[World Builder]

I love maps. Done quite a few of them for my main fantasy story. The original was rather crude and childish, very unnatural. Over the years I've worked on making the map more natural. I find working on the cartography of my stories very relaxing. I try to let the world flow as it pleases. This has causes some trouble for the story, when, for example, an area of the world which was originally a vast steppe broken sporadically by deciduous forest transformed into a collection of shallow seas. That certainly forced be to go back an tinker with the outline, considering that the main characters were to travel through this region. I thought it was going to be a major hassle, but it turned out to be a blessing in disguised. Changing the interior plains to seas cleared up a lot of back story problems I was having.

I know a lot of authors prefer to write the story and make a map that suits it. I guess I'm the opposite. I prefer to have the map ready early on. It was particularly important for my main sequence fantasy story, since a good chunk of it involves what amounts to a pilgrimage across vast distances (think: "Canterbury Tales" in Epic Fantasy mode). I could have tried to outline the story without a map, throwing in hazards and locations as they seemed appropriate, but my brain doesn't work that way. I needed to know what lay between the characters and their destinations, not only along the path they would take, but along alternative paths, in case I decided they would take a detour, or to explain why they didn't go another way that would have avoided whatever trouble was looming on the horizon.

Along the way, as the map developed, other little stories appeared. As stories popped into existence so did the characters. In fact, I'm currently working on a selection of stories that take place some years before the main story in a location that was originally on the road the characters would take until the interior plains flooded. The landscape of that region, the lives of its people were too interesting for me to casually toss aside. So their getting their own little book. Not bad for originally just being a dot on a map.

WB.

[Bethelamon]

I know a lot of authors prefer to write the story and make a map that suits it. I guess I'm the opposite. I prefer to have the map ready early on.

Me too.

I've made a nice big map with lots of interesting little places in it, and as I was making it I didn't know what places would turn up in my story.

Now as Im planning my story, places which before had no real character have come into it and I've taken an interest in them.

For instance, I needed somewhere for a thief to go with his stolen goods. He has stolen some valuble items from a museum in a northern city. 'What is he gonna do with it?' I asked myself. Sell it, to make some money. But who can he sell it to? I decided he would sell it on to some very organized gangs, who would then in a few years be able to sell the item back to the museum, and organize it well so they don't get into trouble.
So where do these gangsters live? It would have to be in a rather lawless region. I scanned across my map, and decided his journey would take him south across Lannimair, which is the main and most civilised area of my continent, beyond the Silver Mountains to the lands of Vennimair, which are a bit more rugged and dangerous. I decided the town of Beradheim suited what I was looking for. I checked my notes and saw what I had written about Beradheim... It was abandonded by the Vennimian empire a long time ago, until a few centuries ago when a certain duke rebuilt it, but its still a bit dodgy, in a rather lawless region. When it was abandoned, the area it was in, Esgharad, became populated mostly by bandits and robbers, and became very dangerous to travel through.
Perfect! So a few centuries ago, as Esgharad was beginning to empty and the Venimmian empire was falling back into the east, the town of Beradheim became a haven for crime, with an ineffective government and hopeless law enforcement, as the resources of the empire are stretched thin. Criminal gangs would spring up here and effectively rule the streets. This would be the perfect place and time for my thief character to go and sell his wares! Not long aftewards all Vennimian troops would abandon Beradheim, as would its citizens. The gangs would be left with an empty city, and begin to migrate north back into Lannimair.
And how would my thief make his way there? If he didn't want to make a mighty trip around the continent he would have to pass through the Fields of Heminold, which as my notes tell me are guarded very closely by a network of fortresses, and all travelling through are intercepted and questioned. He wouldn't make it through there with this stolen item. So instead he would have to try and make it through the mountains.... And my story has taken a leap forward!!!

So yeah whats this got to do with maps?
Having a big old map drawn out before I begin writing, when I start planning the events of my narrative, I find places for it to happen in, and these places subsequently get their own character.

For instance, a while ago the city of Isamar was just a dot on my map with no character. Now it has become involved in my narrative, and has developed a character, just through me thinking 'what is this city all about?' once I decided that some important events would happen nearby and necessarily involve the city.

And what of the River Asta? It was just an insignificant line on my map. Now I know that alot of the events are going to take place around this river, its gained a character, and I have become to love it!

So my point is that having the map done BEFORE the narrative helps. Instead of having a story then creating a world to fit in with it, I think it works much better to have a map/world already made and then put a story in it. This way its much easier and more natural for places to gain their character and background.

Another thing worth talking about is that a while ago my map was rather simple..... coastlines, a few big mountain ranges and important cities. Just through the addition of small mountain ranges and rivers it all becomes much more exciting. I mean before, Diranhad and the area known as Belavad looked rather boring and uninteresting. Just by adding some rocky terrain and hills in there it suddenly looks oh so exciting and UNIQUE. Just through some careful light shading with a pencil in the right shape on my paper map, Belavad and the city of Diranhad know have much more depth to them, and I can't wait to use them as settings for my stories!

[World Builder]

Got to love those little quirks and fortunate accidents of maps.

I suppose in the interest of fairness, I should offer up a counter example. One day, in my intro to Creative Writing class, I had to write a little scene and I decided to create a character from scratch for it. The character lived in a town called Grisham-Warren, and I knew roughly where it would be on the map even though I had made it up for just this scene.

Later, when I went to put the town on the map, I realized that it was surprisingly close to a city called Grimsung, just to the west. West of Grimsung was a region called Warren. My first thought was the Grisham would be a likely corruption of the older 'Grimsung.' My second thought was why would there be a town called Grisham-Warren in this location? A whole little story developed from trying to place something on the map that I wouldn't have put there had I had the map handy at the time. Soon the history of how the nation of Warren had conquered the city of Grimsung and renamed it Grisham and how, years later, the Grisham contingent of Warren's army marched into the eastern wilderness and was lost. For years, they were thought to have been destroyed by the diseases known to fester in forests that separated the western kingdoms from the eastern confederacies, and that's what I expected to happen to them after their encampment-turned-village dwindled away. Soon, I forgot about their dot on the map.

Some time later, I was looking at the map again, thinking about the 'modern day' version of the world, and noticed Grisham-Warren again. Still isolated and forgotten for how long I don't even know, but it was an interesting quirk. Warren had long since fallen and at least two generations of kingdoms and empires had risen and fallen in its place. What to do with Grisham-Warren? I decided not to wipe them out, and kept them on as this world's equivalent to the Amish, except, they're living in a renaissance fair mentality while the rest of the world is on the cusp of the Industrial Revolution. The people from the town haven't done much, but one man from Grisham-Warren, an apostate, shows up in the prologue trying to fit in with modern times.

WB

[Bethelamon]

Sounds interesting!

I like paying attention to the names of places.... My names used to all be random, then I realised it made no sense that I had places with the same name endings on opposite sides of the continent... So I reallocated them all in a more structured and logical way. So while Ciranion and Tunerion aren't that close, they both used to be part of the ancient empire of Ferrimair, which is why their names are similar. In the ancient days the continent was divided into the realms of Darenarc (ruled by the city of Ereth Arc), Hiranmair (ruled by Ereth Hiran), Vennimair (ruled by Ereth Vennin), Ferrimair (ruled by Ereth Nemalas), Lannimair (containing Ereth Cathion, Ereth Eln and Ereth Miran) and Garnesia (ruled by Ereth Garn). Over the years it all became mixed up with wars and all sorts... now the names mean different things. Darenarc refers to the northern lands of Teriegna, Diranec and Nebriegna. Lannimair refers to the central region, which is divided into the nations of Aranetia, Elsenia, Mallanor, Alvenia, Nethria, Mestenetia and Nemaria. Ferrimair is the south-western region which contains Ciranion, Dartec, Magretanion, and Cimmuran. Vennimair now refers to the actual country of Vennimair, which is smaller than it used to be, giving room for the modern states of Esgharad, Tarinon and Marinagon, all of which were once part of ancient Vennimair. Hiranmair refers to all the southern lands, which contain the Little Duchies and West Cinamair, but are mostly now wilderness. Garnesia is the same as it was 1400 years ago.
So I can probably tell you a little bit about the history of every place name I have.
Example - Nebriegna. The '-iegna' is a northern name ending, we also have Teriegna, and Ardiegna is a region of Diranec. All of Nebriegna, Teriegna and Diranec (thus including Ardiegna) were once one country, the empire of Darenarc. Thus '-iegna' is an Arcian name ending.

I like your idea of two different realms divided by a big forest. Its got a nice feel to it.
Out of interest, how big is your 'world'? My world is actually just a continent - I decided doing the whole planet would be too much. But it works well, as the people of the continent don't know much about other continents, so the reader has no reason to, and there are reasons why the whole business with the Saints happens just on this one continent. As far as the story is concerned, the continent of Ardenai IS the world.

[lin]

There's a short story by Jorge Luis Borges (the classiest fantacist ever) about a king who got obsessed by more and more detailed maps so he eventually commissioned a 1:1 map of his kingdom. Since it covered everthing, things fell apart but he mentions that in some remote reaches of desert you can still find little sections of the old map lying around.

[World Builder]

I think I've basked in the infamy of Post #222 long enough. Time to move on:

First, Lin: do you happen to know which Borges story that would be? Neil Gaiman relates a similar story in introduction to "Fragile Things."

Sounds interesting!

[...]

I like your idea of two different realms divided by a big forest. Its got a nice feel to it.
Out of interest, how big is your 'world'? My world is actually just a continent - I decided doing the whole planet would be too much. But it works well, as the people of the continent don't know much about other continents, so the reader has no reason to, and there are reasons why the whole business with the Saints happens just on this one continent. As far as the story is concerned, the continent of Ardenai IS the world.

For the fantasy setting in question, the World, "in theory," is roughly equivalent in size to the Earth. "In practice," I've only mapped out an area equivalent to the Old World, which includes four prominent continents and one uninhabited polar continent, which is fairly irrelevant. There's at least one other substantial inhabited landmass lurking outside of these mapped territories, but I've never bothered trying to map it. From time to time, people from that landmass (a continent? a large island? an archipelago?) come to the "Old World," but no one from the Old World bothers to go to that landmass. One of the reasons the 'World' is so large is that it has had to continuously expand to hold all the little stories I've been filling it with. The 'World' was assembled piecemeal, containing a little bit of everything. What I refer to as the "main sequence story" is the single story concept that originally led be to create the rough skeleton of the 'World,' but dozens of stories off the main sequence have led me to flesh it out. All in all its a very diverse place.

Alternatively, for another fantasy story, I did map the entire planet... or rather I had a map of an entire planet and decided to put a fantasy story on it. True... the southern continents are a little ill-defined, but POV character (fittingly enough, a part-time cartographer) is from the northern regions. But the 'World' for that story isn't limited to one planet. More of an Aristotlean interplanetary fantasy... if that makes any sense.

And as yet anther alternative: for a third story I mapped out an area that's just a portion of a large continent, something akin to a glorified Central America and Carribbean Islands. I'm sure there's plenty of space to explore, but this is a land the exists for a particular purpose and probably won't be expanding upon its borders anytime soon.

WB

[Optimutt]

There's a short story by Jorge Luis Borges (the classiest fantacist ever) about a king who got obsessed by more and more detailed maps so he eventually commissioned a 1:1 map of his kingdom. Since it covered everthing, things fell apart but he mentions that in some remote reaches of desert you can still find little sections of the old map lying around.

Interesting how, during my visit to China, that I stumbled upon that story in a book of traditional Chinese tales. Great story, whatever its origins!

[lin]

That Jorge was a pretty erudite guy. You could count on about anything he said branching off into hundreds or books all over the world. It was kind of what he was all about, Keeper of the Garden of Forking Paths.

I think the story was in *A Universal History of Infamy*and called "On Exactitude in Science",

(See where it gets you, seemed to be his slant.)


In that Empire, the craft of Cartography attained such Perfection that the
Map of a Single province covered the space of an entire City, and the Map of
the Empire itself an entire Province. In the course of Time, these
Extensive maps were found somehow wanting, and so the College of
Cartographers evolved a Map of the Empire that was of the same Scale as the
Empire and that coincided with it point for point. Less attentive to the
Study of Cartography, succeeding Generations came to judge a map of such
Magnitude cumbersome, and, not without Irreverence, they abandoned it to the
Rigours of sun and Rain. In the western Deserts, tattered Fragments of the
Map are still to be found, Sheltering an occasional Beast or beggar; in the
whole Nation, no other relic is left of the Discipline of Geography.