{"id":843,"date":"2014-09-04T15:06:40","date_gmt":"2014-09-04T21:06:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/oneyearnovel.wpengine.com\/?p=843"},"modified":"2023-01-06T20:53:53","modified_gmt":"2023-01-07T02:53:53","slug":"how-a-map-can-save-your-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/clearwaterpress.com\/oneyearnovel\/blog\/how-a-map-can-save-your-story\/","title":{"rendered":"How a Map Can Save Your Story"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Tineke Bryson, Staff<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>In <a href=\"https:\/\/clearwaterpress.com\/oneyearnovel\/blog\/do-what-tolkien-did-but-not-what-you-think-he-did\/\">our last post we tackled the intimidation many of us feel about creating a map for our novels<\/a>. (Thanks, no thanks, J. R. R. Tolkien.) This week we focus on why we can\u2019t afford to give up the dream or hand off the project to someone else:<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/clearwaterpress.com\/oneyearnovel\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2014\/09\/image.jpeg\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-2371187 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/clearwaterpress.com\/oneyearnovel\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2014\/09\/image-300x300.jpeg\" alt=\"How a Map Can Save Your Story\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/clearwaterpress.com\/oneyearnovel\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2014\/09\/image-300x300.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/clearwaterpress.com\/oneyearnovel\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2014\/09\/image-150x150.jpeg 150w, https:\/\/clearwaterpress.com\/oneyearnovel\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2014\/09\/image.jpeg 500w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>There are many viable ways to go about drawing a story world map. But here\u2019s one thing I have no qualms about stating as absolute fact: <strong>Our stories actually <em>need<\/em> us to draw them some maps.<\/strong> And no surrogate, in the form of our more artistic friend, will do.<\/p>\n<p><strong>We have to meet our world.<\/strong> We need to learn to work together. Test each other\u2019s limits. Find out what makes each other tick.<\/p>\n<p>Basically, we need to <strong>slog through the sort of awkwardness that goes with making a friend<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Until we take on the challenge of drawing a map, there\u2019s <strong>a real risk<\/strong> that we\u2019ll write a pretty story that does not feel real. <strong>If our plot could just as easily take place in any setting, any time, any culture, then there is no world supporting it.<\/strong> It\u2019s not half the plot it <em>could<\/em> be.<\/p>\n<p>Map-making is intrinsically conversational. <strong>We may be holding the pencil, but we\u2019re not the only party involved. Our story world has to show up too (literally).<\/strong> It has a vested interest. Because it counts on us to make sense.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Are you a sensible person? Can your novel trust you to have common sense? About culture? Geography? Transportation?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>When you put pencil down to paper to invent a world, <strong>it gets its chance to tell you about all its worries<\/strong>. The rocky country to the north (yes, the one you only discovered when it grew from the end of your pencil) looks like an ideal hideout for guerilla warriors. That immense plain to the west is empty of more than visual interest. How is your hero\u2019s roving band going to eat while they walk across it? And, for a kingdom 9\/10ths coast, where is your navy?<\/p>\n<p>(Oops.)<\/p>\n<p>These and other issues pop up like prairie dogs every time you blink. Because <strong>you\u2019re facing your novel across the paper, forced to listen to what your world has to say about itself.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Sometimes the give-and-take will make you giddy.<\/strong> You\u2019ll find the land pliable; the coastline willing to twirl on your arm in any direction you take it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Other times it\u2019s going to feel like a breakup conversation.<\/strong> You may find, as you draw, that the world your story needs is nothing like the world you want.<\/p>\n<p>Or, if you\u2019re like me, you\u2019ll be silly enough to locate your center of commerce within the ice-capped mountain range because the crags will set off your architecture stunningly. <strong>Your world will put its foot down and insist that you put the city on the coast where it will have a good harbor.<\/strong> And begrudge you a mountain there, on the coast, <em>if you must<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Moments of tension like these have taught me that <strong>actually <em>drawing<\/em>\u00a0our story world is much more important to our novels than we might think<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>So besides a willingness to \u201ctalk\u201d openly with our world, <strong>what does it take?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I could say that all maps require are clean sheets of paper, pencil and eraser, and calligraphy pens (or, any ink pens will do). But really <strong><em>desire<\/em> and <em>reason<\/em> are actually just as important<\/strong> to a map as pencil and paper.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\"><strong><em>Desire<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>I learned the importance of desire from my younger self. When I was a young writer,<strong> I drew maps that pleased me<\/strong>. The outline of the coast, the curve of the rivers, the herds of mountain humps\u2014all were the traces of my mind at play. Because I was a child, the idea that my map was not equal to those of Tolkien didn\u2019t faze me. Of course it wasn\u2019t! I was just beginning. <strong>I was just a kid making something beautiful.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Considering Tolkien the professor built his fictional world in his limited free time, we know that this is also why he made maps and why he wrote at all: <strong>for pure pleasure<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>But this is irritating, I know. Because <strong>the results born of one person\u2019s desire can look pathetic compared to the results born of someone else\u2019s<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>I don\u2019t mean to toy with anyone\u2019s hopes. When I encourage us to <strong>shut off comparison to give ourselves over to the joy of creating<\/strong>, I\u2019m not suggesting that \u201cEveryone\u2019s map is going to get a gold star.\u201d <strong>I\u2019m not erasing the fact that a beautiful map requires skill.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>But I <em>am<\/em> saying that <strong>you should definitely draw your own maps<\/strong>. <strong>Wrestling with a story world until you both come out with a deeper respect for each other\u2019s limits is not a task you want to surrender to someone else. It is too rewarding.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>If you really aren\u2019t handy at making your resulting ideas live on paper, don\u2019t hesitate to ask someone with more artistic skill to lend a helping hand\u2014<strong>but only once you\u2019ve broken a sweat on it yourself.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>The only difference between the \u201cpathetic,\u201d \u201cinferior\u201d map you make and someone else\u2019s may just be presentation. And that\u2019s a sorry reason to hold back on getting acquainted with your story world.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>And if you\u2019re artistic but having trouble coming up with content? That\u2019s something you can do something about as well:<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\"><strong><em>Reason<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Building a world that makes sense\u2014that <strong>operates on a system of believable causes and effects<\/strong>\u2014takes research and planning, but perhaps more than anything it takes <strong>curiosity<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>We need to ask <em>why, why, why<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Why is there a river here? Why did people settle in this exact spot? Why is this area a desert if the region to the north is densely forested? Why doesn\u2019t it rain much on the journey I\u2019m planning across this country? <em>Should<\/em> I make it rain?<\/p>\n<p><strong>And we need to ask <em>how<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>How did this race\/people group\/tribe <strong>develop their culture?<\/strong> <strong>How has it been shaped by the setting? The climate?<\/strong> If I need there to be communication between the capital and this remote village, how is that going to happen? <strong>How do people travel?<\/strong> How do these villagers feel about the governmental seat in the capital? Why?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Whether you make a world and then find it a suitable story, or start with a story and figure out what its world must look like, there\u2019s a push and a pull<\/strong> <strong>between you, as the creator, and the map.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The tremendous thing about this dynamic is that <strong>the geography we ourselves create can yield clues and suggest patterns<\/strong>. An environmental setting can practically hand us a culture for the people we\u2019ve decided to locate there.<\/p>\n<p>Frank Herbert\u2019s science fiction classic, <em>Dune<\/em>, is an example of this. He was inspired to write <em>Dune<\/em> through doing research for a journalism piece on the dunes of Oregon. Apparently he never did get around to the article, because <strong>he became so absorbed in studying the ecosystem of the dunes that he created a fictional desert planet to explore its implications for a people living in an even more extreme version of its ecosystem<\/strong>. Whether you like <em>Dune<\/em> or not, you can\u2019t read it without being blown away by the way Herbert<strong> brought the desert to bear on every aspect of Fremen culture<\/strong>: religion, military tactics, housing, leadership structure, transportation, diet, family life, oral tradition, etc.<\/p>\n<p><strong>It\u2019s staggering what a cause-and-effect approach to world-building can unlock.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Next time you\u2019re at a loss to create a new people group for your novel, try creating a setting. And <strong>stand back and be amazed at how much the setting can fill in<\/strong>. Find out how people on earth in a similar environment have lived, thought, and behaved. <strong>Make the connections. Notice the causes and effects. Then add a twist.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Set your standards high. Apply your reasoning powers to every aspect of your map. &#8220;Epic-looking&#8221; is not enough. Curly writing is not enough. You need to strive for logic.<\/p>\n<p>For example, take your map&#8217;s scale. <strong>One of the chief reasons writers make maps is to work out distances<\/strong>. In <a href=\"https:\/\/clearwaterpress.com\/oneyearnovel\/blog\/story-world-maps-worthwhile-or-a-waste-of-time\/\">a recent post, Daniel Schwabauer talks about how he took to drawing maps to work out the details of trips his characters take<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>If you intend your map to represent a map people from your fictional world created, <strong>you may want to develop a different scale and measuring system<\/strong> instead of using our empirical or metric system. After all, is there a reason why your characters would use inches to a mile, or centimeters to 100 kilometers? Making your own scale for your novel can be as simple as renaming existing measurements in gibberish, but <strong>what if you took it a step further and considered what object your characters\u2019 ancestors would have measured distance by?<\/strong> Feet? A man\u2019s stride? The length of a serpent common to their area? The distance a pack animal could make in a day?<\/p>\n<p><em>What makes the most sense?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>We need to push our minds to find the reasonable answers.<\/strong> It may take more time than we&#8217;d like, but it&#8217;s time worth taking. <strong>What we can learn by sitting down with our world and working out our problems will be so rewarding for us<\/strong>, never mind our eventual readers.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s nothing quite like a fiction of the mind that can move a flesh-and-blood reader to their depths because \u201cthis story could actually have happened.\u201d <strong>Readers don&#8217;t have that kind of reaction to a story that could have taken place anywhere.<\/strong> If it could have taken place anywhere, chances are it happened nowhere\u2014because the writer didn&#8217;t take the trouble to build a world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Tineke Bryson, Staff Writer<\/strong><br \/>\nIn last week\u2019s post we tackled the intimidation many of us feel about creating a map for our novels. (Thanks, no thanks, J. R. R. Tolkien.) This week we focus on why we can\u2019t afford to give up the dream or hand off the project to someone else.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11881,"featured_media":1304,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[81,45,11,223,40],"tags":[216,211,217,218,134,214,219],"post_series":[],"class_list":["post-843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-push-your-imagination","category-stuck-discouraged","category-writing","category-world-building-2","category-writing-tips-and-tools","tag-dune","tag-fantasy-maps","tag-fantasy-world","tag-frank-herbert","tag-mapmaking","tag-tolkien","tag-world-building","entry","has-media"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.6 (Yoast SEO v27.6) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>How a Map Can Save Your Story -<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/clearwaterpress.com\/oneyearnovel\/blog\/how-a-map-can-save-your-story\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How a Map Can Save Your Story\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Tineke Bryson, Staff Writer In last week\u2019s post we tackled the intimidation many of us feel about creating a map for our novels. 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