He also wasn’t afraid to co-opt his universe and shoehorn in a story from a different source, if needed. I believe that the third book started life as a Doctor Who script.
I wonder how much remaining approachable for listeners who only jump in on nth episode was a driver of the creative process. "Story first" must have meant something very different from what we might effect today.
My first contact was hearing it on the radio some night, a German language radio version likely created long after the books became the defining version. Makes me wonder which original version it was closer to. Could have been a close translation of the original radio version, could have been a radio reboot based on the books.
"Dear famous Science Fiction editor,
While I know that this is the way many people write, it is not the way I do it. "
Her description of her process was that she made it up as she went along but because of her characters or locations there was always only one reasonable choice. So for example when Vivian is biting on Reginald's ankle he says "I do not think this is at all pertinent to the matter at hand", because, being Reginald what else could he possibly say? (anecdote about Reginald and Vivian from the article although no doubt mangled by the years between reading and now.
That is a very "local" view of causality and story logic, which could lead to an inconsistent world (like a location being both a rainforest and a desert), which might not matter for the small lart of the world history that is the story, or one that leans heavily on defaults inported from the aurhor's experience (which might or might not be same as the readers')
He talks about it in one of his Letters - and says that’s why he ended up having to reduce the amount of “orc talk” because it was making them sympathetic and he didn’t really know how to handle it - for the story he wanted generic disposable “baddies”.
That explanation does not work in Tolkien's universe though. Can orcs be redeemed? Do they still have a soul? What happens to it when they die? Do they go to the halls of Mandos? Can they be reincarnated like elves?
Tolkien was never satisfied with any explanation because he could not fit them inside his world's theology, which is inspired by Christianity but does not match it one to one.
The only pity is that J.R.R. Tolkien never finished it, so some things like where Hobbits came from or where the Blue Wizards went remain (mostly) unaddressed.
The extended LOTR film depiction of them being made from a mud-like mixture is nonsense.