I've been working on a fantasy novel for the past few years. Adult fantasy, I guess you'd call it. Whatever that means. Anyway we're getting close enough to publication that I've finally reached the point where I'm supposed to draw the map.
I guess I could have started with it, but to be honest I didn't really know enough about the world yet -- I had to go there and come back and then do the map. A lot of writers go the other way, like Tolkien creating the languages for the races in The Lord of the Rings before he wrote the actual book. (I don't know for sure if he did that or not, but if he did do that, it would be like that.) I once met Christopher Paolini, and he told me he drew the map of Alagaësia before he wrote Eragon. (He said that when he drew the Beor Mountains he didn't mean to make them that big, he had just messed up the scale by accident. Then he decided that it was cool to have ultra-giant mountains, so he left them that way.)
I'm a word guy, not an image guy. I can't draw at all. I think I was born without whatever neurons are supposed to connect your eye to your hand. So I'm making an artist friend of mine do the actual drawing. But I've been trying to draw him a basic sketch first so he can see roughly where everything is supposed to be.
Fantasy Cartography is a great source for this, because they have all the great maps on tap. Narnia and Middle Earth, natch -- it's funny how much alike they look, cartographically speaking (though for some reason you can find maps that put Cair Paravel on the east coast and others that put it on the west coast) -- but also Westeros and Newhon and Alagaësia and Greyhawk and whatever world the Wheel of Time stuff happens in. When you start thinking about this you realize how awesomely radical it is that instead of just drawing another continent, with rivers and mountain ranges and a coast or two, Ursula Le Guin made Earthsea a kind of shattered archipelago -- it looks totally different than any other imaginary world.
Cartography: I promise you, it's not as easy as you think. I had a hard time just drawing something that didn't look like America. Two lessons I've learned so far: you have to make the shorelines really wiggly, or they don't look realistic, and you have to write really, really small. On my first draft I had room to fit about five topographical features before I ran out of real estate. My Artist Friend said he's bought some special mapping pens. I think he's going to need them.
I believe Tolkien had a map early on, as well. Apparently he was endlessly trying to tease out travel times in the narrative to work with his topography.
anon76
Dec. 15, 2008 15:05:pm
at 15:05:pm
Back in my early teens I tried to write a bunch of fantasy stories and D&D modules, but every time they ended up being reverse-backstories for a cool map. I was so annoyed by how random most author's maps worked - what, they don't have continental drift in Narnia? - that I'd actually start with kind of a big, flat Pangaea sort of thing. I'd then break it up and smash it together a bunch of times to make lots of mountains and oceans, and then glaciate a few times to carve out some inland lakes, maybe a meteor strike or two, and add some vulcanism that made islands. I did all this by hand - I wasn't a programmer or I would have done something really cool. Not that Apple ]['s could have handled the simulation... But my maps ended up looking really cool and totally realistic to my 13-year-old eye.
Aside: Almost led me to geology as a career, frankly. I wonder how many geologists got into the biz because they liked to make their own worlds? Hm, I wonder if I had listened to my prof, if I'd actually have a real job instead of perpetual freelancing...
dennitzio
Dec. 15, 2008 17:20:pm
at 17:20:pm
There's probably two kinds of people: the kind that writes the story and lets the travel times and the tectonic plates sort themselves out around that, and the kind that figures out the topography first and makes the characters deal with it as it stands. The first kind is easier, which probably means the second kind is better. Apparently while Joyce was writing Ulysses he was constantly writing letters to people back in Dublin to make sure the walking distances worked out exactly right ...
Lev Grossman
Dec. 15, 2008 18:13:pm
at 18:13:pm
"There's probably two kinds of people: the kind that writes the story and lets the travel times and the tectonic plates sort themselves out around that, and the kind that figures out the topography first and makes the characters deal with it as it stands. "
That's actually a debate among F/SF writers. "World Building" is either looked upon as a necessity, or a diversion. I tend to fall into the 'diversion' camp, although I respect folks on the other side. IMHO, if it's a completely fictional world, let the story determine the landscape.
Joyce, OTOH, was dealing with a real place, and that's a different thing entirely. If you had a character take a five minute walk from the Empire State Building to Battery Park, a subset of your readers will throw the book across the room. OTOH, who the hell knows how long it takes to walk to Mordor?
Church
Dec. 15, 2008 22:17:pm
at 22:17:pm
Someone could start a co-op that brings together the creative geeks who like to Make Stuff with the creative nerds who like to Make Stuff Up... Some kind of matchmaker's service where "Aspergers' meets ADD"...
Hm, but then they would bypass my brethren creative half-breeds, mostly designers and directors, who are neither clever enough to be an artist or logical enough to be an engineer - and who are usually operating under the delusion that we're both. You can always tell one because we don't have ideas or plans - we have "visions".
dennitzio
Dec. 18, 2008 12:46:pm
at 12:46:pm
I have this weird thing where I'll read a book, like Lord of the Rings, and it'll say, "Frodo and Sam went east for ten miles," and in my head I'll picture them going west. So my internal map is a mirror image of the one the author is using, and when I actually look at the map I'll be all "oh holy crap that looks weird!"
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OTOH, who the hell knows how long it takes to walk to Mordor?
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I've heard that it's not that simple.
Cliff
Dec. 21, 2008 14:58:pm
at 14:58:pm
One does not simply walk into Mordor...
(sorry, had to be done)
cjalexander
Dec. 24, 2008 01:44:am
at 01:44:am