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Sep. 3rd, 2015 10:46 amIn 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.
