The map is not the story

A recent tweet reminded me of this famous adage by J.R.R. Tolkien:

"I wisely started with a map, and made the story fit."

Only... that wasn't wise. Tolkien toiled for 12 years on Lord of the Rings. He struggled with it and almost gave up many times. His job suffered badly due to burnout from working on the book. I wouldn't be surprised if the only reason why he didn't give up was fear of the merciless teasing he would have gotten from his good friend C.S. Lewis of Narnia fame.

That's my headcanon, anyway. Fact is, even great men can be wrong. Or, as a friend quickly pointed out, a genius is often the wrong person to learn from. They have extraordinary ability levels, you see. That's why we call them geniuses. Try doing things the hard way like they did, you're much more likely to fall flat on your face, and not even know why so you can learn from the failure.

I tried, you know. Tried doing just what Tolkien advised. It only wasted my creative drive for years.

My first sci-fi setting started out with a (galactic) map, and a grand history of the future. I carefully placed there a variety of worlds, where all kinds of different stories could happen. The technology and politics, too, were designed with purpose.

Can you guess how many stories fell out of it? ( Read more... )