I was wondering how most of you handle stories with maps or cardinal directions or if you even give them importance. I read a bit of fantasy and a lot of those books come with huge intricate maps that I look over once before I start reading the story and then never go look at again. Usually I don’t have to worry about this outside of fantasy but I’m currently reading American War Omar El Akkad and there’s a ton of “north of this place” and “south of this place” and while my understanding of the American map I still get lost. This even happens within an encampment and I just disregard it, same thing with the fantasy novels.
I’m not sure if I’m really missing out on anything by not paying much attention to the maps or directions or if the story would be better if I did but it did get me thinking how do you handle this and do you feel like paying more attention to maps and directions would make the story better?
by iamwhoiwasnow
8 Comments
As in… are you saying that cardinal directions confuse you, or that you find it hard to visualise where things are based on descriptions in books?
Personally I love it when the book has a map because I love to see how everything is laid out 🙂 but if not, it usually isn’t too hard to place locations relative to other locations?
It’s the story and the people and the plot that matter. World building is fun but should be background.
I largely keep my stories set in the real world. Even if it’s a fictional town, it’s a fictional town in upstate NY or along the front range corridor in Colorado or whatever. And after that, it’s fairly easy to use common parlance for locations and directions without anyone needing a detailed street map.
That said, fantasy can be trickier. I know every fantasy writers loves the big Tolkienesque map of the world, and it’s helpful for some folks. I do feel like, if I have to stop reading to look at a map for the story to make sense then something in the passage was badly written.
I’m not sure if that answered your question.
I’m like you, I rarely study the map the first time I read a book. However, if it’s a really good book and I read it more than once, I may study the map the second time I read it.
And as a history buff, over time I’ve become pretty familiar with old maps of the Roman Empire, the Chinese dynasties, the United States during its 19th century expansion, Europe before the Napoleonic Wars, before World War I, or before and after World War II. Since I run into historical maps again and again, eventually it sinks in.
With great confusion lol. I try to wrap my head around them the best I can, but I really just focus on the characters and plot, and hope that I’ll come away with a general understanding of the map that the author imagined. I’ve read all of the Stormlight Archive books and still can’t tell you which nation is which direction from another. I’m reading Empire of Silence right now and I can’t even remember the names of most of the nations and planets, but I’ve got a decent enough grip of the galactic politic to carry on. Occasionally I will google an image of the map for something I’m reading, but ultimately I don’t worry too much about it.
I mean…context is everything.
Is North relevant because it’s not South (where the baddies/pursuit is coming from), or all other routes are blocked/that’s where the path leads or do I really have to make a mental map? Sometimes the direction is less important than others, other times it’s less about the direction and more about it’s proximity. Sometimes you can “map out” an area from a single reference point.
I have a fairly good directional sense and ability to visualize, but I still subconsciously triage the amount of effort I put into stuff like that.
Breaking a larger whole into chunks is another thing I do IRL. The nearest city is divided into 3 pie slices by Interstates, if I know which side of one of them I’m on, I know which slice (or if I’m out in the “crust”) I’m in, and can’t be too lost as a result.
Cardinal directions are fairly relevant around here, many geographic and socioeconomic boundaries are aligned with them.
If there isn’t a map printed in my book I’ll damn well Google one up on the internet. I need to see where my characters middle-of-nowhere is, in relation to my own middle-of-nowhere.
I read fantasy more than any other genre, and personally I like to refer back to the map. Understanding where different key places are helps me grasp what’s going on, especially since war/conflict is common in most books I read. I don’t invest that much time in it, but a loose understanding of borders, or the character(s) journey, etc.
This might be unique to me, but a lot of times my reading speed effects how I interpret the passage of time in a book. If something feels particularly fast or slow, I sometimes refer to the map to get a better idea of how long a part of the journey is supposed to take.
All this being said, you do you. A good story shouldn’t really require a map. It’s just there as a bonus IMO
When I read a 19th century novel I usually look at a map of the city where it takes place. It helps a lot to understand the activities of the characters