TERRY PRATCHETT
By Lindsay Jackson
Mod 7/8
MAP OF DISCWORLD
5 INTERESTING FACTS
Terry Pratchett writes Discworld, an almost 39
book series that he has been writing since 1983
 He was knighted in 2009 for services to literature
by the British Empire.

He writes books for children, teens, and adults

He is a trustee of the Orangutan Foundation,
which raises money to save the orangutan and
its habitat

Overall, he has published 50 books.

5 MORE INTERESTING FACTS
He was influenced by Shakespeare (Wyrd Sisters
has witches like the Macbeth witches)
 Wrote a book called Good Omens with the author
of Coraline, Neil Gaiman
 He has a rare form of early- onset Alzheimer's
that involves the back of his brain
 He has earned many awards, such as the
Carnegie Medal and the Margaret A. Edwards
award (more information about these on the
handout )
 He uses fantasy elements (wizards, vampires) to
deal with everyday social issues such as male
prejudice

THESIS
How does Terry Pratchett make Discworld seem
like real life while still being fantasy?
TERRY PRATCHETT’S LIFE
He grew up on a farm in Beaconsfield,
Buckinghamshire, England, which is about 20
miles from London
 He went to technical high school
 He sold his first story at 13
 As I said before, he has Alzheimer’s
 Wanted to be an astronomer when he was
younger

CONNECTIONS TO HIS BOOKS
Terry Pratchett grew up on a farm, and farms require lots of work to
keep running. Usually, the kids of the farmer have to help out with
the chores, which are a lot of responsibility. This is why many
characters in his books have a lot of responsibilities to take care of
them themselves, without help from others. In I Shall Wear
Midnight, Tiffany has to kill the cunning man largely by her own
wit. In Wintersmith, she has to kill the Wintersmith by herself, too.
Tiffany is also very young when she has these responsibilities around our age. I’m sure that you can’t imagine yourself taking on a
threat to the safety of the world by yourself (not that saving the
world compares to farm chores...) Terry Pratchett was also an only
child, which might have contributed to this. Much of the books I read
(I Shall Wear Midnight and Wintersmith took place in a rural
setting. Even the city, Ankh-Morpork, was described as a
“wonderful town“, even though it is a city, (and not that wonderful)
in I Shall Wear Midnight. Also in I Shall Wear Midnight, Tiffany
meets her future self, who forgets a lot. This could be a reference to
Terry Pratchett’s Alzheimer's, even though his cognitive ability is
not much affected yet. Although Death appears in nearly all of his
novels, it is not a connection to Alzheimer’s because it has been
appearing in novels since 1987, and he was only recently diagnosed.
SMALLER CONNECTIONS
Terry Pratchett also incorporates aspects of his life
into his books in smaller ways. In Discworld,
there is a school for wizards called the Unseen
University. The librarian there is an orangutan,
and Terry Pratchett is a trustee of the Orangutan
Foundation. He lives on the English chalk
country, which includes the White Cliffs of Dover,
and Tiffany lives on the Chalk hills in Discworld
on a farm. Tiffany’s family was also based on
Terry Pratchett’s. Both Tiffany and Pratchett
have read a dictionary straight through and
make cheese.
ANALYSIS OF WRITING STYLE
For this portion of the presentation, I’ll be focusing on I
Shall Wear Midnight. Terry Pratchett doesn’t use
very large chunks of imagery except to introduce a
new setting. Throughout the book, he’ll put in
imagery to describe the actions of a person, like “Mr.
Carpetlayer was a very happy man as he twirled and
hopped, very nearly turned a cartwheel…”. He barely
describes how any of the humans look, and actually
describes how the Feegles look more often (picture
Irish smurfs ). He doesn’t develop the main
character, Tiffany, as much as he develops Letitia,
Roland, and the Duchess, who are more minor
characters.
ANALYSIS OF WRITING STYLE CONT.
The book is mostly one big rising action, with a small climax,
and little/ no falling action. This takes away from the
boringness of beginnings. For most of the book, the setting
is the Chalk, but Tiffany makes small trips to AnkhMorpork and Letitia’s house. Terry Pratchett uses lots of
verisimilitude, but still leaves room for fantasy. For
example, “ Not many witches got a whole geological outcrop
to themselves, even if this one was mostly covered in grass,
and the grass was mostly covered in sheep.” But, in this
same setting,(this quote is talking about a hare) “ This one
burst into flames. She blazed for a moment and then,
entirely unharmed, sped away in a blur…the turf isn’t
scorched.” The tone is serious, yet humorous (this is a
quality in many of his books ). He uses all types of
sentences, but mostly compound- complex or just complex.
Some themes are teamwork, independence, and
responsibility. He uses little figurative language, although
he uses metaphors and similes occasionally.
SUMMARY OF WINTERSMITH
The book opens with a large snowstorm. Tiffany is doing everything
she can to stop it. This is a flash forward. Presently, Tiffany is
studying witchcraft with Miss Treason, a 113 year old witch who
takes Tiffany to see a dance that brings the Winter, however,
Tiffany breaks Miss Terason’s most important rule which is to not
join in the dance. Because she does, the Wintersmith (who is the
personification of Winter), is in love with her and will stop at
nothing to find her. Miss Treason dies, and Tiffany is taken to
Nanny Ogg’s house. Nanny is also a witch. When she gets there,
she is told that not only is the Wintersmith after her, but she is
turning into the personification of summer. The Wintersmith soon
finds her, but she flies back to the Chalk before he can get too
close to her. The Feegles are with her through all of this, although
not really doing much. Now, though, they play a bigger role.
Granny Weather wax, another witch, tells them to find a hero to
go into the underworld and rescue the real personification of
Summer. The hero they find is Roland, Tiffany’s long time friend
and future Baron of the Chalk. When Tiffany gets back to the
Chalk, snow is everywhere and she finds herself in a ice castle
where the Wintersmith wants her to stay forever. She saves
herself (and most of the world) by kissing him, which makes him
kind of die. Then, Roland and the Feegles arrive with the Summer
Lady and everything is good again.
SUMMARY OF I SHALL WEAR MIDNIGHT
Tiffany has now become the witch of the Chalk, which
means that she takes care of the residents and watches
over them. She is warned of a danger by the female chief
of the Feegles, Jeannie. Tiffany helps the daughter of an
alcoholic and violent man by letting her stay with the
Feegles. This turns out to be a mistake later. She goes to
help the sick Baron, who dies soon after she arrives,
which makes people not want to trust her. What makes
his death even more suspicious was that he gave Tiffany
a lot of money right before he died (Tiffany didn’t do
anything to him though). The next day, Tiffany goes to
Ankh-Morpork to tell Roland that his father died. On the
way she crashes, and sees a ghost who is dressed in all
black, with no eyes, and smells really really bad. He
doesn’t do anything but threaten her, and she flies the
rest of the way to Ankh-Morpork.
SUMMARY CONT.
The Feegles find Roland, who is with his fiancée and almost
mother-in-law. His mother-in-law, the Duchess, is very rude
and her daughter Letitia is quiet and cries a lot. The Duchess
calls the police on Tiffany and a city witch, Mrs. Proust. They
get locked up just to make the Duchess happy, but are soon
released. Suddenly, Tiffany is taken to seen Eskarina Smith,
the only female wizard. She tells her that the ghost she saw
was the Cunning Man, a master witch killer who is out to get
Tiffany. He bursts in as she is explaining, and Tiffany flies
back to the Chalk, where she is imprisoned under suspicion
that she killed the cook. She escapes and finds Letitia, who is
really a witch (although she didn’t know before). Soon, the
Cunning man finds Tiffany again. This time, she has to kill
him. She starts a huge bonfire, (as he is afraid of fire), with
the help of her friend Preston and the Feegles, who have been
with her through the whole story, and kills the Cunning Man.
The next day, Letitia and Roland get married and Tiffany uses
the money given to her by the Baron to open a school in the
Chalk, where Preston will teach. Tiffany also meets her future
self.
DISCWORLD!
( SEE THE LITTLE DISC AT THE TOP? THAT’S THE
ACTUAL DISCWORLD. IT SITS ON THE BACKS OF 4
ELEPHANTS WHICH ARE ON THE BACK OF A GIANT
TURTLE, GREAT A’TUIN, WHO SWIMS THROUGH
SPACE)
IN CONCLUSION…
Terry Pratchett is an extremely successful fantasy
author who writes the almost 39 book Discworld
series. He uses humor and fantasy creatures to deal
with serious, everyday issues. He also incorporates
his own life (his Alzheimer’s and his childhood life on
a farm ) into his books. Lots of imagery and sensory
details are incorporated in his books, while little
figurative language and character development for
the main characters is used. And to answer my thesis
question, since Terry Pratchett incorporates real
situations into fantasy settings and draws inspiration
from his life and real places and people, he can pull
off making Discworld seem like real life, but still
being fantasy.