Mapping a Story

If you are stuck in your story, whether it be conventional writer's block, a lack of motivation, or just need for clarity, making a map of your world can be a useful and fun way to get things going . . . providing you aren't like me and put that in the first couple of steps when you are generating your ideas. Either way it can be an illuminating project.

It doesn't matter what kind of artistic abilities you have. If you don't believe me pull some of those fantasy books off of your shelf (or the library's) and take a gander at what is there. If you enjoy a story you might not have wasted time giving the map a critical look. There are some amazing stories out there with really bad maps. But that's not the point.

The point can be as simple or as complicated as you desire to make it. Consider the following sub points:

1)Geography is culture.

2)There is a saying among historians: Land divides, water unites.

3)For a lot of fantasy fans, exploring the map of your world and wondering how you came to create it so is almost as fun as the story.

If that is enough for you than get your pencil and go to town. If you need more convincing read on and I will elaborate on the sub points.

1)Geography is culture. Whether you are a disciple of nature or nurture, the fact is that where your character grows up is going to impact his people and their culture. Historical examples abound, but I will try to keep it to a reasonable level and not go all crazy-nerd-historian on you. If I can help it.

A dramatic example would be people of the Steppes. From the dawn of written history, conquerors and destroyers can come out of Asian grasslands to reek havoc on civilizations of both the Mediterranean and the Pacific. Military historians like to carry on about everything they did right; sensitive historians get offended and howl about how they never did anything but destroy and never left any lasting contribution to the lands they overcame. Why they conquered, and why they contributed nothing has a lot to do with geography. The Steppe is a great dry stretch of land, exposed to the worst of all dry elements: heat, wind, cold, and constant drought. The nomadic peoples of this land drive their herds back in forth in search of water and good grazing. Their are no recognized boundaries, only millennium of fighting other tribes for the grass and water necessary to survival. The men hunt continually, making an art of it that converts into perfect war tactics from those earliest records right up until the point when the machine gun finally gives civilizations a weapon with greater range and a faster firing rate than the composite bow of the nomads. Bloodshed and death are a fact of life, a daily event. Because the land won't support them, they learn to carry everything they need with them, drinking blood from the veins of their horses when there is no water to be found. Now throw a catalyst in: a severe draught, a push from more aggressive tribes, an ambitious leader bringing unexpected unity. The nomads come out of the Steppe into civilizations made up of farmers whose excess feed ruling, religious, and artistic classes. Perhaps they have an army so strong it makes its neighbors shudder. The outcome is inevitable, or highly likely based on history. The nomads don't have supply lines; they've brought all of their possessions. The nomads don't have an army; every man capable of the hunt is capable of using the same tactics on the far-less-mobile armies of civilization. And killing is necessary for the nomads survival; it is already learned before they ever encountered the future victims.

So they conquer.

But their geography has created a culture of hunting and fighting. Also inevitably they are either swallowed by the culture they conquered or drift back to the Steppe and the life they knew before. The Huns, Mongols, and Turks all went through this cycle to one degree or another.

I do know how to carry on. If you want more examples I am obviously happy to oblige, but for now I will move on to sub point 2.

2) Land divides, water unites. There are many ways to illustrate this point as well. If you look at the empires of the Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, and others you will see that they were built on the ring of the Mediterranean. The Egyptian Empires all followed the Nile. The Norse culture at one point was active from Constantinople all the way to Vinland (in Canada), all using water even though they had good footholds on Asia and Europe. Speaking of the Norse, look at how using the north/south rivers of what would become Russia a number of them became the Byzantine Emperor's elite Varangian Guard while the Franks were unknown in Constantinople; the difference being that the Franks had no convenient water path, divided as it were by the land mass that alienated Eastern and Western Christianity in the first millennium AD.

3) You probably know all about this one already if you are a fantasy fan. Take heed and give your fans the map they want and need.

I have throw down a lot of theory about why to do a map. In my next post I will talk about some techniques and approaches, as well as things to avoid, ie. my personal pet peeves in other peoples maps. Feel free to take what helps and completely disregard the stuff that doesn't. Write on.

R.