/lit/ - Literature

I really love the fantasy genre. Whether it's within literature, films, or video games.
It just seems to be so creative even though I know a lot of the fantasy themes are recycled.
But what I've always wondered were two things about fantasy writers that I was hoping some of you could answer for me:

1.) How did people come up with the original concepts for fantasy characters? It's so amazing to me that Tolkein was the original writer of Orcs (that's what I heard, at least).

2.) And more importantly, to me, how do fantasy writers come up with all their crazy fantasy names? I've seen many recycled names for races, but character names, languages, and locations often seem uniquely written by the writer(s). I can't manage to come up with three decent character names for myself when I create a character in a fantasy game. I can't even begin to understand naming everything in a fictional world.

>>4138335

Most certainly not.

40 years ago today, the greatest author of English literature passed away. Let's take this moment to pay our respects to J. R. R. Tolkien.