Wanderer's Tales #16 - Maps
Welcome to Issue 16 of Wanderer’s Tales. In this issue is Chapter Twelve of Shield of the Goddess.
Welcome to Issue 16 of Wanderer’s Tales, the newsletter of Ancient Roads, the website of Seattle writer and songwriter Chris Struble. Here you will find fantasy fiction set in ancient worlds where music makes magic.
In this newsletter is Chapter Twelve of Shield of the Goddess, the adult fantasy novel I am publishing here chapter by chapter as a web serial. This chapter finds Jenan, now seventeen years old, having completed his training as a horse soldier.
Chris Struble
I added a few places to the list of people and places that were mentioned in earlier chapters.
Chris Struble
The theme of this newsletter is Maps.
Humans have been making maps for thousands of years. This image, engraved on a mammoth tusk, was dated to 27,000 years ago, and found from Pavlov in the Czech Republic, is possibly the oldest surviving map in the world.
Early maps like this, made long before the invention of writing, must have been visual aids for an oral tradition. It is tempting to image a storyteller or recently returned explorer using a map like this to describe distant lands and how to reach them safely, or perhaps to avoid them.
The invention of writing made it possible to create the first attempts at world maps. One of the oldest, shown in the featured image, was created by Hecataeus of Miletus around 500 B.C.E. It shows the world he knew, and places his own city state at the center.
Maps are a common device in speculative fiction, especially in fantasy fiction. This is a legacy of epic fantasy novels like J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. I love fantasy maps. I am more likely to pick up a fantasy novel in a bookstore if it has a map in it. I am more likely to put it back down if it mentions places that aren’t on the map.
You might wonder, where is the map of Runonia, the continent on the planet Kishana where Shield of the Goddess takes place? It’s a work in progress. I am making it by hand, using a stamp kit from the Lord of Maps, an artist who creates maps of real places in a fantasy style. When finished, the map will show the lands known in the time of the novel.
Another kind of map I use in my fiction writing is a story map. This is a list of chapters and a few sentences about what happens in each one. Like the map of Hecataeus, which only shows lands the ancient Greeks knew about, my story map wasn't complete in the beginning because I didn't know everything. As I wrote more chapters, I knew more, and updated the map to extend it further.
I have now finished the story map for the Shield of the Goddess web serial. Here's what it looks like.
- Part I: The Peace
- Chapter Twelve is the last chapter of Part I. The chapters of Part I are all new content that I wrote in the past year.
- Part II: The Breaking
- Chapter Thirteen will begin the breaking of the peace. Most of Part II will be rewritten from the original version I finished writing in 2022. There will be more than 50 chapters in total. I will be introducing several new viewpoint characters in Part II. The main thread will continue to be the story of Shala and Jenan, the characters introduced in Part I.
I hope that gives you some sense of where I am headed this year.
What do you rely on to find your way? What is your map in these uncertain times? Subscribers are welcome to share in the comments below.
I am pleased to announce that I have four new free subscribers this month, plus my first two paid subscribers. I have been reaching out to everyone I know.
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See you on the road!