Safehold: Map and story integration

Okay, I don't know whether anyone has ever asked Mr Weber about this, but I would love to know how he goes about managing the map of such a complex story as the Safe hold series. Does he design the map first, or does he design an outline of the story first before he creates a map to fit the outline?

hanuman wrote:Okay, I don't know whether anyone has ever asked Mr Weber about this, but I would love to know how he goes about managing the map of such a complex story as the Safe hold series. Does he design the map first, or does he design an outline of the story first before he creates a map to fit the outline?

This may well not be a complete answer, but my impression is that he details his map as the story progresses, the map dependent on decisions about plot. Some of those decisions are postponed as long as possible and are probably made as the writing unfolds.

Don

n7axw wrote:
This may well not be a complete answer, but my impression is that he details his map as the story progresses, the map dependent on decisions about plot. Some of those decisions are postponed as long as possible and are probably made as the writing unfolds.

Don

That sounds right. In fact I seem to remember reading a post of his where he says he deliberately leaves the map vague, so that he can change things as he writes.

Thank you for answering, folks. I've obviously never read that post or attended a convention where he might have answered that question, so your replies helped me quite a bit.

hanuman wrote:Thank you for answering, folks. I've obviously never read that post or attended a convention where he might have answered that question, so your replies helped me quite a bit.

It is on the Download page.

http://www.davidweber.net/downloads/9-safehold-map.html

This map is not complete. The areas where I've supplied detail are pretty much set in stone, although I reserve the right to make changes on anything which hasn't actually appeared in print, but I haven't fleshed out the entire world in story-telling detail at this time.

Have fun,
T2M

Thanks for the welcome, but I don'tthink you will like my remarks. The kindest adjective I can use in regard to the maps in Heaven's Foundations Quiver is "inadequate. There are many locations cited in the prose that do not appear on the maps. I am the kind of guy that keeps one finger on the map while I am reading. It is a losing proposition with this book. I suggest someone other than the author read the book and make sure that they show the places named in the text. A sample of what I mean is the battles often center around canals, but few of them are depicted on the maps.

Billmullan2 wrote:Thanks for the welcome, but I don'tthink you will like my remarks. The kindest adjective I can use in regard to the maps in Heaven's Foundations Quiver is "inadequate. There are many locations cited in the prose that do not appear on the maps. I am the kind of guy that keeps one finger on the map while I am reading. It is a losing proposition with this book. I suggest someone other than the author read the book and make sure that they show the places named in the text. A sample of what I mean is the battles often center around canals, but few of them are depicted on the maps.

BillMullan2,
Welcome into the light of public debate.

There are many times that I would like to check the map myself and... while I understand that the common complaint (on both sides of the conflict) relate to poor information on the maps or charts they are working with.

Having said that... I would find some value of a copy of the map that they are looking at inserted into the text.
This would be even more welcome when I am reading on my kindle as I can (and do) keep a book mark at the maps in the hard bound copy.

Not sure what the original poster meant by "story integration" but I would like to see a parallel time line showing what each side of the conflict was up to at the given time.

For what it's worth, David has said there will be a current map made available on Tor's website. He confirmed that last week, so perhaps patience will be rewarded.

Don

n7axw wrote:For what it's worth, David has said there will be a current map made available on Tor's website. He confirmed that last week, so perhaps patience will be rewarded.

Don

Thank you Don for the information. You are evidently far better connected than I but what the heck I get by

Thank you David for the updated map. You have a lot to keep track of and the story is among the finest I have read (at age 64 with a screwed up education and family life) perhaps not as long as you have been reading but... I have read a lot of Sci-Fi, Mysteries, Westerns and even some Romance... you are my favorite author/story teller

Billmullan2 wrote:Thanks for the welcome, but I don'tthink you will like my remarks. The kindest adjective I can use in regard to the maps in Heaven's Foundations Quiver is "inadequate. There are many locations cited in the prose that do not appear on the maps. I am the kind of guy that keeps one finger on the map while I am reading. It is a losing proposition with this book. I suggest someone other than the author read the book and make sure that they show the places named in the text. A sample of what I mean is the battles often center around canals, but few of them are depicted on the maps.

How much space I get for maps is a production decision made by TOR, and I've never gotten as much as I really wanted. There are physical and economic reasons for the limitation, of course, and within those limitations they generally try to work with me. I provide detail maps that cover every campaign and major battle discussed in the books. TOR then tells me how much space I can have, and I have to make decisions about which ones actually go in. In this case, the production people screwed up and left out 4 maps which we had agreed would go in and my editor didn't find out in time to do anything about it before the books printed.

I will be sending the complete map file to Joe at Jiltanith shortly, and he will be posting an updated scalable version as of the end of HFQ. It's not going to happen tomorrow, but I talked to him about it at a convention over the weekend and it will happen sometime soon. In addition, TOR was supposed to set up an online site where all of the maps which I had handed in would be available in the same graphic format as the maps printed in the books. I.e., they would not be jpegs, they would not be scalable, but they would be complete. Unfortunately, that also hasn't been accomplished yet and the link for it was not inserted into the hardcover. It should be inserted into the paperback.

And, in answer to the original question on this thread, I created the entire planet of Safehold before I began deciding who would go where and exactly how the political/military/economic framework would be structured. When I say that areas are still to be fleshed in, that's because the mapping software that I use – which I like, although if I were starting from scratch today I'd probably shop around — will let me zoom down to a scale in which features are measured in yards or even feet. So I created what you might call the macro geography before I ever started writing. The micro geography is still being worked out as the story progresses.

Does that help?