
As the viewpoint swings around, the whole of the world can be seen by the light of its tiny orbiting sun. There are continents, archipelagos, seas, deserts, mountain ranges and even a tiny central ice cap. The inhabitants of this place, it is obvious, won't have any truck with global theories. Their world, bounded by an encircling ocean that falls forever into space in one long waterfall, is as round and flat as a geological pizza... “
–Equal Rites by Pratchett, 1987

The Discworld, a huge, flat disc held on the back of four giant elephants that stand on top of a giant turtle named A’Tuin. Magic makes this world possible; the wizards at the Unseen University are testament to that. What sort of mind could think of such things?

The sort of mind who’s first story earnt him a 10 out of 10, this first time he’d ever done that except for a painting his teacher thought was two dinosaurs fighting. It was published in his school magazine, the sort that would have struggled to creak even, except that his headmaster has said he didn’t approve of the ‘moral tone’ and consequently the magazine sold out in 15mins.

The sort of mind who lives in constant dread that people will find out how much fun writing is and try to stop him doing it.

The sort of mind who can write 26 novels and still have places to go with the Discworld, and all it’s little side-series within.

Terry Pratchett is a fantastic author who has so much fun writing he doesn’t want to stop. Ever.