For Fantasy Stories, Should You Include a Map At the Beginning of the Book?
If you're writing a fantasy novel, would it be best to include a map of the geography that the story takes place in at the beginning of the book?
I've seen quite a lot of fantasy books (Redwall series, Swordbird, ...) while other fantasy books omit the maps and allow the readers to visualise the lands themselves. (Graceling, Last Dragon Chronicles, ...)
What is your opinion on this?
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It often helps because fantasy books often involve quite a bit of travel. It is not strictly necessary for the novel to be coherent, but I have found the ones that I've read that lacked maps to be worse off because of it.
Namely, "The Blade Itself" by Joe Abercrombie is a good example of a book that lacks a map that really needed one. He talks about wars from the north and the south and cities far and wide, and the reader has no reference to where any of this is or how imminent of a threat it is. It goes a long way towards making that book fall flat.
If you have a world where the characters travel or where threats are coming from afar, I would say that you should also have a map. If you're writing a fantasy story set in one city that only deals with the politics or something in that one city, then a map isn't strictly necessary.
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A map can be a nice touch, or it can be a hindrance. Are there are particular scenes where a map would let you snip out several paragraphs of tedious explanation? If there are only one or two such scenes, this need might be better served by simply putting a rough map in those places, possibly even inline with the text.
I think that a lot of fantasy books have maps in the front of the book because Tolkien Did It First. It's worth keeping in mind that Tolkien created the languages and terrain of Middle Earth before writing the story, and Lord of the Rings grew out of his intense world-building efforts.
In summary, there's no shame in using a map to save yourself some work, but only use a map if there's a good story reason to have one. If a map is tacked on and not needed, it's just ornamentation and a mood-setting element; these are good and valuable things, but you're best off not spending energy now on what may be an art director's call down the road.
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I believe every little bit helps. My skill with world and place description is not what I like and I don't feel I can do much about it, so my solution is to add images to make it easier for readers to follow me.
And don't forget that the map can be a great tool for yourself. If you have a complex plot, it probably makes sense to create a detailed map and place tokens on it so you can see with a glance which character is where right now.
When you spend so much time with the map, it becomes part of your work. That also means that you might forget that the reader doesn't have a map handy when they read the story (even if it's reproduced somewhere in the book, they still have to leave the story and leaf through the book to look it up). So don't forget that and make sure your story still makes sense even without the map.
Lastly, don't forget that you have different readers. For me, the story starts after the book ends. I pull back the memory and emotions and re-enact the story in my mind. I become the author of my own fan-fiction based on your work. Maps help to dream.
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You should probably have a map for your own reference, so that your narration of travel times is consistent for the distances and modes of transportation.
Once that is done, then whether you have a map listing the locations of the Plot Coupons is up to you and your publisher.
I can tell you that no purchase decision of mine has ever been influenced by whether the book had a map.
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