Three days late for the beginning of NaNoWriMo 2016, here’s a bonus episode about maps. Because nothing says “keep writing” like “hey, let’s draw a map now!”
Dan and Howard were joined by Maurice Broaddus, Mur Lafferty, and James L. Sutter, who wanted to talk about maps. As Napoleon Bonaparte is rumored to have said prior to invading Russia, “geography is destiny.” We talk port dwarves, rolling glaciers, star systems, and more.
Liner links:
- Logarithmic star map
- Tolkien’s map of Middle Earth
- Center-Pivot Irrigation (75 years old, not 50 as Howard said)
Credits: This episode was mastered by Alex Jackson, and was made possible by the generous support of the GenCon Indy Writer’s Symposium, and the Writing Excuses patrons at Patreon.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 19:45 — 13.6MB)
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Take one big idea from each of two of your favorite books, and mash them up for something new.
The Voices of the Martyrs, by Maurice Broaddus (audiobook not yet available)
Someone else will likely post this too, but the Cartographer’s Guild is a great place to go to find some tutorials on fantasy map design, as well as potentially locate a freelancer to do some work if you have the cash to do so.
https://www.cartographersguild.com/content.php
If nothing else, justing looking through the finished maps in the forums and catographer’s choice maps can be pretty amazing / intimidating.
Chris
There’s an excellent book called “Here be dragons: exploring fantasy maps and settings”, by Stefan Ekman, that has a whole chapter just on maps – how they usually appear in fantasy (and how a lot of them use pseudomedieval conventions), what role they play in the story, what certain aspects (borders, authorship etc.) reveals about the world… It’s a fascinating read.
I knew I shoulda taken that left turn at Albuquerque… And why do rivers flow into the sea? Yes, Dan and Howard got together with Maurice, Mur, and James at GenCon to see if they could figure out why books have maps, and even better, why you might want to start your worldbuilding with a map (and how to cheat… or research!… that map!). So, if you are interested in reading all about it, try the transcript in the archives or over here
http://wetranscripts.livejournal.com/122687.html
Now, which way is the exit again?
If you are interestend in old maps of The Netherlands have a look at https://topotijdreis.nl .
A map of the country with a slider on the side to timetravel. A great way to look at development of a city, area oe the whole country.