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).
Episode 243: Fireside Chats: It’s All About Them Maps
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.
Editor’s Note: One of my authors, Lori Janeski, had a lot to say about the film Old Fashioned, which premiered last week alongside 50 Shades of Grey. I invited her to turn our conversation into a guest review here on Novel Ninja, giving her analysis of why Old Fashioned failed not only as a romantic alternative to 50 Shades, but also why it just plain failed as a means of promoting “old fashioned romance.”
~ Matthew Bowman, Supreme Editor Monkey at Novel Ninja.
I’m not into rom-coms, I’ll admit that at the outset. If you were to ask me to choose between, say, It Happened One Night(Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert) and Twelve O’clock High (Gregory Peck and Hugh Marlowe), I’d pick the war movie, any day of the week and twice on Sunday.
So the fact that I voluntarily went to see Old Fashioned on Valentine’s Day by myself should tell you something. In fact, the main reason I bothered was to try to make sure that Fifty Shades of Smut didn’t make as much money at the box office on their opening weekend.
Knowing that, any review of mine must be taken with a significant grain of salt, because I am not a big fan of the genre in general (with a few exceptions, like Pride and Prejudice). With that in mind, this is what I thought. Continue reading →
As I said in my review of Shanna Swendson’s Enchanted series, I wound up with a lot more to say that was really appropriate for a review. Like many of my posts, it’s a long one, clocking in at over three thousand words, but it’s aimed more at writers than all readers. And, I promise: spoiler free! (Well, except for the romance angle.)
So, without further ado, here’s my analysis of this new favorite series. Continue reading →
A pretty good description of me trying to read a random selection from the Paranormal Romance shelf.
Most of the time, when someone refers to “romantic urban fantasy,” my brain starts turning off.
Now, I’m not opposed to chick lit; in fact, I’ve been so far to the other side that when I was a favorite target of schoolyard teasing, the one thing they never managed to get under my skin was that I avidly read Nancy Drew as far back as the fourth grade. I didn’t get why it was weird. I’d already read every Hardy Boys I could get my hands on, after all! But chick lit fantasy seems to mainly be a genre where you have mere variations on a woman swooning over a vampire, werewolf, or . . . well, no, just vampires and werewolves. Yeah. It’s gotten a bit stale out there.
Well, it turns out there’s a seven-book series that, while not exactly new (the first book came out nearly ten years ago), still brings new life to this particular sub-genre. Enchanted, Inc., by Shanna Swendson, kicks off a lighthearted romantic fantasy series staring one Katie Chandler, small-town Texan girl, who discovers that New York is weirder than most New Yorkers ever dream of. It’s smart, funny, enjoyable, and just a little addictive without ever coming close to “guilty pleasure” territory.
In fact, I suspect that many of my own readers would be interested in a romantic fantasy series that is 1) very fun to read, 2) cleverly described, 3) has no sex scenes, and 4) does not feature a vampiric or wolfish love interest. I welcome you all to prove me right.
I spent an enjoyable week and a half reading through the entire series, occasionally discussing it with my friend Lori, and generally just enjoying the change of pace from my usual fare. I wound up being a rather enthusiastic fan of the series by the end, and decided it was something to recommend far and wide. If, like me, you normally get your hackles up at the phrase “paranormal romance,” you owe it to yourself to check out this series.
I’ve got more stuff to say about it — this is a writing blog, after all, and there are some things to look at if you’re a writer yourself — but I’ll be splitting it off into a separate post because it ran long. For now, I’m concerned only with the review portion. Continue reading →
I’m not usually one for rom-coms. Of course, I have nothing against them per se — and I’m a complete romantic sap in real life. But your average romantic comedy usually doesn’t appeal to me because they’re generally quite predictable and need to be based around some central element that makes them stand apart. Continue reading →
You’re at a convention, doing what everyone at such an event does sooner or later: waiting on the elevator. While engaging in small talk with the lady next to you, you find out she’s a senior editor at your favorite publishing house. You decide to pitch your book to her. Problem is, you’ve only got a few moments while you both step into the elevator — and she’s probably heard pitches about books just like yours. Can you describe your novel in thirty seconds and still make it interesting? Continue reading →
1) A person who uses subtlety and a vast array of skills to bring out the best in a story, preferably when the audience least expects it. E.g.: an editor.
2) A blog run by freelance editor Matthew Bowman, focused on advice for writers and reviews for readers.
Novel Ninja 
Maps with Blasters & Blades
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.
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