# How far do you go in mapping?



## Dark Huntress (Jan 17, 2012)

Do you create a complete world map for your fantasy story or just a regional map for where your story will take place?


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## Devor (Jan 17, 2012)

Regional.  Just the one country.  I have a back-of-the-napkin sketch for anything else.  To be honest with you, doing a world map well and realistically, with any understanding of the countries involved, I think, is a job too big to handle.


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## sashamerideth (Jan 18, 2012)

I just map what I need for the story, during my first draft. Then on my rewrite I take that map in to account.

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## Anders Ã„mting (Jan 18, 2012)

Frankly, I don't do maps - I can't always know what I'll want to put into my world, so if I did use a map it would be one of the last things I do. 

The only map I've made so far is for an RPG I'm running on another forum, and that's because it was sort of a plot point.


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## zizban (Jan 18, 2012)

Like most others, just the region the story takes place in. I don't plan on including a map with any of my stories because, as Glenn Cook says, "Maps set boundaries".


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## SlimShady (Jan 18, 2012)

I mapped out a significant portion of the continent that my story takes place in.  Although the action in my series is actually going to take place in several different countries.  (There is much travelling and several POV characters are from different countries.)  

  I put where major roads are and major cities.  As of now I am planning on putting down major rivers and lakes.  For myself it is a necessity to have a map first.  It helps me better to envision the world that I created and the story I am going to tell.  However, all people are different and it is obvious that this will not work for some people.


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## Sheilawisz (Jan 18, 2012)

My worlds are continent-size islands and I have maps for each entire island, but these maps are not really detailed: very simple maps really, I don't even colour them!! However, I do worry to include the scale to measure distances accurately =)


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## Graham Irwin (Jan 19, 2012)

I make up maps as I write just so that I can keep track of distances and major landmarks.

When my trilogy is through, I hope to take time to illustrate some really good maps. I hope to hand down my books to my kids as hard-bound and fully illuminated and illustrated. 

It's my life's passion!


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## soulless (Jan 19, 2012)

I mapped three continents of my world (it has four continents, but the 4th has barely been explored and is unmapped by my world's inhabitants so I don't feel the need to map that one).  The stories I have planned for this world all take place in one continent at the moment, although this may change when I eventually really get writing as the characters may whisper in my ear that they need to go elsewhere for some reason.  I felt the need to map my world in a quite detailed manner before beginning the actual proper writing so I can know the world in my head in a way similar to knowing our own Earth in my head before writing a tale set in our world.


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## Chilari (Jan 19, 2012)

Generally I create a map at some point between the story's conception and the start of the first proper draft. I like to know what direction my characters are travelling in, where features such as forests and towns are in relation to each other, distances between places for the purposes of getting travel times correct and consistent (can't have one character travelling a distance which takes four days on foot and then another character later taking seven days on horseback when they're in a hurry).

But just yesterday I started thinking about a new story, and for this one I'm going to need a much more zoomed in map. The characters don't do much travelling; they've done that bit, now they're trying to make a home. So both they and I need to designate public areas, residential areas, workshop areas; and I need to know where the cursed burial ground is and where the evil pixies or whatever I end up calling them live, and which bits of land nearby are fertile and flat and which bits are rocky or clay-rich or steep or damp or sandy or whatever else. I don't think I'll need a map of the wider region - it's enough to know that they sailed across the sea and are now on an island or peninsular or whatever distant from their home city, I don't need to know exactly where that city is except a vague direction and the number of days it takes to sail in each direction.

So yeah, while in general I draw out a whole country, with all its cities marked and sites of interest that my characters may never even mention, let alone visit, this time it's all about what's necessary, what's important to the characters, what they would know about this little bit of strange coast they've found themselves trying to establish a colony on. I might even do layered maps, or multiple maps, demonstrating the increase in their knowledge of the area - with the early maps showing little more than the coastline and where the hills are, and later maps marking the fertile fields, individual houses, public spaces, wells, roads, etc.


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## San Cidolfus (Jan 19, 2012)

Create as much of a map as you need or toss the whole things out the window.  Make what is suitable for your story.  If you think a map is helpful, include one.  If you feel it detracts from the mystery, then don't.  Some find it aids the storytelling process to lay out a map in advance, because in drawing such things a writer can feel little stories coming together.  Rivers aren't just lines on paper, they're conduits of civilizations, places where trade flows, cultures mix, battles happen.  Much of history is written in geography.
That said, there are dangers in getting too enthusiastic.  I have an entire folder of maps--around forty or so--of world-view, continent-view, and country-view for the setting of an epic I wrote.  These maps progressed on a complete historical timeline of the world, focusing on key geopolitical events and major demographical movements, starting in the Paleolithic era and continuing until the early sixteenth century, when the story began.  Outside of national borders and detailed topography, the maps also annotated trade routes, productivity centers, and religious and linguistic majorities.
Yes.  I went overboard.  That took me the better part of a year.  By God, I knew my world well, but when I actually wrote it I only ended up referencing about ten percent of what I'd prepped.  Did it put me in a very lucid head-space to inhabit the world?  Yes.  Did the amount of work I put into it justify what I gained from it?  I'd still say yes.  Would I do it again?  Nope.  Next book was set in an alternate-reality France.  I can Google a map of France.


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