john ord
I started writing when I was eight. My first notable success was a short story competition and a comic tale about a crew of seasick pirates. It won, and it turns out that was enough encouragement for me to spend a disproportionate amount of the rest of my life inventing people and places that don’t exist.
From there, a general love of stories became a particular fascination with fantasy. J.R.R. Tolkien was the obvious landmark, but some of the writers who most shaped my early reading include David Gemmell, Raymond E. Feist, David and Leigh Eddings and Terry Pratchett.
They wrote stories built around heroic quests, sprawling worlds, friendships, humour, tragedy and the sense that somewhere beyond the story there was something else waiting to be discovered.
I continued writing throughout school, with results of very mixed quality. Most of that work has quite properly disappeared into old folders and forgotten hard drives, but there were occasional signs of improvement. Make Mad the Guilty, a pastiche of Jacobean tragedy, received praise from the Royal Shakespeare Company, and I later completed a collection of poetry, Refuge.
I studied Philosophy at undergraduate and postgraduate level, and have since made various forays into the world of work, and learned yet more lessons. Today, I live in London with my wife, daughter and a mini-menagerie as I develop Aadanna, a world of sword and sorcery, epic heroes, and spiralling adventures.
why stories?
What is it about stories that we find so compelling, captivating and enjoyable?
A story allows us, briefly, to inhabit somebody else’s experience. We leave where we are, accept another set of circumstances, and see what the world looks like from somewhere else. Fantasy takes that opportunity particularly far. It can change the history, geography, cultures, creatures, technologies and even the fundamental rules of the world, but the imagined world is only part of what matters.
The real magic of storytelling lies in what the experience does to us. We accompany characters through choices, discoveries, victories and mistakes. We understand something we didn’t understand before. Sometimes the character changes. Sometimes we do too.
Ursula K. Le Guin said, “there have been great societies that did not use the wheel, but there have been no societies that did not tell stories.”
Fantasy First
My tastes are broad, but there’s a thread that runs through much of the fiction I return to. I like stories of heroes and hope more than darkness and depravity.
That doesn’t mean worlds without danger, loss or failure. Heroism matters precisely because those things exist.
Take Part
I was taught in my early years that two short questions will tap into our thoughts and feelings on a piece of creativity and I’ve relied on them ever since: Did you like it? Why?
They sound almost absurdly simple. They’re also surprisingly difficult to answer well.
Be Curious!
John ORD
