(no subject)
Sep. 3rd, 2015 10:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
darchildreIn which I am ridiculous:
So, the conlang stuff I'm working on goes with a story. Or, rather, a set of stories, spread out over a very long period of time, because most of the major characters are immortal or semi-immortal. (Evil god-emperor, his chief lieutenants, some of his family members.) And I was thinking about one of them yesterday and, unlike most of my stories, it involved more than two people in a room having a conversation - there's sort of actually a plot, it involves traveling to cities outside the god-emperor's control and also crossing the desert. And I thought, okay, I am terrible at imagining where things are in space relative to each other - I will draw a map.
It...is not a great map, because I can't draw and have no actual knowledge of how geography works, but it was fun to do and I colored it and made up mountain ranges and rivers and things. And other cities, which I had to name. I hate naming cities. Or, I hate naming cities outside the empire, because I know the way the language inside the empire works and I can make up city names that go along with it, but I haven't spent any time thinking about other countries. (Some of them now have cities with names that sound vaguely Finnish. This is mostly because I had a Finnish song stuck in my head at the time.) Anyway, now I have a map!
A map that has national borders drawn the way they would have been at the very beginning of all the stories, before the god-emperor even marched into the country where all the stories are set. It is a Pre-Conquest map.
It's still very useful, in that I can see where the cities are relative to each other and, like, mountain passes and stuff for travel. But now I keep thinking that what I really need is a series of maps, drawn during different periods of the story. A Pre-Conquest map, a map from around the time when the main character becomes important (about 60 years Post-Conquest), a map from around the time of the story I'm currently thinking about (around 200 years Post-Conquest).
I am not at all certain of my ability to reproduce the important features of the map I've already drawn. Also, this is a hell of a lot of work for a set of stories with no actual plot arc other than "I thought this would be cool" that I'm not even writing down. I write down plot outlines so I don't forget them, or emotionally important things people say, but actually writing the story? Nope, not so much.
I should...maybe figure out an actual timeline of events at some point. Which probably means coming up with a dating system and deciding what the calendar is like.
I am the most absurd.
So, the conlang stuff I'm working on goes with a story. Or, rather, a set of stories, spread out over a very long period of time, because most of the major characters are immortal or semi-immortal. (Evil god-emperor, his chief lieutenants, some of his family members.) And I was thinking about one of them yesterday and, unlike most of my stories, it involved more than two people in a room having a conversation - there's sort of actually a plot, it involves traveling to cities outside the god-emperor's control and also crossing the desert. And I thought, okay, I am terrible at imagining where things are in space relative to each other - I will draw a map.
It...is not a great map, because I can't draw and have no actual knowledge of how geography works, but it was fun to do and I colored it and made up mountain ranges and rivers and things. And other cities, which I had to name. I hate naming cities. Or, I hate naming cities outside the empire, because I know the way the language inside the empire works and I can make up city names that go along with it, but I haven't spent any time thinking about other countries. (Some of them now have cities with names that sound vaguely Finnish. This is mostly because I had a Finnish song stuck in my head at the time.) Anyway, now I have a map!
A map that has national borders drawn the way they would have been at the very beginning of all the stories, before the god-emperor even marched into the country where all the stories are set. It is a Pre-Conquest map.
It's still very useful, in that I can see where the cities are relative to each other and, like, mountain passes and stuff for travel. But now I keep thinking that what I really need is a series of maps, drawn during different periods of the story. A Pre-Conquest map, a map from around the time when the main character becomes important (about 60 years Post-Conquest), a map from around the time of the story I'm currently thinking about (around 200 years Post-Conquest).
I am not at all certain of my ability to reproduce the important features of the map I've already drawn. Also, this is a hell of a lot of work for a set of stories with no actual plot arc other than "I thought this would be cool" that I'm not even writing down. I write down plot outlines so I don't forget them, or emotionally important things people say, but actually writing the story? Nope, not so much.
I should...maybe figure out an actual timeline of events at some point. Which probably means coming up with a dating system and deciding what the calendar is like.
I am the most absurd.
no subject
Date: 2015-09-03 09:26 pm (UTC)I'm suddenly having flashbacks to being in Sports Night and working out an Excel calendar of sports event through the year. It was mostly for "Not Homophobic" to get an idea of when the Olympics hit in relation to.the annual cycles of American sports, but I actually got a lot of use out of it.
And sometimes that geeky preparation is fun to do.
no subject
Date: 2015-09-04 08:02 pm (UTC)