Not the territory

[mrissa]

I know that there are some people out there who object strenuously to maps in fantasy novels. If you're among them, can you explain to me why? and whether it's an inherent objection or just an objection to things that are correlated but not causal?

Also -- and again, this is for people who object to maps in fantasy novels, so if you don't so object, don't worry about it unless you feel you have something particularly clarifying to say -- do you just dislike having them in the book, or do you feel that the author shouldn't make them at all?

Comments

[voidmonster.livejournal.com]

mrissa nailed it pretty good with her description, but I'll clarify my own position further.

Simply put, I pretty much agree with John M. Harrison on worldbuilding (http://uzwi.wordpress.com/2007/01/27/very-afraid/).

Mostly I disagree with his tone, because all stories have worldbuilding, even autobiography. What I was getting at my my original comment was that I do think there's a place for the obsessively imagined world and that place is games where the people the world is built for can explore it. It's very satisfying when it's done well and it's one of the things in this world that makes me happy. I'm not really interested in a world that has that much stuff in it for a novel.

From a practical standpoint, you cannot explore a novel. There's a single path through it, (with certain choose-your-own-exceptions). Detail gets in the way and the author's job is always to provide enough detail without tripping the reader over immaculately arranged fallen logs.

[rosefox]

I would suggest, rather, that the author's job is to balance the level of worldbuilding detail with the level of plotbuilding and characterbuilding detail. I'm a big fan of the Song of Ice and Fire books, for example, and they're bursting at the seams with worldbuilding; but there's so much other stuff going on that the worldbuilding is just one ring in a three-ring circus.

To put it another way: My mother falls asleep at movies she likes, because she says she can trust the director and writer to get the characters through to a good ending, and so she doesn't have to keep an eye on them. I like books with enough worldbuilding that I can trust the writer to get the characters from one place to another, to put the right oils in their hair and food on their tables, so that I can put the nitpicky part of my brain to sleep and just trust that the research has been done and things will make sense. I don't need to explore the landscape for myself, but if I have the sense that it stops at the edge of the page, I stop believing that the characters could explore it or have adventures in it or be raised in it, and then I stop believing in the characters and the book is no longer fun for me.

Absolutely, there should not be too much worldbuilding; but I am equally certain that there must be enough worldbuilding.