The world is made up of four elements: Earth, Air, Fire, Water. This is a fact known even to Corporal Nobbs. It's also wrong. There is a fifth element, and generally it's called Surprise.
   For example, the dwarfs found out how to turn lead into gold by doing it the hard way. The difference between that and the easy way is that the hard way works.

   The dwarfs dwarfhandled their overloaded, creaking cart along the street, peering ahead in fog. Ice formed on the cart and hung from their beards.
   All it needed was one frozen puddle.
   Good old Dame Fortune. You can depend on her.

William de Worde is a purveyor of words. A writer. A worde-smith, haha. And a lot less of an alter-ego to the author, rather than a sub-ego. Probably he is a combination of two of the original mediaeval printers, William Caxton and Wynkin de Worde. And the younger Terry Pratchett, who saw a corpse on his first day as a newbie journalist, "work experience meaning something in those days".

Ankh-Morpork's wizards have always been against printing magical words, simply because the print-impression would then be broken up and the letters re-used in ordinary bookmaking, thus in all likelihood causing any number of magical mishaps. And so, the engraver's guild has had a large monopoly on any form of print medium available - usually in boxwood, laboriously carved by hand. Of course, spelling mistakes by the engraver are pretty much a permanent affair.

   'The problem, Archchancellor,' he tried, 'is that we have always been very much against using movable type printing for magic purposes because--'
   'Yes, yes, I know all about that,' said the Archchancellor. 'But there's all the other stuff, more of it every day (...) You know I've always wanted a paperless office--'
   'Yes, Archchancellor, that's why you hide it all in cupboards and throw it out of the window at night.'
   'Clean desk, clean mind,' said the Archchancellor. He thrust the leaflet into the Bursar's hand.
   'Just you trot down there, why don't you, and see if it's just a lot of hot air. But walk, please.'

But printing... that would really cause upheaval. Printing is so much cheaper, so much faster; spelling mistakes can be quickly corrected. A small number of dwarves from the mountains have brought a printing press to Morpork, and William de Worde falls in with them. He finds himself enthralled. Usually, he sends off a small newsletter to a few select members of the ruling classes in other cities (including the Serif of Al Khali.) Once a month, he traces a page of observations onto a piece of boxwood and takes it to an engraver. But now -- now he can do it every week. No; every day.

He finds himself rather stuck, in fact. The press demands to be fed. He has to find enough news. But after a while, the news begins to find him.

Like: someone has tried to implicate the Patrician in a crime in order to depose him. The only witness is Wuffles, Vetinari's geriatric mongrel with terminal halitosis and two teeth, who has gone missing. This is not a particularly good state of affairs for the city. Vimes is baffled (he just doesn't appreciate this fact being emblazoned on the front page) as is William, who was quite a small fish before his "paper of news items" became an instant bestseller (peddled by Foul Ole Ron, actually). A small cabal of "concerned citizens" is in the conspiracy up to their collective neck, although they have hired the New Firm of Mr Tulip and Mr Pin to do all the dirty work; these two 'gentlemen' are somewhat of a human demolition squad (ie, they demolish humans) and no one who has two braincells to rub together will get on the bad side of Mr Tulip, whose intense groundstate of homicidal rage is only ameliorated by his finely-tuned appreciation of rare and fine art (it takes all kinds, I suppose.)

   Mr Tulip walked over to a shrouded picture and tweaked the cloth aside.
   'Well -- me, it's a --ing da Quirm,' he said. 'I seen a print of it. Woman holding Ferret. He did it just after he moved from Genua and was influenced by --ing Caravati. Look at that --ing brushwork, will ya? See the way the line of the hand draws the --ing eye into the picture? Look at the quality of the light on the landscape you can see through the --ing window there. See the way the ferret's nose follows you around the room? That's --ing genius, that is. I don't mind telling you that if I was here by myself I'd be in --ing tears.'