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Fan-fiction also doesn't entail world creation, something I have a tendency to get caught up in and never get around to actually writing the story.

Characters and setting are so fun to work on though. :<

But setting is fun too! Creating worlds is just as fun as creating characters for me. I could make so many different characters based on a particular world theme I come up with. Also, I like figuring out how each place would be setup, be it how it looks or the form of government, etc. I guess I just like consistency.

Also, I fucking love fantasy maps. Seriously, I have an imaginary boner for them.

I don't get so much into geography as creating the rules and cultures of the world.

With fantasy especially, I'm working on like 3 different fantasy settings because the rules that govern magic are completely different in each.

My map consists of: "Ailis City is here... Middle East Arcadian Magic School is somewhere over here... takes about a week to get from one to the other.... better write that down to preserve consistency for later books."

I'm also not above moving certain locations in order to meet my needs for my characters. But I think I'm long past that stage. I think the island-continent of Sharanna is pretty set in my mind now. I DO need to sit down and remake the map for my notes. If you turn to the map(s) in my binder, none of them are accurate. One is more so than the other.

Also one of things that worries me is I'm TERRIBLE with distances. I know WHAT a mile is, or even a foot, but if you asked me how many feet my room is from one side to the other, I wouldn't have a bloody clue. Nor do I know how long it's suppose to take to travel a whole mile say by foot... what about horseback... what if my character is riding a dragon? -_-; It's odd but I have absolutely NO sense for distances. Gets really irritating, too. "So if I give Drakkar a wing span of 12 feet.... are his wings long or are they short?" T-T

Mine's boring. I'm thinking I'm just using North America, mostly the east coast.
Makes a weird analogy with the pilgrim landing.


The other continent is almost Tamriel.

I'm also worried on how to write traveling time on foot, since my characters are probably going to do a lot of walking. Based on the wiki page for the Oregon Trail, I did some math based on it taking 6 months to travel 2000 miles on foot, across multiple terrain.
333 miles in a month.
10 miles a day.
Try making use of a distance scale on the map if it's important.

The way I figure it, to get from south to north tip of Sharanna by horseback would take about two months or a month and a half roughly. If anyone questions I can always grin and say ":3 yes, but THESE characters knew of a secret QUICKER route through the Northern Peaks." Not that it's going to matter much because by the time my characters reach the Highlands they are going to be challenged by warlocks or something in the end anyways. Not to mention the convenient scene changes were "unspecified x amount of time has passed."

There are plenty of ways to hide my pathetic-ness. ^_^;;

I think the best part of it all is Sharanna just ISN'T that big, which is why I'm usually referring to it as more of an island rather than a continent. So it makes the whole time-space thing far more convenient.

Edit: To continue the idea on "maps" which I meant to do in my post before this one. I've been 'kinda' fond of maps. I remember reading LotR and enjoyed tracing out the path that the characters took. I think though if you asked me the maps that I loved and enjoyed the most would be the ones found in Brian Jacques' novels.

Because the characters were small the maps were actually rather simple. And there was always the same basic places. But the maps changed just slightly to include the books' quest info, but it was fun because I remember opening up maps to the old books and thinking "aww, these guys must be passing pretty close to where these guys were...".

I liked the "smaller world" idea, which is probably what influenced me to make Sharanna just a simple island-continent and why I don't get super stressed about map details. Marked locations differ between each book but of course there is consistency and sometimes Ailis City will appear on a map and sometimes it won't. *smirks* Sometimes it will be a much bigger city or sometimes it will be much smaller because it's still recuperating after Maxine released that dragon and destroyed half of it.

Maxine, I have campaign cartographer 3 (look it up). I will gladly make a map of Sharanna, which can easily be a reference to your novel. Just ask, or describe it over pm, and I can make a (somewhat) professional looking map.

^_^; I dunno how I could explain it in text so it could be made. I guess when i get home from work I can create a quick art document on photoshop and give basics or something in that. *sigh* or maybe I can just finally sit down and sketch in my own pathetic way a new map and scan it up for you.

:3 I would like to see a reaalllly nice map that I could have reference off of, I won't lie.

Downloading campaign cartographer 3 now. o_o

Maaaaaaps. <3

That seems like a fun exercise, Maxine. May I suggest that though the results didn't end up as you predicted, you didn't fail. There's a saying that no writing is wasted, it just may not be what we thought of it.

I like the little piece above that with Maxine and her Brother. The bit about the clothes was a neat tale to fold into things.

^_^ *snicker* I might keep that scene, too, if I thought that it wouldn't effect my other Sorcerer characters in the future. :3 Trying to imagine a certain-someone wearing those gaudy things....

You know what, maybe I will keep it. The mental image of all those this can affect is just too golden. A humorous moment to be drawn upon again and again and again.... :3


*cough* And no, I'm not saying the exercise is "failed" as in I didn't get anything out of it. But I didn't get what I had set out to achieve and therefore it was a hapless flop. I'm going to try again tonight. I may or may not post the results of that writing exercise. We will see.