I’ve been intending to set up this specialized blog for a long time, but at long last, have gotten it up and running!
I’ll be posting news here about any activities related to The Scribbler’s Guide to the Land of Myth. But I will also, much more regularly be posting short bits analysing mythic motifs in stories all around us. Look for fun!
I hope you will find the posts interesting and informative.
Again, welcome!
SLB
(Originally posted on LiveJournal)
I’ve mentioned before the search threads that bring people to my website. It’s interesting to look at them, and hey! it occasionally gives me something to talk about on LiveJournal and my blogs.
I decided to go for something off-beat this time.
Almost every month there’s at least one search thread that has brought someone to my site that involves The X-Files and the various names for Bigfoot. The reason I gets hits for that search thread is that I posted a PDF of an X-Files spec script I did a long time ago that used the Sasquatch. (You can find the intro page for the script here )
The introduction page gives a brief explanation of why I used that subject for the script. But looking at the search elements that brought people to it woke some nostalgia in me.
First off, it’s rather funny, the spellings that people use. There is the straightforward “Bigfoot”. Then, there was the person who spelled it “Saquash”. I amused myself wondering if that was a new type of monster squash. But my favorite was “Satwsqatch”. I’m not even sure how one would pronounce that.
Back in my youth, like many others of that age, I went through a bout of being interested in cryptozoology and cryptoscience (or pseudoscience). I’m not sure that it was a matter of believing that the oddities I read about actually existed. But they were fun to read about. And I think in the back of my head, I was also considering them as fodder for possible stories I might write.
So, when I sat down to write an X-Files spec, Sasquatch felt like a natural possibility. I amused myself about speculating on the nature of the creature. I decided that if Sasquatch (and their various cousins, including the Yeti) “were real” and had indeed managed to avoid being encountered by humans (for the most part), they had to have a degree of intelligence. They wouldn’t be without reasoning capabilities, for they would have to figure out ways to avoid detection. This would also mean that they would need to have a close family life, since abandoned offspring do not figure in the folklore of Bigfoot. So if a Sasquatch child was accidentally killed, I figured the parents would take vengence, and also reclaim the body – because they were careful to leave no evidence (if they could help it).
It amused me to put Mulder in a battle of wits against a Sasquatch – and have Mulder lose.
Are these giant humanoids real? I grew up reading science fiction and like to think that I keep an open mind about the possibilities of this universe. But seriously, is it realistically possible that a creature of that size would be able to avoid detection for so long? We know for a certainty that bears roam the wild. Or even (in the realm of giant creatures), that giant boars exist (I saw photos of a huge one killed in the American South a few years ago – making me realize that MacDatho’s Pig of Irish legend, and the Calydonian Boar might not be quite as fanciful as I first thought). These real large creatures leave traces. Sasquatch, not so much. So I end up disinclined to believe they exist. But I’m not totally dismissive.
As I say in the intro to the script, Sasquatch was so obvious a subject for The X-Files, that they never really did an episode with one. The closest they came was the one about the Jersey Devil, and that they placed in a near-urban setting, making it even more off-beat. It was one of the strengths of the show that they tried to avoid the absolutely obvious subjects. But apparently, even after all this time since the show’s end, some people still think there should have been an episode about the Sasquatch.
kylecassidy – Jul. 10th, 2009
i think there should have been an episode about sasquatch. for shizzle. lamentably, i’ve rented every movie netflix has with either “bigfoot” or “sasquatch” in the title (barring the ones about the monster truck). they’re near universally awful. an x-files episode would have rocked.
scribblerworks – Jul. 10th, 2009
Indeed. I had fun writing that script, and remain fond of it.
kylecassidy – Jul. 10th, 2009
i’m reading it right now and it’s very good! great job capturing them — and with the “no kidding” and “like” — it has excellent running gags.
(Originally posted on LiveJournal)
It’s been a couple of months since I had last checked the visitor statistics on my website – mainly because the pointing of the principal URL is screwed up (trying to fix that right now). Even so, one of the interesting things to check out is the “search threads” that bring people to my pages. Not that I get gobs and gobs of traffic at present, but even the trickle that does happen is interesting.
One pretty regular search pattern is of those looking for discussions of heroines in literature. I’ve commented on this before.
But this month there was an interesting one that popped up. It was “why do we need hero’s quest in literature”. That struck me as worthy of some comment. I haven’t tried organizing my thoughts on this, so what follows is likely to be a bit rambling.
Where to start?
Okay, let’s consider the matter of having a hero at all. In this case, I mean “hero” as the main character, not necessarily “male good guy”. Like the subject of a sentence (a needed factor, one way or another), the Hero of a story (also known as “literature”, among other things), serves as the focus of that story. Someone we follow through events. Frequently, story Heroes serve as an avatar for the audience, the embodiment of our interest in what is about to unfold.
Is it possible to tell a story without a Hero? Maybe. Prose mood poems often do not have a central character. Much poetry does not have a character that we follow (mainly because the subject may be the narrator his or herself). But a story without a central character is definitely in the minority and usually has a very specific purpose. So, apparently, the need for a Hero is that we need someone to focus our emotional connection on. Because stories address our subjective responses to the world, not our intellectual, objective responses.
How about needing a quest in a story? Do we need that? A “quest” means an inquiry or a search. Do we ever tell stories that aren’t about answering a question, or trying to find something?
I’ve never really read much of Proust. When I was in graduate school, I took a course on critical methods, which was supposed to give us a survey of the various schools of criticism from the past and then current in Academia. To give us something to peck at in one section, our instructor had us read (some or all – though I didn’t finish it) Proust’s Swann’s Way. One of the forms of criticism we’d been considering at that time had been semiotics. The choice of reading material thus struck me as bizarre, since we were reading a translation and would not be able to critique the author’s language as he wrote it. On top of which, I admit it, Proust bored me. It seemed to me to be one big mass of wallowing in memories without any direction or point to it. What did Proust want out of all this remembrance? What was he looking for?
As you can see, I am personally, rather strongly quest oriented when it comes to story. But I can see that for some, there might be something of value in a non-questing story.
But basically, a quest of some sort will move the story forward through events. My friend Blake Snyder contends that all stories are about redemption. The desire to recover or restore something that was lost is indeed a very strong driving force for stories. But is redemption what drives a coming-of-age story? There is certainly a similar feeling in that youth’s quest to find what it is he (or she) is to become in the world. Whatever it is, there is a feeling of lack which the character (and we, as the audience) that needs to be filled. What it is, and why it is, and how it came about — all these things can be elements of the quest. The object of the quest might be an external item, or an internal realization. But in either case, something needs to be found.
Do we need “literature”? Well, strictly speaking, “literature” is just the lettered form of a story, something written down to capture it in permanence, making it possible to pass on to others, once it is out of the original storyteller’s keeping. There are many forms of storytelling these days…. written, acted, captured on video, sung. But let’s keep the term “literature” in its broadest sense of “permanent record of a story”. That way we can include film and television.
Yes, I think we do need literature. Like mythology, literature expresses our subjective response to our experiences. We take the events of our lives, mix in our own thoughts and beliefs, put them in the oven of our emotions and bake ourselves a new story, which we then give to others. We do this so we can give them a share of our thoughts, beliefs and emotions – not by way of a lecture of facts about the events in our lives, but rather an experience of the taste of it all. The final product of our story-cooking may seem so very different from the ingredients that those who eat the cake don’t know all the details. But, that wasn’t the point in telling them the story. We didn’t want to make them endure what happened to us, we wanted them to get an understanding of what it meant to us. Telling stories, making literature, is how we do that.
So, stepping back from these individual elements of the original question, we find: yes, we need literature, but we might not necessarily need a Hero or a Quest.
But …. a story about a person doing something, looking for something, taking action, is the surest method humans have found for conveying emotion. We respond to the flow of events. We watch or listen and we sympathize or empathize with the characters in the story. The emotional distance of sympathy and empathy give us a sense of safety (protecting our own experience of the world, our own deepest emotions), and yet let us still share in very intense experiences – of love, of fear, of anger, of joy. And a quest, which has something to be answered or something to be found, promises us a foreseeable end to this particular set of emotional experiences. Because our own lives are “open-ended”, as it were, stories that have resolutions satisfy us. They give us a piece of cake to enjoy, to linger over and savor, and then be done with.
This leads me to a “new” thought, about why some people feel compelled to pick up a story that is completed, and cling to it, and try and stretch it out even further. More, more, more of that bit of story. Why? I really do wonder about it, because it’s not a particularly strong impulse for me. I’ve always found that if an author feels done with a story, I’m okay if that’s where he wants to stop. Of course, I say that having the benefit of Conan Doyle responding to pressure for more Sherlock Holmes stories for instance. On the other hand, Patrick McGoohan stopped the story of The Prisoner where he wanted to, leaving it delicious still with its inherent inexplicabilities. And I like that too, and don’t really feel the need for more. But that’s just me.
Anyway…. them’s my musings on the question of that particular search thread. What do you think?
godswraith – Mar. 26th, 2009
Really nice run of thoughts, I adjourn to ponder……
scribblerworks – Mar. 27th, 2009
Good to know I can be thought provoking. 🙂
(Deleted comment)
scribblerworks – Mar. 27th, 2009
Re: loosing the hero, loosing the land, remembering it here
But it seems to me that many of the remembrances I read on LJ are presented as stories.
I suspect that Tolkien wanted to convey that sense of loss you feel at finishing LOTR. So much of his writing seems drenched in that elegy for a glory lost. As for feeling loss when Aragorn becomes king — yes. The taking up of a responsibility that is tied to a place and a people does mean the loss of the freedom to roam that he had had before. And yet, as long as he had that freedom, he could not have the one thing he wanted the most – Arwen. Tolkien is very good at being clear that gains come at a cost.
sartorias – Mar. 26th, 2009
Good thoughts–nodding much in agreement.
Me, I only mentally go on with a story if it didn’t feel completed to me, or completed right. Otherwise, I’m good with it ending.
scribblerworks – Mar. 27th, 2009
True… I can definitely understand the sense of wanting to finish something that was “finished badly”.
jpantalleresco – Mar. 27th, 2009
Identity
Hero’s Quests are about making connections to ourselves. Who we are. What kind of person we want to be.
What the hero really wants almost has nothing to do with the object they seek, or the obstacle they must overcome, rather the connections the object/dilemma make with themselves. As readers, we ourselves become the hero, going through our perils page by page.
Identity is the great theme of heroic literature. Now, you don’t need that particular tale every time, but I’d argue that comics, fantasy and others thrive just based on that theme alone.
JP
scribblerworks – Mar. 27th, 2009
Re: Identity
Indeed. That’s actually one of my strongest feelings about storytelling — that we, the audience, want to identify with the Hero of a story.
However, when I was working on my book, one of my beta readers actually resisted that. She’s a writer herself, but she felt that the audience was even further removed on the emotional level – just wanting to watch a roller-coaster sort of thing. I didn’t really agree with her, but it made me less universal in the claim that the audience identifies with the Hero.
But yes, I think we follow stories to test ourselves against possibilities we might not meet in our own lives. “Would I be brave, if left alone on a wintery mountain over night? Do I have the internal resources to deal with the solitude?” I think that is a big reason why we love stories.
(Anonymous) – Apr. 10th, 2009
Sarah you are brilliant!
I love the blog Sarah! And I have to say again how much I love your book! The Scribbler’s Guide to the Land of Myth is one I dip into often and always learn something new every time I do! I hope there is a sequel in the offing. Your insights never fail to jar some new idea loose about a storytelling and its purposes. This notion of “why do we need a hero” is fascinating! While in China this fall, I saw a shadow play at a tea house. The story was, for lack of a better term, holistic. The hero was jut a part of the landscape, and of nature. And he did not play the most important role. There was no real change – except a moral of the story that changed me the audience member. Is it true “story?” I don’t know. But I was spellbound. I think as we become a more global marketplace and dip into the story templates of other countries and cultures, we may be surprised by how our ideas about story and heroes continue to evolve. Thanks for your insights! — Blake Snyder
scribblerworks – Apr. 10th, 2009
Re: Sarah you are brilliant!
Thanks, Blake! (Glad you stopped by!)
I think I know what you mean about the shadow play’s story being holistic. After you said that, it occured to me that many modern ballets do not necessarily have heroes to them, and yet they do have elements of storytelling to them.
Hmmm. Interesting possibilities. More investigation is called for. 😀
The Traveling Muse
(Originally posted on LiveJournal)
A couple of things have come my way in the last couple of days that have been great re-energizers for me.
First off, an online friend in England sent me a review of his reaction to The Scribbler’s Guide to the Land of Myth.
*****
As promised – a review of the book. Unfortuately as I ordered through Amazon UK it doesn’t appear to let me show my review on the US version. If you have a way to connect the two, by all means please do.
Oh yeah the book – really enjoyed reading it and love dipping into random pages. As I say in the review the balancing act of various content and concepts is impressive – it would of have been very easy to be swamped by one area.
(Link to his review at Amazon.uk)
*****
Then yesterday, when sorting papers, I found some older papers that have provided some inspiration.
First was finding the original manuscript for my poem on the damnation of Don Juan, with the note that one of my grad school professors wrote about it. She had some very complimentary things to say about it.
Then there were rejection letters from some short stories I submitted while I was an undergraduate. I remember that they did sting at the time. But some of them had notes like “Interesting story, but your prose is not adequate.” That was disappointing. But I can look back at them now and smile – I cringe a little thinking of the stories those critiques were applied to.
And then there were some story notes for stories that didn’t get written. Reading through the notes, I was very pleased to find that they are still pretty good ideas! Not bad at all! I’m going to copy the notes onto my computer and put them into active development.
After about a month or so of being stalled out creatively, it’s rather nice to find these things that have jazzed me up again about being a writer. I’m getting all wound up again, wanting to get back to work on various projects.
I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas!
sartorias – Dec. 23rd, 2008
Go for it!
scribblerworks – Dec. 24th, 2008
Been doing so, getting them on the computer.
It is sort of funny to look at the idea and wonder “How did I come up with this story?”
On the other hand, it’s nice to know that it is mine.
(Originally posted on LiveJournal)
I was sorting through some stuff today, determining what I could throw out, what could get packed up and moved to the storage unit, and what I wanted to keep at hand. I ran across a box on an upper shelf in the hall cupboard, and pulled it down to check it. Oooo, boy, am I glad I did!
I’ve been working on my fantasy novel, The Ring of Adonel, and the story has lately been moving forward into “new territory”. In a sort of literal sense. The characters at last had moved out of territory that I knew well in my imagination, and they were moving into territory that (so far) I only knew by way of the maps I had created.
The problem was that I’d misplaced pretty much the only copies of the maps of the lands current with the story. There may be one set of copies somewhere in my papers, but I have no idea where they might be. The reason why having the maps is important, is that the distance scale is on them — so that I know how long it takes to get from point A to point B.
So, I needed the maps. And I found them! YAY! And promptly realized that the next major location the characters reach is actually still a couple of days away from where they are when I stopped working on the novel last month (a couple of other writing projects superceded it, for the present).
This got me to thinking about maps of imaginary places in general.
I love maps. Love, love, love maps. I’ve always loved geography. I find the subject almost endlessly fascinating. So, maps of fantasy places also intrigue me.
One thing that disappoints me in imaginary cartography are flat out errors of physical geography. Like rivers that go all the way through mountain ranges from one side to the other without explanation. Water only flows downhill, let us remember. Now, I’m not going to say that you can’t make an explanation — I, in fact, do have a river that sort of does that. But I know enough physical geography to create a geological history that allows for this particular river to flow this particular way (it includes some truly spectacular waterfalls, by the way).
Anyway… I have my maps! I’m going to need to scan them, so I have a record in case I misplace these precious papers again.
But, I’m happy to have found them.
Comments
sartorias – Nov. 20th, 2008
*love*
(As long as they are not yet another variation of Middle Earth)
scribblerworks – Nov. 20th, 2008
Okay, that’s a statement that intrigues me.
What makes for a “variation of Middle-earth”? Because I suspect it might be different for different people?
Is it lands that are shaped too much like Middle-earth’s? Or something like the squared-off, mountain-enclosed Mordor?
Elaborate, please! 🙂
sartorias – Nov. 20th, 2008
Some distortion of western europe, bad guys in the east, angels over the western sea. (There were a whole lot of these through the seventies and early eighties. They tended to be pretty predictable, so when I opened a book and saw such a map, I tended to think, uh oh, Tolkien shaped this story in the writer’s youth. I might do a page 97 test, and if the prose was not engaging, I’d pass. If it caught me, I’d read anyway, even if the general story turned out to be very much shaped by LOTR.
scribblerworks – Nov. 20th, 2008
*whimper*
I… slightly… resemble that remark! 😉
Although, in my case, the influence is more than just Tolkien. My genetic heritage is British, and so many of the motifs that I respond to are those that Tolkien did as well. The Blessed Lands lying to the west — be it Tir na Og or Avalon (or Tolkien’s Valimar or my own Kyradon).
Because of that, I tend to be a little more forgiving of the “pseudo-Europe” or Tolkien-influenced landscapes. What I find less generally acceptible is when I see more specific repetitions of Tolkien: the mountain enclosed “bad land” like Morder, or the protected gentle Shire-like homeland. Or “dwarf” kingdoms that are just too much like Moria (or Khazad-dum in its glory).
sartorias -Nov. 20th, 2008
Yep. I realize those things. I’m not saying I’m right, just my own reaction. (I never took to the Tir-nan-og tales when I was young, or the sagas–too much violence, too few interesting women, and little of the social tapestry that I like.) Anyway, that’s why I’ve always given the tales the page 97 test. If they have Tolkienish or a saga flavor, I tend to lose interest (especially if the names have apostrophes in them) but if there’s humor? I’m right on board. Person quirk.
scribblerworks – Nov. 20th, 2008
Fair enough.
Page 97, eh? I’ll keep that in mind. Heh.
lisa_marli – Nov. 20th, 2008
I love them. I just got the Tough Guide to Fantasyland, and as they put it, you can’t get around without your Map!
I do want the geography to make sense. The distance traveled to basically work. And if they travel too quickly, Why? Magic is acceptable, it’s a fantasy. Just don’t make them travel 200 miles in one day if they are walking.
And yeah, do not make it another Middle Earth Rip Off. Go rip off some other continent, or make up your own.
PS I also need to get your Guide to the Land of Myth. Are you coming to Loscon? I will usually be at the Mythcon table (hint, hint).
scribblerworks – Nov. 20th, 2008
What have you done to me????
There I was, so-so happily mulling over my financial situation, how to raise money and/or find a job (in Hollywood in this difficult season), and you dangle Loscon in front of me. Not that I should really spend the money on it…. but… reading through the panels lists–! *sigh* It’s now possible I will attend.
(As for a copy of my book — I have to open the last box and count how many I still have at hand. I need a certain amount for review copies still, but may have one or two I can – ahem – sell. 😉 )
Anyway, back to maps — yes! Distance is a big thing to me. I mentioned it on sartorias’ blog the other day, but having gone on a couple of trail hikes when I was in college, I have experience of what it’s like to walk a day’s distance (in mountains, no less), with a pack.
Nothing like actual experience to make such details come real to one.
lisa_marli – Nov. 21st, 2008
Heh, heh. You knew I was a con pusher when you met me. Goes with the book pusher that I can also be real good at. 😀
My daughter is currently complaining in her blog about how she is addicted to books. I start them with the fun stuff like Dr Seuss, then set the hooks with good children’s fantasies. I’m such a Good Mommy! It’s ok, she’s passing the addiction on. It is hereditary you know. 😉
Christopher is taking a Lord of the Rings Study module for his 1st year of High School English Literature, and it was his choice! Boasts his Very Proud Grandma!
muuranker – Nov. 20th, 2008
Hurrah for the finding of the treasure(d) map!
I have a motivational poster in my office, which I have up because I can’t believe it was distributed by my employer (along with much more conventional ones). It says ‘Those proud of keeping a tidy desk never experience the joy of finding what they thought irretrievably lost’.
I should say that at the office I _do_ have a tidy desk (I run a clear desk policy) but my natural tendency (which comes out at home) is towards mess.
scribblerworks – Nov. 20th, 2008
I love the sound of that poster! Hee.
I too managed to keep my desk at the office pretty clear. But I have so much stuff at home, and everything flows over everything else, it’s easy to misplace things. Partly because far too much of my stuff does not actually have a designated home: it just gets set down. I’m trying to address all that.
kalimac – Nov. 20th, 2008
I have lots of thoughts about maps, and I recently came across the map and fragmentary story of my early fantasy land, so I might write about that later.
Briefly, the first thing I look for in a fantasy map is: Do the countries on it exactly coincide with river drainage basins? If so, it’s no good.
scribblerworks – Nov. 20th, 2008
Well, I wouldn’t discount every imaginary country that was bounded that way — after all, there are some real countries that pretty much coincide with river drainage basins.
But, yes, rivers are more often borders.
Hmm. I wonder how much the oddity of the geography of the United States affects such things. When we think “nation”, Americans don’t necessarily think of river boundaries. If we thought “states”, it might be different, since so many states are indeed defined by river borders.
I hope you do write about you own fantasy land. I think it’s interesting to hear how other people started their own ventures into personal imaginary places.
danceswithwaves – Nov. 21st, 2008
Well, except for the states that were like “I want a straight border here!” *cough Pennsylvania* and another state was like “I want a straight border here!” *cough Delaware* and they both were like “what do we do with the extra? Oh no! Let’s give it to Maryland!”
kalimac – Nov. 21st, 2008
Hmm, no. Boundaries in the U.S. were almost all drawn before any white settlement came in; their choice was driven by lack of firm geographic knowledge, and they often wind up being at odds with the eventual settlement pattern, particularly when they run along rivers. (That the Portland, Omaha, St. Louis, Philadelphia, New York, etc. urban areas are split among states causes immense administrative headaches.)
A fantasy land should be built on indigenous settlement patterns. These may be seen in most of the national boundaries of Europe, where there are few river boundaries, and most of the ones that do exist are artificial. The indigenous groups do tend to settle in river basins, but they don’t take up the whole drainage area – just parts of it, and they may spill over to other drainage areas in an irregular fashion.
Compare European national boundaries to the drainage areas of the Rhine and the Danube, and you’ll see what I mean. Note, for instance, that the upper reaches of both rivers are part of the same country, Germany, but that Germany has sea access on neither river, the lower parts being taken up by other peoples, but it does extend to the sea on yet other rivers. Or compare the line between Spain and Portugal to the Iberian drainage patterns. Portugal doesn’t occupy any drainage basins: it’s a purely littoral country, and the explanation for this is buried in the history of the Reconquista.
scribblerworks – Nov. 21st, 2008
It’s been a long time since I’ve looked at historical geography, and the history of wider areas. Heh. I’ve usually been focused on the changes in one particular area. But you bring it back to me.
Actually, settlement patterns is perhaps my weakest area. I tailored my undergrad studies for fantasy & SF world building, but focused mostly on the physical (physical geography & geology). I took cultural anthropology, but that was mostly centered on the social interactions and not their environment.
Interesting.
asakiyume – Nov. 20th, 2008
Came here after seeing sartorias’s link 🙂
I think real geography is fascinating, and when maps and imaginary worlds reflect rules of real geography (e.g., one side of a mountain range gets lots of rain, the other side tends to be dry), I love that–makes it seem very real!
But, I only started noticing details like that as an adult; I suspect they’re more important to adult readers than young ones.
I love also the **styles** of maps in fantasy books–how mountains and forests and towns and things are represented.
Did you have fun drawing yours? I’ll bet yes….
scribblerworks – Nov. 21st, 2008
Welcome!
And yes, I did have fun drawing mine. One of them I attempted a topographical map, but I think I underestimated how much mountain one can fit in a particular space. 🙂
My first attempt at world building, I went a little crazy, and ended up creating the whole world. I had a huge map I created and put on my wall. I may still have a photo of it somewhere. But the map itself, I dispensed with, when that incarnation of my fantasy world got superceded.
The current version… well, I’ve limited myself to this one particular corner of the world. It seems to be enough.
alanajoli – Nov. 21st, 2008
I very much enjoy maps–more so when they make geographical sense! In some rpg work, it’s easy to notice how a fantasy world is being developed for the convenience of the world concepts, rather than actually obeying any reasonable laws of geography. 🙂 Having worked inside a couple of those (as a writer and a hobbiest), I always rejoice in maps that not only work for the story, but make sense for the physics and geography of the universe.
scribblerworks – Nov. 21st, 2008
Oh yes!
Part of my having this on my mind is that I recently got around to reading Paolini’s Eragon. Elements of that map made me crazy. And I don’t even mean the names in that case. Heh.
danceswithwaves – Nov. 21st, 2008
I love maps, too. Making and staring at them often helps me figure out more about my story world, too. Plus I use them constantly for distance and making sure my characters aren’t moving too fast, and so I know where they actually are.
I love maps in books I’m reading, too. It helps me visualize the area if I know where characters are and where they started from. Sometimes I need to have a “world view” when I’m reading, especially if characters travel, and it helps if there’s a map.
scribblerworks – Nov. 21st, 2008
Exactly!
Which was why I was so happy to find these maps. I really needed them, for just those matters of checking distance.
However, I’m also discovering in looking at them again, that they are also helping me visualize what the countryside will look like, when I come to describe it.