The Wood Beyond The World Forum World-building, and maps

So for those of you that write in a completely different world, what is your view on map-making? If you do make maps, why? For personal reference, or to help readers understand where the action is taking place? If you don't make maps, why did you decide not to?

For me, world-building is one of the funnest aspects of fantasy. Of course I try not to let the world itself get in the way of the telling. I only operate in one fictional world, Argul (where Winds of Change is set). It helps me in my writing, already having the world and its cultures and customs and geography and deities and beliefs and species down pat, so I don't accidentally write any discrepancies or contradictions about the world itself.

One thing I DO NOT like about most modern fantasy writers' maps is that they're completely unrealistic. So, apparently, their entire world is rectangular (the shape of a double page in the back of the book). The best fantasy maps I've seen are of Tolkien's world (I have a map that he drew of his ENTIRE world, not just Middle-earth, including Valinor, and it's spectacular) and, sadly, the world of the Dungeons and Dragons game. I started with just a detailed, up close map of a particular country of Argul where the story takes place, and then it expanded, and I actually made a globe of my fantasy world. I was pretty proud of that.

Anyway, I love world-making because, even though there should be a certain realism to the makeup of the land, there's lots of room for creativity, since it is a fictional world. I love making up fantastic things, for instance a race of sand elves live in giant cacti, hundreds of feet tall, which were hollowed out and made liveable.

Anyway, so what do you all think about world-building, and/or maps?

Hey andy.
Your post brings to my mind two great tales i hope some of you will consider reading in the future. Clive Barker's Imajica and George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire.

The first one has no map. However, one of the drives that motivates the main character besides self-discovery, is a desire to draw a map of the Imajica system and how the dominions are connected. The fun thing about this book is that earth is the fifth dominion out of five and it is the only one that is unreconciled. so no one gets in, no one gets out. everyone inside has no idea about the 4 other dominions. and meanwhile the four other dominions are wondering "what went wrong? why haven't they reconciled yet?"

the second is a series of fantasty realism books. the maps are realistic but incomplete. This is their most realistic quality. The author intentionally has seperate maps for certain parts of the world but doesn't show how they are connected. It's for making the reader feel distanced (which is a major device for his tale) Two main characters one two parts of the world who don't even know each other, but you and i both know will be meeting in the future.
Since the maps are partial and unconnected they create a strong desire to see the world explored.

Andy, you've read some of my stuff. I dont have any maps and i don't think maps will ever be possible in my cosmos. It always moves.

Hehe yeah, I think a map of the cosmos might just be even more confusing for your stories, Adam. It's not a bad "What the heck is going on" confusing, more like a delightful "wow, this is really interesting and completely different" confusing. I'll be reading more of the cosmos soon!

Those stories sound really interesting, especially the Imajica one. I think I might go to the library today to see if they have it.

Andy,

For me, I have always looked for maps in books that I read. Its not a requirement of course that the book have one, but I love to keep paging back to the map and looking at the world, where the characters started out, where they are going, etc.

For me, the Map of Netherron did not come into existence until I started Book 2. I had a crude map in Book 1 I used just for my own reference, because my character do travel a great distance. Then in Book 2, they leave the main land and journey to the Shattered Isle's, well this meant a new map, and additional wall space.

I created a template in excell, and within 30 days, I have a complete world now on excell. I tried some high price fantasy gamers programs, but none could do my world justice like my excell program did, so I have stuck with the excell one. My map now covers an entire wall, 15 wide by 8 feet high. As I upgrade names, add villages or such, I only have to print out the pages I have changed and then overlay it. I aslo use color coded lines for the travels of each book.

Could I get away without a map. Sure...but the map is a tool like anything else, and the story is still in my head. Will a map be added with my books, if I ever get published, I sure hope the publisher agree's to do so. If not, I might have to take that on as a special project of my own and send to readers who request. Hope they have a big wall. lol.

As to world building, anything outside of earth as we know it today, all authors have to world build. If your writing a western from the 1860's, you still have to create the scene, the towns, the dress of the people, transportations, commerce, and such, if only to remind readers of what it was like then. Same thing if your writing Greek or Roman period pieces. Reader may understand Rome was one the center of the known empire, but they still have to be reminded that not everyone wore toga's, or fought in the style of the Turtle, or Box.

If you create your own world though, you will have to build from scratch and explain more points than normal. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America has a lot of good articles on World Building, Character Building, Scene Building, and lots of others things on their Website. (www.sfwa.org). And its free. lol.

For me as a Fantasy writer, it is even more joyous to create my own world than in the other gendre's I write.

Just my thoughts.
Nick.

It feels like we've all been longing to discuss this stuff. I know I have.

I had to put together a map that showed at least the rough relationships of my four cultures, to hammer out details of climate and distance, and I'd imagine a publisher would want to have it fleshed out and included in the book. Diplomats do a lot of traveling, and it's good to be able to place them.

It's only one corner of my world, though. There are vast unexplored regions, assumed by the inhabitants of the explored bits to be mostly ocean -- eventually ship-building technology and courage and curiosity may spur someone to voyage into the unknown.

I've always been fascinated by maps of any kind anyway -- and fascinated by geography, geology, climatology, the star-gazing kind of astronomy -- natural history in general. In a sense, world-building is just an excuse to explore our world, without anyone else's history and expectations getting in the way. I have to control myself, sometimes, when writing about the landscape and wildlife my characters deal with, so I don't lose track of the story. I gave myself an out by making one of my protagonists a naturalist. And the natural world is of intrinsic importance to the "magic" practiced in one of my cultures.

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My husband and I visited William Faulkner's home in Oxford MS this spring -- the best museum I've ever been to -- beautiful tranquil woods, lovely, simple house and furnishings (we'd been to Graceland the day before, so the beauties of Rowan Oak were the more striking by contrast.) Faulkner created his own world too, though it's obviously Mississippi in the early twentieth century. He drew a map of his fictional county (the name of which I can neither spell nor pronounce) -- quite small, framed on a wall near the entry door of the house -- the legend numbers the inhabitants according to race and declares that William Faulkner is the sole proprietor.

Every fictional world is a creation of its author, even if it has claims to so-called "reality."

Sorry just had to bring this up and since it was mentioned in this forum figured it was a good spot to do it. What is it that some of you seem to have against dnd? I admit writing a story in the same manner as you'd do one in that game is not a good idea but it is in the end a game and one many people enjoy (as well as one who's worlds have spawned some of the most successful fantasy series in history, written by some of the premier fantasy authors) so I'm curious what do you have against it? I apologize for going off topic like that. As for maps in my work I like a rough idea of the general area I'm writing in just to keep from contradicting myself.

I'm a fan of dnd also. I think people don't like it because, though it did spawn some really successful stories, it has also spawned a massive flood of cookie cutter novels with predictable characters, journeys, and endings, and the cliche things in dnd like elves and dragons have become related to all those boring predictable stories that somehow still get published. Just my theory.

Nick, you said that you made a map with excel? That sounds really interesting...I didn't know excel could be used for things like that.

That would explain it. Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms alone made many such things highly cliche.

Andy...

I was lucky to learn D&D when it came in a box and the manuals looked home made. Still have an orginal set and I still have all my dice, DM Screen, monster manuels, gods and demi gods, pre-designed campaigns, figures, and all my old character sheets, or should I say...character files.

Netherron started out as a campaign I DM'd for well over a year with some very hard core players. Some games lasted 36 to 48 hrs. Ahhh, those were the days. I kept notes and many of my characters are based on those early games.

Back in those days, I was even pen pals with the grand dame of SF&F, Ms Andre Norton and we discussed D&D and its popularity. She even wrote a book about a game that turned into more than a game for its players. Not saying I had anything to do with inspiring her...but she was not a player....lol. God I miss her. May she RIP. TSR was even sent an early layout of the orginal campaign, back then know as the Gods of Netherron, complete with map, storyline and such, but they passed... Ha...what did they know. lol.

The mid 80's to mid 90's saw an explosion of D&D related books and even films, most of them...bad. Weis and Hickman are the two that really took the D&D creation to a new level. Hard to compete with Tanis half-elf, or that damn Kinder, what a great character.

By time I got around to wanting to turn the Tales of Netherron into something serious, I looked at taking the characters and the campaign into a new direction. I am trying to upgrade the story even now to a higher notch. High Fantasy, I wish...but typical D&D, I hope not.

I think with the advent of video games and on line role playing, the old D&D system lost some of its appeal. I hosted a small reunion game about 6 months ago with some of the old players. I even got my daughter into it and she says she had a blast because its all in the players heads and not video images of quick reaction times. She and some of the other players kids loved it. One even asked me if I would consider DM future games if he could round up a half dozen players or more. MY single highest rated game was thirty-three players and it took two DM's to run just one round. It was wild.

Nick.

true, dnd went downhill when wizards of the coast bought it. they abandoned many of the older settings too. Anyway as to the topic, anyone know a good program for creating maps on?

James,

Wizards of the coast suck...but its business.

Save your money. I have two different map programs and the learning curbs are very time consuming just learn the basics. The maps still do not look as good as those I make using excel, and then coloring by hand with colored pencils. I get much better topicgraphical appeareances that way. Both tell you that you can incorporate maps from other programs but I will be damned if I or anyone I know has been successful with that function.

I have spent over $500 between the two sets and for the money...it was a waste. One set is 9 cds and that is alot of hard drive space and memory to need.

Create your own template on Excel, and then take to Kinko's and have printed out on a 3x4 sheet of heavy duty paper. Take home and color, hang on wall, admire with pride. lol. Use the extra money to take your sweety out dancing, or to buy yourself more ink cartridges, memory, etc.

Nick.

how do you make a map with excel?

James,

The way I did it was to create grids of columns and rows until they are near as sq as I can get them. I then use free style draw to draw the cost, rivers etc.. I then use excel templates for trees and such, again shrunk to size, along with a few free style symbols I created for mountains and start copying and pasting them, putting them in positions. There are various symbols you can use for cities, villages, ports, citidels, castles, you name it, just pick a symbol form the pull up bar, shrink it to bit the scale. Its a trial and error method of what works for you. I also use overlay darts so that as each page prints up, I can cut the edge with an exact and overlay it on the bordrer to match. Or...you can just go to Kinko's and have them print it up on a larger format. Memory sticks work well. It too was time consuming, but not as much as learning those professional mapper programs.

Nick.

I own and play some of the D&D video games, only the ones that are actually good, like the Baldur's Gate series, and Planescape: Torment. But I still prefer the pen and paper version. It's really great when you have a small group of really imaginitive and creative players, they always throw curveballs at the DM in certain situations. I play mostly in 2nd edition, even though the rest of the world has moved on to 3rd...I just can't get used to it.

Using excel for map-making sounds like a good idea...but for another day. I'm wiped out...need sleep.

very nice, how far to right do you suggest turning it into a grid? as needed or you do you have a typical stopping point?

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I think I'll stick to drawing by hand on graph paper -- and if I'm ever published I hope a professional will adapt what I've done. I think I'm as much of an artist as Tolkien, anyway -- I can do landscapes and trees and buildings -- maybe I can be as good a mapmaker, if I put some effort into it.

Think i'll stick to paper myself, can't seem to get the draw function on excel to work and the basic paint program is just not worth it.

The hardest thing about map drawing for me is drawing coastline. In my head i know that I want a certain country situated in a certain way next to another country or by the sea, but when it comes to actually drawing coastline--peninsulas, bays, harbors, fjords, isthmuses (isthmi?) It's hard for me to see that in my head.

I wonder how much where we live and where we may have traveled has to do with our conceptions of our worlds? I grew up on the shores of Lake Superior, with dense forest all around, and lived a big part of my young adult life in New Mexico -- high desert, mountains -- and have been stuck in the swamps/prairies of Louisiana for the last 18 years. I think some of my geographical, geological, climatological knowledge comes quite legitimately from reading and watching nature documentaries and the like, but my real experience probably informs my knowledge of terrain and climate to a much greater degree. In fact, my stories partially sprang from my nostalgia for long northern winters -- the thrill of blizzards, the tremendous relief of spring, when it comes at last -- and I've vented about the oppressiveness of a tropical climate in some of my stuff.