A question posed to me on this blog.
Q: When are you going to draw a map for Book of the ancestors series? I'm dying to read Red Sister but can't bring myself to do it without a map.
A: I'm not going to. If you can't read a book without a map I guess it's not a book for you.
I'm often asked: "Did you draw the map first or as you wrote the book." This is frequently by people who haven't read any of my books.
There is an assumption there ... fantasy books have maps. Which is odd, since I have read hundreds (possibly thousands) of novels without maps, many of them set in regions I'm unfamiliar with. The fact is that for a great many works of fiction, maps are irrelevant. Those books are about what people are doing in their lives, if Sarah goes to visit her uncle in Vostok it is sufficient for me to know it took her several hours on the train and when she got there the forests were covered in snow. I don't need to look it up on a map. It doesn't matter.
(small spoilers for the setting in The Broken Empire and The Book of the Ancestor trilogies follow)
When I wrote Prince of Thorns I did not draw the map first. Or during. Or the day, week, month, or year after I had finished. I didn't consult some map in my head. When Jorg goes to Gelleth it was enough for me to know that it took him and his men several days to get there, crossing through mountain passes ... or whatever ... I forget the details. It was never important to the story. The fact is that what was important was that he had to go somewhere and do something.
I drew the map for Prince of Thorns three years later when my publisher asked me to. Sure, I thought, I can draw a map. At that point I thought it would fun to use the map of Europe with a raised sea level. The map never mattered to me writing the story, so it can't really add anything to reading the story except for an illusion of "control".
I've nothing against maps, I just never look at them. I've read the five books of A Song of Ice and Fire twice. The first time I saw the map was when watching the credits of the Game of Thrones TV show. I certainly acknowledge that the map in a story of many nations and multiple widely separated PoV characters does have value to add, and if I wrote a story like that I would draw a map. But the fact remains, I very much enjoyed the story without reference to the map.
In Red Sister the vast majority of the story takes place within a circle a few hundred yards across. The small amount of traveling is simple. The rare references to remote places are similarly simple. The habitable world is a corridor fifty miles wide and tens of thousands of miles long, following the equator. The empire is flanked to the west by one country behind a mountainous border, and to the east by a sea with another country on the far shore.
A map would be a long skinny thing on a page that was 90%+ white space. The detail would be hard to see and invented by me entirely to fill the map ... no other reason. Or alternatively it would fill a dozen or more pages (the corridor now the height of the page and the length stretching through many pages) filled with even more arbitrary detail, hills, mountains, forests, rivers, roads, and towns never referenced in the book.
Well ... I'm not doing it!
By way of compromise, here's a "word map"
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
<-Points East, Scithrowl (mountains) Empire (Marn Sea) Durn, Points West->
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Chocolate ... no wait ... more ice.
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
Ice
I seem to remember that Joe Abercrombie also resisted the need for a map in The Blade books. By the fifth book, he'd given in to the map cravers but the maps themselves were confusing as hell. You can probably blame the map thing on Tolkien.
ReplyDeleteI apologize for the length of this comment. First paragraph is relevant. The rest meanders.
ReplyDeleteI admire and respect your work. If I learn to describe my characters half as effectively as you do yours, and in as few words, I'll be forever in your debt. I respect your reasoning for a lack of maps and I tip my head to you for being able to write even a scene without one.
I come from as opposite a camp as there is (one might say, on the far side of the map? *slaps knee*). Silexare's map is the first thing I created, twenty years ago, fifteen years before I ever considered writing stories therein. Maybe that's why I'm not able to write even a single scene without sketching a map.
If Kale lies wounded beneath a rocky overhang in the slain warthound's den while Arc closes on him with violent intent and Tivali hides out of sight in the bushes, I cannot write the chaos that follows without first answering a dozen questions. A simple sketch answers all those questions. That sketch--a bird's-eye view of the area--qualifies as a map. By the time I finish the story I'm working on I'll have a pile of said "maps," however ugly. Most will be small, some town-sized, and at least one will encompass the entire nation.
Maps help me block out events. I try to keep from expecting them to supplement the story because stories shouldn't rely on non-written props, be they visual, auditory, olfactory, etc. But I love maps and since some people do as well, I don't mind sacrificing a page or two to indulge.
ALL THAT TO ASK: Are you telling me you don't have at least a mental map of the Convent of Sweet Mercy? You have to!
I agree with you. I glance at a map and sometimes admire the artistry that is displayed, but most often I blow by it and dive into the story. Although if someone talented were to offer you their hand, it might make a nice addition between the table of contents and prologue.
ReplyDeleteYour word map had me laughing coffee from my nose!
or host a "map contest". winner map possibly included in the next book. win win
ReplyDeleteI actually Googled "Red Sister map" to see if there was, in fact, a fan-made map available. I confess I was interested in perhaps following Nona's journey during the ranging expedition. I was actually more pleased to find this blog post because it makes total sense. Why have a map for a novel that takes place in such a small area? Well, you wouldn't. Duh. We are reading a book, we're supposed to use our imaginations. And after reading this I thought to myself, having a map would be like telling me my imagination isn't good enough, that I can't imagine my own world. I agree that stories with vast worlds and many different countries benefit from a map for reference, especially if the lands are important to the story, like in A Song of Ice and Fire. But after some reflection I'm happy that there is no map, because it would force me to re-imagine the world I've got in my head. So thank you for this post and thank you for creating such wonderful books!
ReplyDeleteThat word map looks upside down.No wonder you don't want to draw one. All kidding aside, love your work. Take that time you save on maps and write more!
ReplyDeleteI was thinking the same thing! Isn’t East typically to the right? If you assume North is ‘up’. Lol.
DeleteThat word map is brilliant mate. Agree on the map thing. The only time I have used one was in a wheel of time, at the very start of each book to find out where that damn wind was blowing for the first 6 pages ;)
ReplyDeleteI need maps. I need orientation, I need distance. This clever world of yours does negate that need,I will admit..
ReplyDeleteI do have one query. Won't this world be extremely windy?
It is very windy - but I don't think that can be deduced from any of the information provided. Wind strengths and patterns depend on many complex factors with uneven heating being a big one. But when 99.99% of the world is ice the heating is likely to be far more even than on our own world.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI doubt you have less developed visual ability than me!
Deletehttps://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/apr/01/being-an-author-with-aphantasia-mark-lawrence
Oops: I deleted my stupid comment. Then thought, "people hate it when you do that." So here's my stupid comment back again. Please both ignore and forgive it:
DeleteI understand your reasoning. Yep. And let me preface my (admittedly) critical post by saying that I am a fan of your writing. I will tell you, though, that as a map lover, I felt a bit snarked at in this post. We all read differently and visualize differently. I love reading, but have a less developed visual ability, so maps help me. I did come looking for a map because of sentences like this: "The Durns are landing again, in force, spreading along the southern margins. The Scithrowl are at both their borders, though more of them at the one we care about." So I was trying to picture those borders, and how the Durn had gotten to TWO borders.
Ha hahaha. I love your word map. Bring me to that chocolate ice!
ReplyDeleteSoooo, there won’t be a map???
ReplyDelete😂
DeleteI get it, not every story needs a map, it’s true. But to a visual person like myself, who is also … let’s call it directionally challenged, a map sometimes helps anchor the story, helps me better imagine the characters’ environment. There is something jarring about reading that a character turns left, when you were imagining their target to the right, so to speak. Now, having said that, I rarely do more than glance at a map before I start to read the book. But, I bookmark it and return to it a few times throughout the tale, to reorient myself. :) I have actually pored over the Broken Empire maps, and considered printing one to hang on my wall. So, no map is needed, but sometimes nice to have. Imo. ;) (Like, a map of the grounds of Sweet Mercy, hint hint, lol)
ReplyDeleteJust throwing my two cents into the ring as a huge fan of all your works - I completely get all your points about the map not being necessary to the story but... I still really wish there was a map. I can't visualize without one
ReplyDelete