Yet another reason I love using GIMP for this. I keep my map saved with all the layers separate, never flattened, so I can make changes as I go.
Be careful of that, though. I've seen maps with utterly ridiculous topographies that would need huge teams of high-level wizards just to keep the rivers on their outlandish courses. Of course, if your story has huge teams of high-level wizards keeping the rivers on their outlandish courses...
In a way I do, but it also allows me to picture character movements within the space. I have a contingency plan of going animation with my script if I can't get hollywood to produce it. If that happens, then I have models to work with.
But this illustrates my point: if you draw those rivers on before deciding your story (i.e. whether or not your world has high-level wizards for this purpose alone) then you may become stuck.
Why? You can always go back and change a river, just as you can words on a paper. Nothing in a story is set in stone, unless you as the author are too stubborn to change it. That being said... I officially curse this thread. I am now making maps in Photoshop, and it's absolutely wonderful. To see the land of your story becoming visible and tangible is... amazing!
Map drawing is fun. I do it when I feel like drawing something. It helps me to plan travel routes and make up names. However, there is a limit to how much is too much. I think drawing an over-world map is great, but drawing a cit map for every city is probably overdoing it.
Of course you can change it. I'm just saying that you shouldn't spend hours drawing a detailed map to then discover it doesn't fit in your story at all. That's likely been a waste of time that you could have spent writing another chapter. If you've already got an idea of the story, you can draw a much more accurate map that will require fewer changes and will be more beneficial to the process.
For me maps are useful at two different scales: World Map: Like the one I posted earlier. Detailed enough to give me directions to go (and to mention) in the story. Town Map: Again, it gives me direction to go and mention in the story. Between the two is a scale of area that I prefer to write, not draw.
I got a three questions, might as well post them here. 1) If I were to post my map online would it hurt chances of publishing my book? 2) If I were to give an excerpt of my writing personally to another person, would it hurt my chances of publishing? 3) Like 6 months ago I had a blog where I only posted information that one could ask, like who were where and what that was, major characters information (no spoilers though), now this is extremely outdated and I deleted the blog, (of course one could open a buffered copy if they already visited) --would this hurt my chances at publishing, even though it is massively outdated and only a part of it is still in use (partly) ?
Of course if your story isn't developed enough you shouldn't be working on a map for it. I was assuming that this was a solid story, in which having a map would help deepen the story and guide the writer all at once. So far, that's what I'm finding out creating my map. I'm wondering what my characters could run into, what issues and troubles just the natural world around them would cause, let alone neighboring villages and tribes. I have to admit... I'm completely hooked. I wasn't sure that it would be a good idea for me (time wasting and all that jazz), but I find that I'm MORE interested in my story and my characters because of it. I don't see why it would. Just as beta readers don't ruin your chance at publishing, neither would giving an excerpt of your novel. I've heard that it's possible that publishing something online could potentially hurt your chances, but it depends on how much you've given out and if anyone has ripped you off. I think if it was something that old (and incorrect) that it wouldn't particularly matter. For instance, I know that Laurell K. Hamiliton ended up getting her Anita Blake novels published BECAUSE her short stories that she released to the public got enough outside support. Nowadays self-publishing isn't even as detrimental as it used to be.
As for the questions: 1) I don't think so, but I'm not sure why you'd want to. Sure, people could say "yeah, that looks cool", but you couldn't "rate" it, at least not without knowing the entire story. If you want to know if it makes sense in a geographical sense, just show it to a geography teacher/professor at wherever you study. 2) Not at all. Unless that person somehow managed to convert that excerpt into a significant chunk of your story and post it online or self-publish it. But beta readers should be someone you trust anyway, so this isn't really a problem. 3) Eh, if it's outdated and you haven't revealed the story, then it'll be fine. As a general rule anyway, think as if you were the publisher. Provided your book is of sufficient quality and whatnot, the only reason a publisher wouldn't publish your book is because they know your story (or enough of it) can be found somewhere else for free. Hence, no-one would buy the book. If you've posted a blurb/excerpt online, people are still going to buy the book, because, even with that knowledge, they don't know what's happened. Therefore, the publisher shouldn't have any issues either.
Why "of course"? I can certainly see a case for creating your world before placing your characters in it. It should help avoid the sort of topographic disaster I described, where I expect the writer wrote the story without thinking about plausible terrain, and had to create a ridiculous map to accommodate what they'd already written.
I say 'of course' because if you're creating a detailed map while your story is still bare-bones, you're most likely using it as part of your procrastination. I think that both should be developed together. In your example, it seems that the author was just too stubborn to change something he knew didn't really work.
I think there is a lot of difference between drawing a map to keep yourself 'right' as you create your story, and producing a slick map to publish along with the book. I always draw a crude map to keep myself right, as to distances, which way rivers run, where bridges are in relation to the various towns and houses in my story. I create fictional towns, rivers, etc, but place them in real settings, if that makes sense. Therefore they've got to make sense. If it takes a half hour to get from point A to point B on horseback in one chapter, then the journey takes several hours later on in the story—to service my plot—then I'm in trouble. Creating a map and including distances certainly helps prevent that potential anomaly. Or, if a character approaches a house that is on their left, then later in the story a person approaches the same house from the same direction and it's on their right... Yes, SOMEBODY will notice. And you can get yourself into quite a fankle if you don't keep these kinds of details straight. However, I don't plan to include a map in my book if/when it gets published.
My own maps are usually very limited, mainly due to my lack of drawing skills. I am a big fan of having a map of the world, but personally find city maps tedious. Maybe because I find them a lot more complicated, however I am yet to need a town map.
Yes, I have drawn maps in the past, but that was for one fantasy story only... and when I tried drawing that map, I found that, somehow, with the size of the map, and the populace... I realized that it would NOT support that big of a population without some kind of famine. So I have to make it bigger to adjust... but there is no room on paper. I hope that no publisher would ask me to draw a map. Or people would know how much I fail.
