I don't see how 'keeping details straight for the reader' and 'the map' somehow exclude each other? To me, printing the map on the book has no effect on the writing itself whatsoever. It's an extra for those who like them.
I put a grid on one of my maps in 100 mile increments. I figure my characters can travel roughly 100 miles a week. I based that off what my family calls "Forest Service Miles." We do a lot of backpacking and the FS maps have section grids (1 mile square), but accounting for terrain, you end up hiking a lot more than one mile just to cross a "Forest Service Mile." It seems to work well enough for my characters.
Even when writing for other readers I think the maps are useful. Most readers of historical fiction will recognize Byzantium = Constantinople = Istanbul, but your typical fantasy reader might not, that's where a map comes in handy.
Good estimate.... about 15 miles per day, 2 per hour of 8 hour day. Appropriate for moderate off road terrain. When walking, my group is on prepared roads, with an oxcart to relieve walkers in shifts, so I cover about 20 per day... besides mine are motivated walkers! They want to stay alive.
Great map! If a book is science fiction or fantasy, or set in a place where the PLACE matters a lot (or there is travel), then a map is a great help. Even Jurassic Park had a map.
IlaridaArch I am curious whether the characters in your story have access to your detailed map(s) or are they just for the reader? It is very complex to draw a map by simply sailing around an island or walking through the woods so the lack of knowledge of what is on the other side of a mountain range for the characters could be significant in some stories, even the variances of knowledge between characters might come into play. If you were writing a story about Christopher Columbus would you use an accurate map of the Atlantic Ocean or one like Columbus might have showing the edge of the Earth, a no man's zone?
Heyy, the map I presented in this thread is essentially the core of the world. Where the major cultures live and prosper. People of the land do know it pretty well, granted they have some basic education in their lives. However, the land on the left edge is actually complete wilderness for certain reason (I don't want to spoil). It used to be the homeland for the cultures, but they had to relocate to the other land you see on the map. This wilderness is fairly known, they know where the islands are, and know the location of key elements like rivers and mountains. But all info on the nature is fairly old, so the map will present it in quite broad strokes. I will mark old major cities, which are in ruins in the world map as well (once again, it's just an assumption they are in ruins to this day). My story is all about the world and how it is shaping up. It's fantasy and nature plays the key tone in my writing. In my worldbuilding, this nature is lot more stronger and extreme than in our world. For example (on the map once again), the right edge is currently known as the edge of the world. "The endless sea" that nature blockades with constant cyclones. But in the early phase of my novel, a major storm breaks out which essentially was caused by the end of these cyclones. I imagine they simply burst out for final show of nature's power and then calm down. Suddenly, the known world is once again bit mystery and of course people in my world get interested what could be found in the east. There will be new land that they find, and obviously that isn't known for the characters. I would go in the line of the worldbuilding. Is that ocean discovered well? Has anyone sailed towards certain direction and actually came back to confirm that no land could be found? Anyone to their tastes, but I like to keep my map style rather sharp and just crop the unknown out of the map. In the end, people think that is the edge so no sense to draw empty spaces. So guess you could think of that ocean as the edge, the vast space of nothing. In the end, maps show guidance to our (known) world.
Reviving this thread a bit by asking, do you guys have experience on editing maps into book pages? How did you format, did you compress the image and so on. I think many would like this information. Cheers.
No experience on my part but wouldn't converting it to a PDF format allow you to scale it as needed? If you are drawing with a CAD program then resizing it is one of its functions but I am thinking your maps are basically "hand" drawn so a scan to PDF would seem the easiest way to fit it into a book sized page - went back to the first post and saw it on a spiral notebook so scan or photograph into jpeg modify to clean up things like the spiral, etc. add watermarks, etc. and resave as pdf would be my approach. Amerigo Vespucci would be so thrilled to live in today's world wouldn't he?
Mind, I have never done it myself (so far but I will have to at some point). But I googled a bit and found.. http://www.cartographersguild.com/content.php?s=267178b43d9d008ab91a5f420afae0d1 There you may find any information you need for drawing/compressing/ .. I'd think either drawing by hand and then converting into a vector-image would serve. Then however small you have to resize the image will be sharp as the original.
Why no, I don't use maps when I write Hardcore Military Ops on planets. Kokkonis Poli has the best brothels in the Melas Chasma. Don't lose all your money on the beautiful Martian women.
I was thinking about this question again recently--I've been reading Joe Abercrombie's The Blade Itself, which is a fantasy work which (so far as I can tell) doesn't have any map included, at least not in the edition I'm reading. And it totally works fine, it's completely accessible and not at all confusing. He just keeps things simple--there's a North and a South and then some stuff Across the Sea. Although there are plenty of locations, it seems that knowing where they are relative to each other is enough to make it legible, you don't really need a map showing distances in scale miles or features that never figure into the story, etc. Having said that, of course I'm still a fan of maps in general. But if anyone wants a way to write fantasy without one, there you go.
Thanks for the answers people. I mainly thought about compressing, as myself always make digital versions out of my pen&paper sketches. Thought I would ask about it, as there might be people who have self-published a story with a map (possible route for myself as well). Cartographer's Guild is an amazing community, been there for under a year! If you share interest in maps, that place is like Writing Forums but about maps. @Robert Musil - guess I have to go to the library and see, if his books have reached Finland. I've seen him in some panels with Rothfuss and GRRM, and he felt like a nice guy. For me the maps give the general shape and feel of surroundings, but I never really cared for the distances and the scale. Just for the sake of it, I put in my full world map I sketched other day. Right now working on digital version. Spoiler: map image
Since you apparently live in Finland you are far enough north to see dramatic differences in polar north and magnetic north, so I've read, I am curious what your compass rose represents. Not sure if that is the right term. Also you listed it as a full world map but you drew it as a square instead of the ()()() type drawings I am used to seeing for full world depictions, so do you have some plans on dealing with that or is it a much smaller chunk? Finally I don't have time to join another forum to learn cartography but maybe you can keep up this thread and fill us in on how you learn to apply your new skills to your story. As you pointed out in the beginning there is little on the forum on this topic but it is interesting to me even as a reader. Joining this forum has changed the way I read a book, at least I'd like to think so. Thanks for your efforts.
Yeah climate has changed a lot during my time. Our winter seems to start later than it used to, and it always comes hard hitting (almost instantly dropping to temperatures like -30 celsius). In my childhood it started in October-November, but now we barely get white christmas in mid-Finland... Also Baltic Sea rarely freezes fully, when during 1950s and 1960s it froze completely without exceptions, and you could ski to Sweden. I wanted the compass rose (right term)to present the time era of my world. Sea is raging and ships keep sinking, and routes from continent to another continent are pretty much done for. The design itself is actually close copy from a sigil of one finnish icebreaker. My father had a career in its crew, so my homeplace has some decorations about it. The ship: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bb/Voima_2011.jpg/300px-Voima_2011.jpg And yeah, the world map is a bit deceptive title for the map. I drew this map from the perspective of human race (I like this kind of approach), and that is the world they know for sure. The two other continents are full of hostile creatures (and cultures), so humans really have no clue how the world around them shapes up. But like I said in my previous comment, the nature changes and suddenly the world for humans is bigger. Either way, I think I need to give this map a name, something like "Known World for Humans". I do have rough shapes of rest of the world, but I will never draw or give it out with the book, as part of the whole journey is to delve a new continent that will be found. I can keep updating this thread, as I move on. At one point I had an idea of submitting an article for fast sketching a fantasy map, and how it can give you new ideas to the story too.
So this map is a work in progress, maybe adding in some date, realizing it might not be tied to our world's calendar, might add to the aura of "Known World for Humans" and of course the cartographer's name. I am guessing that it is difficult to depict a map in terms of what was known in the time frame of your novel without falling back on knowledge we now have. For instance were lines of longitude developed before circumnavigation? But even without that knowledge there might have been some some hourly denotations, etc. You don't show water cascading off the edge or sea monsters on the edges so I am thinking your seafarers have explored these limits, no swags. Interesting bit about your father and the ship, I wouldn't know an ice breaker from a cargo ship but now am wondering if your story uses a steel ship, was expecting wood. Another thought would be to add some depiction of currents and wind patterns if they apply. This will be a fun thread to follow, thanks again for your posts.
I do. I am interested in this kind of stuff, so I use a lot of maps. But, I usually keep them on my computer, so I lose track of things easily. Maybe for my next story, I should print them out. But, mine aren't as nicely drawn as that. They're mostly just lines, sometimes colors to mark types of landforms. Here is an example map of a country:
I used to make layouts for the world, and even specific buildings(was a manor at the time) for my friend's settings for stories and things. I used gimp and made them from blank. Unfortunately, I forgot almost all my skills. However I do this all the time atleast in my head. It is weird, I usually can't wrap my head around a story if I don't where it is.
@Vanthu - it doesn't need to be more than that. I think I repeat myself here, if I say that map has a purpose to relay certain information. If you need a rough view of the land and city locations, that map does the trick. On my case, the map I am currently making tries to compile all the information I need from the land. Where at the major landmarks like the great lake of Galoka, where the forests grow the wildest etc. Shamefully, drawing or painting has always been a minor hobby of mine, so I have this necessity to push myself with the aesthetics... Unneeded, but so much of fun. @EmeraldRaven - I also plan on making city maps, but I think making individual buildings isn't the first thing I will draw. Though what true artists make out of them is just something amazing... Just remember, "forgetting" is interest concept. It actually is in your head somewhere, but it is just your job to root for the memory by triggering it. Maybe opening GIMP, or just watching some random tutorials. Mind is interest, my therapist has helped me to remember so much out of my childhood. Things I had completely 'forgotten'. Memory lane is the best highway.
I stumbled upon this thread when looking for something else, but I found it so fascinating. I think for many fantasy stories, maps can at the very least help the author, but sometimes help the reader. I'm writing a story that takes place on Earth but in the future, so I fully utilize Google Earth and Google Maps, street view to get an idea of terrain. It is also helpful for travel as I type in directions between two places and click on the walking symbol to see how many hours/days of travel it would take to walk. Of course it calculates a person walking along roads and on walking paths, so I factor in the terrain and the direction the characters would walk if not following roads or paths, but it has helped me a great deal. I also can't help but think of the intro to the TV series Game of Thrones. It goes through the map of all the Kingdoms involved in the story. I haven't read the books, so I'm not sure if they came with a map, but for the TV show, I'm sure it was helpful to the viewers. You're drawing of the map of your world is incredible, by the way! I know some others have done it on the computer, and I'm even less skilled drawing with a mouse then drawing on paper, so I'm so jealous of all you people out there with these mad skills!
Google Earth is great. I once studied the map of Istanbul from 1763, which was everything but easy, as the map was made with typical renaissance approach. Strong 3D perspective and even though mountains don't cut the horizon, oh boy in the map they will. i had hard time figuring out placing different buildings, but Google Earth pretty much saved me. The GoT intro is great, I really like how they did it. Also have you noticed that they add small details between the seasons? For example, Winterfell has changed. The books had the map, and if I remember right it had two different maps (Westeros cut in half, south and north ends). Just get to sketching and you surprise yourself.
Two weeks ago I had trouble with one emotional scene in my story. I didn't get the surroundings right, so I decided to try and draw the area as a map. All things I knew was that a I have a small, isolated house next a pond somewhere in the middle of vast forest. It did help me to a certain extent with the scene, I had it clearer in my mind. So guess you could use mapping in this way as well, if you struggle with the story. I'm pretty sold on it that mapping can be extremely useful, especially for fantasy author. I'm all about my setting, so it makes sense as well. It started of as some extra art I do as a hobbyist alongside with my writing, but I've gotten so many great ideas from drawing it that it's golden tool for me. I've been working hard on the "world map" myself. Couple of more days, and it should be ready. Will share it then!
Here's the map I'm using for my current novel. It should tell you all you need to know about how I approach maps in my writing style. Basically, I only really feel I need to know where things are in relation to each other. My setting is such that boundaries and geographic features can move or disappear regularly, so that approach might be more justified than it usually is.
It's good to know what you need from the map, as it just cuts off extra work and it's also more efficient delivering the information you want. I promised couple of days back, that I would share my own map. Finally it's finished to the extent I need it at, though I did cut down with the amount of names to avoid cluttering. Spoiler: PICTURES It was my first time doing colored maps, so it's fairly simple. Also struggled with some color blending, especially with the land (I wanted to make it more lively with different shades of green). I have to point out that typography must be one of the hardest parts of cartography. It's really delicate to position them right. I think I could still improve in that aspect. Feel free to ask anything.
