Discovery mapping

[skip.knox]

The current thread about mapping has made me wonder about this:

I am a chaotic writer. I'd like to claim I'm chaotic good but I suspect I'm somewhere around chaotic okay. Be that as it may, kinder people call it "discovery writing" and this is aimed at that end of the rainbow.

If you're a discovery writer, do you make maps?

I ask this because if I were to do that, I would be forever revising the map as I "discovered" new aspects of the story. Case in point, my WIP takes place mostly in a tower. I arbitrarily decided the tower would have seven levels and seven sides, but that was about it. Over the course of writing, I have assigned visual themes to each level, have changed my mind about colors and decorations and functions for every level, have built and unbuilt the top level multiple times, and so on. Eventually I made not a map but a document that has key descriptive elements, including room placement. And even now, with a full draft and deep into revision, I keep revising that document.

So, for me, making maps would be fine once the entire story is absolutely done, because only then would the map be absolutely done (I did hire a cartographer for two earlier books). But I just can't bring myself to spend the time to make maps only to have to keep throwing them out. I mean, every one of 'em is worth a thousand words! <g>

 

[RoccO]

Eventually I made not a map but a document that has key descriptive elements, including room placement. And even now, with a full draft and deep into revision, I keep revising that document.

It is interesting to make a map of a tower. They usually are for areas. I have made a floor plan of a draft before, and I have worked with them. It was ever changing, I suppose making a tower would be too difficult. To finish a book, when the floor plan is wrong, you can always go back and finish it. Terrible to change the whole thing.

A written description of a tower would be like a journal, with key illustrations to signify different parts. It would not have to be to scale, it would just have to refer to the art. I have not seen where a description remains outside of the actual text, but I have seen maps with descriptive sections.

So, for me, making maps would be fine once the entire story is absolutely done, because only then would the map be absolutely done (I did hire a cartographer for two earlier books).

Hiring a cartographer is very professional, you have a lot of support there. I have fun making maps, and it does not take away from the fun. If there is a professional, that is their job, they will be expecting royalties. There is a lot of time spent on drafting houses, for architects, as well. If you went down that route it would cost more.

I arbitrarily decided the tower would have seven levels and seven sides, but that was about it.

An interesting tower. It sounds like a new pyramid. A lot of wizards would hole up in the loft and be safe for hours. Would it be like helms deep with skate boarding elves? Or maybe a headless hydra with an armoured maiden.

 

[ThinkerX]

I made a *lot* of maps for my books. 'Big Picture' maps. Regional maps. City maps. Most of what is on those maps is directly relevant to the stories, or at least the series. However, I always toss in extras- locations that might feature in future stories...or never be mentioned elsewhere.

 

[CupofJoe]

I like drawing maps and plans for what I am writing
I am always finding the X is in the wrong place, Y needs to be twice the size and further away and Z is actually on the other side of the castle.
Erase and redraw.
If it all goes completely wrong?
Then just start afresh on a new sheet.
2B Pencil, artists sketchpad paper, and a vinyl/plastic eraser is the way to go...

 

[Insolent Lad]

Once I have a map I generally take the attitude 'this is your world, deal with it,' and build the narrative to match it. Just as I would when writing historical fiction. If nothing else, it makes it easier to move on with the story.

 

[Mad Swede]

I've never thought about my writing in terms of something like "discovery writing". I think the story through then write, and the setting for whatever I'm writing just seems to apperar in my mind as I write. I don't ever think (or dare to think) about how that works, I just let it happen.

That means that I don't draw maps or floorplans of any sort when I'm writing. I did eventually sketch a couple of maps of the over all setting, mostly to help me keep distances and relative positions in mind. The rest of the setting, where inns are in towns and elsewhere, what buildings look like inside, these are in my mind.

Of course, this means my readers have no maps covering the setting or the stories. They get to picture it for themselves.

 

[Prince of Spires]

I'm not a discovery writer, but that doesn't mean I don't discover my maps, or that I make changes to them.

When writing, even with a map, I inevitably come to places where the map is just empty. There's always that small village the hero passes through and has a chance encounter or the forest where he gets ambushed that doesn't appear on the map. And so it has to be pencilled in. You can't have everything mapped out in advance, simply because there are too many variables and a country is an awfully big place and it's impossible to consider all the small places your characters may or may not get to.

So it's a living document. And I'm currently on book 2 of a series with a published map, and I know that changes will have to be made to the map. I originally pencilled in a random place on the edge of the map, and that needs to shift. So when book 2 goes out, book 1 gets an update with a fresh, correct map. And if anyone asks, the cartographers were simply wrong the first time.

 

[Miles Lacey]

I've been drawing maps since I was a child. Then, as now, if a place is mentioned in anything I write it goes on a map. It gets modified as I introduce more details such as railway stations, towns, villages, mountains, lakes, rivers and other features. For me, maps never stay static as there's always new things to add.

 

[skip.knox]

>Just as I would when writing historical fiction
I do write historical fantasy fiction. I do have maps, but they are very high level. When it came, for example, to my WIP, I placed the action in Sirmione, but I knew I had to make some topographic changes. Plus, there sadly has never been a wizard's tower in that neighborhood. <g> So I really do have to have the story dictate to the geography rather than the other way round. This is more true the more local the setting, and less true the broader the setting.

I'm noticing that the people who are content to redraw tend to be people who know how to draw in the first place. That ain't me, despite lifelongings (really ought to be a word) in that direction. So, I'm guessing, for those folks the redraw process is less onerous and possibly even enjoyable, whereas for me it feels fiddly and distracting.

 

[Prince of Spires]

I'm noticing that the people who are content to redraw tend to be people who know how to draw in the first place. That ain't me, despite lifelongings (really ought to be a word) in that direction. So, I'm guessing, for those folks the redraw process is less onerous and possibly even enjoyable, whereas for me it feels fiddly and distracting.

Just to put it out there (I don't know if you put me in the group of people who know how to draw or content to redraw), but I definitely don't know how to draw. It's all just squigles on the page for me. And I just make it up as I go along, helped by youtube tutorials.

 

[pmmg]

Heck, most of my maps start out as just squiggles on a page. Then I try to pretty them up.

If you saw my early game world map, you would see it was very simple. I wanted it to be easy to copy.

 

[pmmg]

If the map is just a tower, just make a blank page and put a dot on it and call it a tower. Add detail if it expands.

Not having a map is sometimes more in the theme of the story anyway. If all locations are 'fuzzy' then letting them just live as people imagine them might suit better.

As for me, I have a map, and try to stick to it. But...I do have some impossible travel that happen. Meaning, people get places quicker than they probably really could. I fudged that by changing the scale What was once 250 miles is now 125. Still...its hard to imagine how much of the story would just be travel with everyone mostly on foot.

 

[xena]

The current thread about mapping has made me wonder about this:

I am a chaotic writer. I'd like to claim I'm chaotic good but I suspect I'm somewhere around chaotic okay. Be that as it may, kinder people call it "discovery writing" and this is aimed at that end of the rainbow.

If you're a discovery writer, do you make maps?

I ask this because if I were to do that, I would be forever revising the map as I "discovered" new aspects of the story. Case in point, my WIP takes place mostly in a tower. I arbitrarily decided the tower would have seven levels and seven sides, but that was about it. Over the course of writing, I have assigned visual themes to each level, have changed my mind about colors and decorations and functions for every level, have built and unbuilt the top level multiple times, and so on. Eventually I made not a map but a document that has key descriptive elements, including room placement. And even now, with a full draft and deep into revision, I keep revising that document.

So, for me, making maps would be fine once the entire story is absolutely done, because only then would the map be absolutely done (I did hire a cartographer for two earlier

For me, the map is less about having everything figured out before I start and more like a guide that grows alongside the story. Even if I have to redraw or adjust things later, it helps me visualize where everything is happening. It chnages quite often tho...that's for sure haha

 

[skip.knox]

First, thanks for the replies, I do appreciate folks taking the time to share.

I have loads of maps--historical maps. Thirty years of teaching medieval history. I still have a wall map, the kind we used to hang at the front of class, of Europe in 1384. Just kept around for sentiment not for practicality. The Internet now provides a flood of maps. Plus treasures like those 16th and 17thc cityscapes.

But even with all that, everything is in flux. The next novel will take place in Germania and I have the destination down to somewhere in Mecklenburg but maybe over to Vorpommern. The actual destination will likely be invented, but the route to get there? I'm all over the map, as it were. Maybe here, maybe there. But if I choose here, then this and that, and if I choose there, then that won't work but this other could.

That sort of thing. If I were working with a wholly invented world, I could just plot the story and invent the setting to support it. In any (and every) case, I'll still probably have to sketch the village and the castle, plus the forest through which the story travels, and the secret settlement that's the wholly invented portion.

"Map" is perhaps too vague a word. We also have "plan" as in a city plan. There is also "plat" as well as diagram.

The thread here reiterates for me the dialectic between discovery and planning. Plot drives setting and setting drives plot, and character informs both and is in turn informed by both. Trialectic?

 

[hunterjwizzard]

Tolkien said to draw the map first, then write the story to fit the map. Otherwise you can end up with absurd problems.

 

[skip.knox]

All problems are absurd right up until you solve them. Some people do start with the map. I wish them well; they go by paths I cannot follow.

 

[Prince of Spires]

I have to ask, why 1384? What happens then (either before or after) that it deserved this map now hanging on your wall? (genuinly curious )

If I were working with a wholly invented world, I could just plot the story and invent the setting to support it. In any (and every) case, I'll still probably have to sketch the village and the castle, plus the forest through which the story travels, and the secret settlement that's the wholly invented portion.

Yes and no. When you first go somewhere or get to a location, then you can invent the setting to support it. However, if you then return to that location at a later point in your story, you're tied to what you created before. And when you travel from point B to point C, then you will know where C is in relation to A.

And this goes both for country spanning maps, but also city plans. You can't have a character run from the fish market to the cobbler's street via a single, short alley in chapter one, only to have it take half an hour in chapter 10.

 

[RoccO]

You can't have a character run from the fish market to the cobbler's street via a single, short alley in chapter one, only to have it take half an hour in chapter 10.

There are different types of maps. Giotto managed to paint a perfect circle for the pope, after a courtier traveled from A to B then back to C. It was not a map, but it would have resonated with him, because he painted some of the roofs. The northern star is not specifically stated but it is referred to continuously. Dumbledore has a perfect map of The London Underground on his left knee.

If there is a pirate map then X always mark the spot. There are always sea serpents and rose lines. A map will change over time and a saga ends but the topography will change less than the culture.

Under the foot is a map of the human anatomy. It is called reflexology.

 

[skip.knox]

Well, faulty memory. I pulled the map and it's 1360. Not a whole lot going on, except a pause in the 100 Years War. Europe was just starting to claw its way back from the Black Death of 1347-1352, but there's another round coming in 1362.

The map is a Denoyer-Geppert. That company made tons of educational maps in the 20thc. What's interesting (to me) is that Shepherd (Shepherd's Historical Atlas was a must-have for history students back in the day) also has a Europe in 1360 map. All I can figure, given the framing maps, is that they had a 13thc one and a 15thc one and the editors insisted there had to be one for the 14thc. Could have been 1356 which looms large in German history. In fact, it'd be interesting to see what historical atlases look like in France or Italy or Germany. Which anchor years did they choose to illustrate?

Oh well. That's far more than you wanted to know. I'll tap out.

 

[Prince of Spires]

Oh well. That's far more than you wanted to know.

I think you underestimate my curiosity and enjoyment of history and maps...

I love hearing history lectures, including about the chaos that was europe through the middle ages. I'm already curious what happened in 1356 in German history. All google gives me is the Golden Bull of 1356. Which I hadn't heard of previously and don't know enough about to grasp the significance.

Though I guess we're drifting off topic now...