HOW DOES MAPPING HELP TO CREATE A FICTIONAL WORLD?

Ruby Large (WHS)

Many famous literary works started off as a blank piece of graph paper and an idea for a fictional world to be created. J.R.R. Tolkien produced three maps and over six hundred place names for his ‘Lord of the Rings’ trilogy [1] which became one of the bestselling series in history with over 150 million copies sold worldwide [2]. He is one of many successful authors to utilise the practice of cartography in the establishment of a fantasy land, along with names such as Robert Louis Stevenson who wrote ‘Treasure Island’ with the initial inspiration of a hand-drawn map and childhood favourite C.S. Lewis who invented Narnia. But why is this technique so popular among authors and why does it make for more developed novels and fruitful book sales?

The process of literary map-making is an extensive and varied one [4]. Authors generally decide to depict a country or full land map instead of a city or street one in order to get a full view of the world they are creating and its geography. Once borders have been established, the addition of features such as mountain ranges, rivers, deserts, forests and cities fills the world with purpose and starts to create a realistic-looking artefact. Mistakes made can also be of benefit to the plot and narrative. For example, if extra lines are drawn accidentally or a town has been placed far from any others, there is space for artistic license to make these into a story. If there is an abandoned trail it could have been deserted after a guerrilla warfare group used it in an ambush, and the isolated town could be used to excommunicate criminals as punishment in the country’s justice system. With the process of mapping for a fictional piece clear, the question lies in the purpose of the creation of such an artefact – why wouldn’t the author simply write their plot and skip this sketching? The answer is simple: this physical expression of the world inside the author’s head is invaluable when delving deeper into the story’s setting and background. The writer can use their map to discover more about the land which they have pictured, which is the main aim and luxury of using cartography to compliment literature in this way. Even a simple structure like the borders of the land probes into why that line was laid in that precise place. Was there dispute or war over territory? How are foreign relations between this country and its neighbour, and how does this impact the everyday lives of the citizens? Does uncertainty of safety plague the ruling body and make a totalitarian state in which inhabitants cannot cross the threshold to leave? Questions like these help the author to flesh out and contextualise the history of the world that they are creating which makes for a much more three-dimensional and realistic setting. It helps to understand what they are wanting to put across to their readers in regard to the landscape (political and social as well as physical) and history and in this respect, cartography is undoubtably very important for the production of a fantasy world from an author’s point of view.

With the market for novels becoming more and more competitive, readers gravitate towards stories with an easily visualisable and truthful world and deeply considered and nuanced characters. Although there are many techniques which can achieve this, mapping is a simple way to produce ‘evidence’ for the fictional land to exist as they imply the realism of what the author has created [6]. It adds another layer of credibility to the novel which allows full immersion for the audience.

We want to believe in what has been put in front of us, as by human nature we are inclined to wish to read for escapism and truth is a huge part of what draws us into the narrative which is where producing artefacts becomes very useful for an author. This fact is what makes book sales soar for fantasy novels as they carry us away from the sometimes mundane real world, but having some reliability from a seemingly genuine source encourages us to engage with the text on a deeper and more meaningful level. The aforementioned literary genius that is J.R.R. Tolkien is a clear example of how mapmaking benefits both the author and reader in a fictional tale. He wrote in a letter to the novelist Naomi Mitchinson in 1954 that: ‘I wisely started with a map, and made the story fit (generally with meticulous care for distances). The other way about lands one in confusions and impossibilities, and in any case it is weary work to compose a map from a story.’ [1] This alludes to the fact that Tolkien decided to come up with detailed maps depicting what would become ‘middle-earth’ and even chose to invent detailed languages and names before creating a plot. This is justifying the point, and again in this quote, that having a map before a narrative is not a downfall, but a delight as successful exploration of possible characters and storylines can only come from detailed research and prior thought as to the setting. Not only was Tolkien’s cartography useful for him to devise a plot but was widely appreciated by readers of his books worldwide. Literary critic Shippey writes that his maps are “extraordinarily useful to fantasy, weighing it down as they do with repeated implicit assurances of the existence of the things they label, and of course of their nature and history too” [1] and this shows the fact that his novels are so well-loved (as shown by the extraordinary sales numbers) because they offer for the audience a believable escape and a world to love and learn about, all because they are based on and include maps. So mapping does indeed help an incredible amount to create a fictional world, both for the author to fully investigate their land and exploit the maximum amount of nuance and history from it and for the reader to be able to fully immerse themselves in the novel and believe in what has been set out in front of them. It is no wonder that fantasy books containing careful cartography are so popular and successful, then, and will continue to thrive as long as humans continue to need exploration and escapism.

Bibliography

[1] Tolkien’s maps. (2020, October 21). Retrieved November 12, 2020, from https://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Tolkien’s_maps [2] The Lord of the Rings. (2020, November 05). Retrieved November 12, 2020, from https:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings [3] Treasure Island image: http://robert-louisstevenson.org/first-illustrations-treasure-island/ [4] Maps Workshop - Developing the Fictional World through Mapping. (2019, April 16). Retrieved November 12, 2020, from https://hollylisle.com/mapsworkshop-developing-the-fictional-world-throughmapping/ [5] image from: https://lithub.com/why-we-feel-socompelled-to-make-maps-of-fictional-worlds/ [6] Grossman, L. (2019, October 02). Why We Feel So Compelled to Make Maps of Fictional Worlds. Retrieved November 12, 2020, from https://lithub. com/why-we-feel-so-compelled-to-make-maps-offictional-worlds/ [7] Lord of the Rings map image: https://www. google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww. theguardian.com%2Fbooks%2F2015%2Foct% 2F23%2Fjrr-tolkien-middle-earth-annotatedmap-blackwells-lord-of-the-rings&psig=AOvV aw1rGj0yOL77gS0oZxpV5j_w&ust=1605296-