Fictional Location - Locating A Story

Locating A Story

Within narrative prose, providing a believable location can be greatly enhanced by the provision of maps and other illustrations. This is often considered particularly true for fantasy novels and historical novels which often make great use of the map, but applies equally to science fiction and mysteries: earlier, in mainstream novels by Anthony Trollope, William Faulkner, etc. Fantasy and science fiction novels often also provide sections which provide documentation of various aspects of the environment of the fiction, including languages, character lists, cultures and, of course, locations.

In an online article on writing Dawn Arkin writes about the importance of location to the author's art:

Setting has become a very important part of most novels. Creating a fictional location has many advantages for the writer. You get to name the town, streets, businesses, schools, etc. Everything inside your town is under your control. —Dawn Arkin, What Should Your Story's Setting Be?, EzineArticles, 2006-09-07

Maps are an immediate necessity for some works, as they do not take place on our Earth. Writers need working maps to keep straight at a glance whether the castle is north or south of the river, and how long it takes to get between valleys. This can be very helpful in preventing snags when dealing directly with fictional geography.

Authors are as forgetful and absent-minded as the lesser breeds of humankind, and a simple precaution like taking a moment to sketch out a map helps prevent such errors and inconsistencies (upon which eagle-eyed readers are bound to swoop with gleeful cries, thereafter sitting down to write nasty letters to the poor author). —Lin Carter, "Of World-Making: Some Problems of the Invented Milieu", Imaginary Worlds: the Art of Fantasy, New York: Ballantine Books, 1973

Sometimes an actual geographic corner is used as a model for "getting it right", and identifying these can become a game for readers. Authors may turn an island into a continent or vice versa, rotate orientation, or combine two similar locales to get the best (for the story) of both.