Geography in your world

[misprinted]

I'm struggling with conveying the geography of my world. I have a map (roughly sketched), but my last critique partner wasn't able to get a good sense just from reading the story of where one location was from another, or how big the world / country was.

I know this probably means I need to brainstorm my world's geography more so that I have a better understanding of it, but does anyone have any ideas / tips for how to translate that clearly onto the page without infodumping?

EDIT: Also, any tips on how to make your world bigger and more substantial would be great, too!

 

[troynos]

"It was a good two weeks journey by horse" tends to work for me in conveying distance

 

[Nomadica]

I thought The Dying Earth by Jack Vance did a good job of this.

 

[Queshire]

I agree with Troy that time is one of the best ways to communicate distance, heck it's MUCH better than using actual distance. Travelling 100 miles in a car only takes about an hour and a half at highway speeds, but covering that same distance on foot would take you two days and most of the third. Travelling between distant countries or over seas before airplanes became a thing could take months or even years.

 

[misprinted]

"It was a good two weeks journey by horse" tends to work for me in conveying distance

Any good way to measure distance between different points on a map you've created? What do you use as a baseline?

What's a relatively normal distance on foot vs. horseback per day, do you think?

 

[TheKillerBs]

I think that it's more that the time spent traveling is a more relevant detail than distance. You probably also want to give a travel direction, too. But to answer misprinted's question, you have to know every single relevant detail about your story. The readers don't. You can use vague adjectives or descriptions to give a sense of scale without ever giving one. After all, saying that the Nile River is so wide that you can barely see the banks in the horizon gives a greater sense of wonder than saying it's about 3 kilometres (or 2 miles) wide.

ETA: average walking speed is 5 km/h (~3 miles/h). Dunno about the horses.

 

[CupofJoe]

Any good way to measure distance between different points on a map you've created? What do you use as a baseline?

You must have an idea on the scale of your "world" already...
In your mind does it cover a continent [like the LotR or GoT maps]? Or just a county within a country [ala a map of the Shire].
Workout one distance/time and then the rest should all fall in to place, bit by bit.
You may find at this point you need to redraw your map or rewrite your story as things will be further apart or closer together than you first thought.
I usually hand draw a map for my use as making changes is a lot easier on paper, I've found.

What's a relatively normal distance on foot vs. horseback per day, do you think?

Very roughly, I work on 12 miles by Foot and 24 miles by Horse [per day for an extended journey]. Slightly Further if its a short journey [15/30 for a few of days], a bit further still if it's a single day's travel [up to 25/40] or if there is time to rest and/or change horses etc.
These are my repeatable values.
You might need an MC to ride 100 miles in a night by horse, and it would be possible, but the horse would be exhausted.
I've walked/marched 101 miles in 24 hours [and survived ] but it took me nearly a week before I was fully recovered and wanted to go hiking again.
Length of journey...
Terrain...
Ground conditions...
Weather conditions...
Food/Water availability...
Need for speed/haste/secrecy...
They will all affect the time vs distance ratio.
Five miles in high mountains with cliffs, crevasses, blizzards, winds, ice [et al] may take a week.
Five miles across an open meadow on a nice day might take little more than an hour.

 

[FifthView]

The Cartographer's Guild had a thread about travel times that might help: How far a horse travels in one day There are various charts in the thread that will give you a general estimate of travel times for travel by foot and travel by horse.

Gimp is a free program for drawing and photo manipulation, similar to Photoshop. I use it for making maps. You can set units in it, and it has a tool to measure distances between points on the map and also for drawing and annotating those distances. I've found this to be helpful when contemplating travel that happens in stories.

 

[misprinted]

You can use vague adjectives or descriptions to give a sense of scale without ever giving one. After all, saying that the Nile River is so wide that you can barely see the banks in the horizon gives a greater sense of wonder than saying it's about 3 kilometres (or 2 miles) wide.

Totally true. I wasn't thinking about it that way.

You must have an idea on the scale of your "world" already...
In your mind does it cover a continent [like the LotR or GoT maps]? Or just a county within a country [ala a map of the Shire].
Workout one distance/time and then the rest should all fall in to place, bit by bit.
You may find at this point you need to redraw your map or rewrite your story as things will be further apart or closer together than you first thought.

I guess I see it as half and half — a continent, but on the smaller side, so more with regions like the Shire?

Yeah, I'm thinking I may need to redraw and adjust within my story in some way, even if it's just to give a better sense of how much time has passed upon reaching a new place, or traveling between places, etc.

Very roughly, I work on 12 miles by Foot and 24 miles by Horse [per day for an extended journey]. Slightly Further if its a short journey [15/30 for a few of days], a bit further still if it's a single day's travel [up to 25/40] or if there is time to rest and/or change horses etc.
These are my repeatable values.
You might need an MC to ride 100 miles in a night by horse, and it would be possible, but the horse would be exhausted.
I've walked/marched 101 miles in 24 hours [and survived ] but it took me nearly a week before I was fully recovered and wanted to go hiking again.
Length of journey...
Terrain...
Ground conditions...
Weather conditions...
Food/Water availability...
Need for speed/haste/secrecy...
They will all affect the time vs distance ratio.
Five miles in high mountains with cliffs, crevasses, blizzards, winds, ice [et al] may take a week.
Five miles across an open meadow on a nice day might take little more than an hour.

All very helpful factors to consider. I've included all of those different conditions, except I've neglected weather (which is a big one!) and obviously a sense of the journey's length. But I think weather is one that could really help to make the world have more of a presence.

The Cartographer's Guild had a thread about travel times that might help: How far a horse travels in one day There are various charts in the thread that will give you a general estimate of travel times for travel by foot and travel by horse.

Gimp is a free program for drawing and photo manipulation, similar to Photoshop. I use it for making maps. You can set units in it, and it has a tool to measure distances between points on the map and also for drawing and annotating those distances. I've found this to be helpful when contemplating travel that happens in stories.

I'll check both out. I think I've heard of Gimp before — might be a good idea to tinker around in there once I do some re-charting on paper.

Thanks, all! Very helpful stuff.

 

[TheKillerBs]

Length of journey...
Terrain...
Ground conditions...
Weather conditions...
Food/Water availability...
Need for speed/haste/secrecy...
They will all affect the time vs distance ratio.
Five miles in high mountains with cliffs, crevasses, blizzards, winds, ice [et al] may take a week.
Five miles across an open meadow on a nice day might take little more than an hour.

Add who is doing the traveling to this. An army will walk further than a group of pilgrims, for example.

 

[troynos]

When you say "it takes 2 weeks to travel there by horse", the reader has an idea in their head of what that means. You don't need to specify weather, road conditions, speed, etc.. It's assumed to be an average and traveling in ideal conditions.

How do you tell someone how far away something is now? Do you say "it's only an hour"? That conveys to the listener the distance. They know generally how far someone can go in an hour. Do you say "it's only a mile"? Again, the listener has a general idea of how far a mile is. They can make the changes for the varying factors in their head.

This isn't something that is unique to fantasy. We do this all the time in our lives. "I'll be there in 15 minutes", the listener now has a general idea of where you are. When you say that, you don't know what the current conditions are, you're going off general knowledge because people know how far they could go in 15 minutes.

All you're doing is establishing a rough idea to the reader or listener. You don't need to say "Well it's two weeks travel with a horse that goes 25 miles a day, but the first 3 days is easy open plains but the last 3 is mountainous". The simple "two weeks time" establishes the scale.

Now if telling someone that doesn't know the area, then you get more descriptive about the land. "It's two weeks through some dense forest and over some mountains." The reader/listener then knows that the distance isn't as great as two weeks over flat plains because there are obstacles that slow the travel down.

 

[TheKillerBs]

One thing about measuring points on the map that I totally forgot earlier. Roads wind and twist and turn and sometimes you'll even end up walking in the opposite direction that you're traveling to. Keeping that in mind, I usually multiply the actual distance by some arbitrary number between 1.5 and 3, depending on length and windiness of the path I'm picturing.

 

[CupofJoe]

Add who is doing the traveling to this. An army will walk further than a group of pilgrims, for example.

True.
Also if it is an Army [lots and lots of people], then logistics come into play and the distance per day can go right down. As it is now limited to how fast you can supply the food and water, stay safe, scout ahead.
So there are a lot of variables...