Underground Writers Network Forum Challenge of the Week - # 11

Hello everyone.

WARNING: Before you go any further you should know that this is not a challenge for the faint-hearted!!! ::tongue::

This is a chance to stretch your limits! Here's how it's done:

Read this article by Holly Lisle: Developing the Fictional World by Mapping , and use the methods described to draw a map.



Then, write the beginning of a story/poem based on the map you've drawn, whether it's about lands you've created on your map, or simply a the story of a character who inhabits the lands or is travelling through them. Leave it up to your imagination. For an approximate word-count for this exercise, about 500 to 1,000 words should suffice for a story, can be less for a poem. Post your story beginning/poem up in here, and if you wish to share your map, that would be great, too! Otherwise, try to give us a real sense of the history of your world or its people.

PLEASE do your readers the courtesy of polishing, editing, and properly formatting your post before putting it in here. This means one blank space between each paragraph, or an indent (which you can get with by typing : indent : without the spaces) at the beginning of every new paragraph.

Enjoy the challenge!!! And feel free to email me with any questions you may have.

Cheers!

No fair, I map my stories anyway. I map them down to the room they're sitting in, I have crude little drawing for like every room so I know how the people are positioned in it,

The streets so I know how long it takes the cops to respond. Usally I take real streets and rename them so I know exactly where they are in relation to everything else.

Definately mapping is the way to go.

Try mapping your characters one day (for fun, not for the challenge I guess) because character mapping is the crucial element, you should know everything about each character you introduce in your story.

If you don't, then they will be cardboard, and by that I mean not real, which is detrimental to your story. If you want to know how I map my characters let me know, eventually you'll get so good at it that you can create character after character, until you have enough in your head to fill a mental roll-o-dex; then you can just flip through a list of characters, combine some or w/e and have the liveliest characters ever.

For sure.

jb

You know, I went to the link and read the exercise and more, and it'd never occured to me to draw a map. I'd always just written details down to remember. Thanks for putting this up there..

Quote:


That's great. I'd love to see some of the doodles you created for your stories. I am sure they'd help others develop the concept :)

okay, so I doodled this image for my novel.

[IMG]http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f233/val1723/drawing.png[/IMG]

Yes this is much better than my stick crude sketches, bravo.

jb

Ok so I choose to write an excerpt from the trilogy I am planning. I have included an introduction to set up the excerpt so it makes a bit of sense.
Also I apologize ahead of time by my art work it is kind of crappy but hopefully you get the general sense. Also not everything is named as I'm still in the middle of naming everything and such.

The first map is the whole area.

http://s22.photobucket.com/albums/b342/kab427/?action=view¤t=delisiamap.jpg

The second map is the area where my excerpt takes place.

http://s22.photobucket.com/albums/b342/kab427/?action=view¤t=landofelvesmap.jpg


Ok here is the link to my excerpt



Kate

That is a lovely story Kate, and your maps are really good :)

If you guys want to see the result of good mapping (I think it's good ;-)

go to my story City of Mystery, I the exposition takes place on the street,
I mapped it, to know it, and I even spoke of it there.

As well as later on in the chapters the foundation I laid goes to make the read a tad-bit easier.

Jb

Aw man--how would I be able to do this......

Okay-I got an idea. Go to my teamwork profile Yin and Yang. I'll add it soon on the bio