Unseen Terry Pratchett Writing Tips Are a Gift to New Discworld Fans

As the Discworld graphic novel universe gears up to launch, rare craft advice from Sir Terry Pratchett is resurfacing—and it’s catnip for both aspiring writers and long-time fans. A newly highlighted No Film School piece revisits three of Pratchett’s core storytelling principles, revealing how he built one of fantasy’s most beloved worlds.

The timing couldn’t be better. The Pratchett estate is expanding Discworld into a major new comics line, adapting Thief of Time, Wee Free Men, and Monstrous Regiment into graphic novels scheduled through 2027, with Rhianna Pratchett directly involved in Wee Free Men’s script. For anyone hoping to write the next great fantasy—or just understand how Pratchett did it—these tips feel like a creative roadmap.

‘Believe the Little Lies’ and Bend the Big Ones

In the resurfaced interview clips, Pratchett argues that “nearly all fiction is fantasy,” because stories ask us to believe in things that don’t technically exist—like justice, truth, or a flat world carried on the back of a turtle. In a Sky One conversation, he famously said we train our imaginations on “little lies” like the Tooth Fairy so we can believe in “big lies” like justice and then make them real.

That conviction underpins his first tip: believe in the lies of your own fiction. His Discworld novels might be absurd on the surface, but they only work because he treats their internal logic—and their moral questions—with absolute seriousness. For new writers, it’s permission to stop apologizing for wild ideas and instead double down on making them emotionally truthful.

Pratchett’s second tip is just as counterintuitive: embrace clichés. He built Discworld by leaning into fairy-tale shapes and familiar tropes, then tilting them. We know the third prince will succeed where his brothers failed; Pratchett’s genius was to ask what that story looks like when dropped into a cranky, bureaucratic city like Ankh-Morpork. Recent projects like the Discworld live immersive show and the lore-soaked Discworld RPG are still trading on that mix of comfort and surprise.

Read Everything—and Let Reality Creep In

The third tip is simple, but Pratchett insisted it was non-negotiable: read widely, beyond your genre. In a Seattle Channel interview, he noted that his influences came from “absolutely everywhere—and usually not from fantasy.” That omnivorous reading habit fed Discworld’s sharp satire of politics, religion, and media, all smuggled in under jokes and talking grim reapers.

It’s a timely reminder as Discworld heads into new formats. The estate’s upcoming graphic novels—starting with Thief of Time in 2026 and Wee Free Men in spring 2027—continue a long adaptation tradition that includes earlier comic takes on Mort, Guards! Guards!, and Small Gods. Each new version reinterprets Pratchett’s worlds, but the engine behind them remains the same: big ideas, built from familiar pieces, filtered through an imagination that read everything.

For writers, Pratchett’s advice adds up to a deceptively simple formula: trust your weirdest inventions, twist the stories you think you already know, and never stop refilling the well. For readers, it’s a glimpse into the craft that keeps Discworld feeling inexhaustible—just as a new generation is about to discover it in panels and speech bubbles.