As I said a few posts ago, I finally got the push I needed to start updating this site when I agreed to be on the Blasters & Blades show and podcast. The episode was a fireside chat on maps, but as you might expect with seven nerds chatting about things it tangetted a few times. I’m not even the least bit sorry, because it was fun.
Here’s the link to the audio on Spotify, or you can watch the video below for the extra map visuals (and have a better idea of who’s talking).
Maps a a great bonus to have in fiction, but they should always be a bonus and not strictly necessary to understand the story. You don’t want to depend on readers flipping to the map whenever they get confused; actually, you don’t want them to get confused, period. Instead, you want them to flip to the map when they’re so interested in the story that they want the extra visual. When The Fellowship of the Ring mentions Mordor, the reader should ideally know approximately where it is already before seeing the map, and the map itself should be clarification rather than a primary source.
A simple map is good, like the extremely bare-bones map used for much of the Honor Harrington series by David Weber; it gives the minimum information you need and moves on from there without distracting you. Complex maps like in Tolkien’s Middle Earth setting aren’t complex because of geography, though, as most of the complexity is due to the art itself. That art isn’t there for its own sake, but rather to give the feeling of an expansive world with interesting terrain, full of amazing stories that happen just out of sight of the characters you’re actually following. Both styles help immersion in different ways: one by not getting in the way of your imagination, the other by encouraging your imagination to run a little wild for a while before drawing you back down to (Middle) Earth.
Not all maps are of geography, though, whether geographic or stellar in scope. In a story where relationships are important, like Pride and Prejudice, a character map is very helpful. A ‘murder wall’ or ‘conspiracy map’ can help visualize the connections between various clues and suspects in a mystery or thriller. A timeline is another kind of map, much more linear but full of detail that puts things in context, and can be especially important in settings that reference multiple different calendars, or as a histomap that can show the relative scope of something over time. You might have a diagram of a ship like the Enterprise from Star Trek, or a chart of magical abilities like in several different Brandon Sanderson series. (I’d love to post examples of each of these, but it would make this post rather challenging to scroll through.)
Presenting them as a visual medium, rather than a grand Wall o’ Text, helps a reader absorb the information faster and stay immersed in the story. That’s not to say that blocks of texts aren’t good bonus materials, but they’re better as something your readers can access on a wiki, as part of your Patreon, in your newsletter, or (if you’re really successful) as part of a supplemental behind-the-scenes/about-the-world book that your dedicated fans will snap up, such as The Dragonlover’s Guide to Pern, or the hard-to-find (but I have a copy!) Atlas of the Forgotten Realms.
(Yes, the latter is a D&D campaign setting, so arguably its nature is supplemental materials to begin with, but that particular volume was intended as a supplement to the novels rather than the game. You know, back when those novels were good. Hmm, I should do a blog post on the early Realms materials.)
If your map, whatever it is, has a significant amount of information on it that isn’t relevant to either the story or the map, then you’ve probably included too much. By ‘relevant to the map,’ I mean that there are plenty of map elements that aren’t necessary to the plot but put the map itself in better context by pointing out certain landmarks or making the world feel larger. Your story might mention a particular country but not mention its capital; but if you mention the capitals of two other countries and mark them on your map, you should probably mark the capital of the third, too. However, if you’re detailing a map and the action only takes place in one small corner, your map may be too large; one exception is that if the next few books will go there, putting the larger map in for context might be important.
Conversely, as the series expands, it’s necessary to update the map some more to include places mentioned so far. While I praised the original Honor Harrington map for its simplicity, the way it remained static for so long despite so many star systems being introduced was a detriment until it was finally updated.
There are also in-character, in-world maps that can be very useful in other ways, and we discussed those in the episode above. Check it out, but you might want to grab a drink and a snack first because it’s over an hour long.
Novel Ninja 
Writing Maxim #1: Writing is an Art, Not a Science
Over the years, I’ve found myself repeating a few phrases over and over to authors of all levels, including clients, students, and lecture attendees. I eventually started calling them my maxims, and it’s high time I laid them out on my own site. After all, much of the reason for my blog updates is to give me a handy place to put stuff I already repeat a lot, so I can just link people to the post and save time in the future.
Today, it’s Writing is an art, not a science. Kind of obvious, since we call it a creative art rather than a scientific field, but it’s good to really think about what that means — especially authors worried about learning how to “do it right” or violating some kind of rule.
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