Cartography Craziness

The mountains are on the wrong side of the planet.

At least mine are. This weekend I spread all the maps I made for the Moonstone Chronicles on the dining room table, and although there was a lot of work that went into them and they were something to be proud of, they were also wrong.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

In the books I referred to the Shadow Mountains being in the west. Darkness is building in the west. Anakaron is holed up in the west. Well, when you’re facing north, then the west is on your left. The Shadow Mountains are on the right, making them in the east.

I thought briefly of flipping the map (or in this case multiple maps) over and tracing the outline from the back, but that’s not really going to work either. I have three big maps and a multitude of little maps. I need one map to rule them all.

See, the other problem I have with my maps is that they were created before I started working on the Chronicles. Other than Ghren and the Darkwood Forest, all the towns and cities were pretty much added in a haphazard manner, appearing just willy-nilly wherever my pen tip happened to land. And then I lost my maps when I was doing the actual writing, forgot the names of these towns (never mind where they were) and made up new ones. Ones that appear nowhere on my maps. And let’s not forget in Lucky Dog the action crosses and recrosses a river, which also does not appear on the map.

*sigh*

So what is the lesson to be learned?

When writing a fantasy series that involves a lot of traveling, a map is a very handy tool for keeping track of where your characters are and where they’re going. However, it is best to start out with a vague outline and fill in the details as you go along. Also, do them in pencil, going over them with ink when the series is done.

Someone should really write all these pearls of wisdom for writing a fantasy series down, eh?


Prompts of the Week

Prompt One
You’re at work, like any normal day, and happen to look out the window as you head to the break room for a second cup of coffee. What you see makes you stop in your tracks. What is it?

Prompt Two
One day, while reading your favourite book on the beach, you notice a boat slowly drifting to shore. It eventually lands near your spot. A person, draped in pirate clothes, yells to you from the boat, “I have a treasure map and I need help. Are you in?”

You don’t need to spend a lot of time on these, they’re just meant for fun. Take 5 minutes to think about it, then write for 10 or 15 minutes. And if it turns out you like what you’ve written, then by all means turn your exercise into an actual story. You can find these prompts, and others like them, at Writer's Digest .