Story Mapmakers (No GPS Required)
By Sarah McCoy | October 28, 2014 |
My husband can testify I am a horrible road trip wing woman. Put a contemporary map in my hand, and I’ll turn it topsy-turvy before I can decipher anything of travel assistance. The road names, byways, mile markers, and intersections all blend into a flurry of ‘huh?’ God forbid he ask me where the nearest gas station or fast-food joint might be. My traditional response: “Get off the interstate and we’ll look around.” We had a tent revival halleluiah when we got our first GPS system. But this isn’t to say I don’t like maps. Quite the contrary. I’m obsessed with them. They tickle my brain to think hard—harder.
I love that you can take a road map, strip it of boundaries, concrete highways, interstates, and exit numbers; show me the topography of the land, the rivers and streams, mountain ranges and valleys, and suddenly, the world rises up off the page in vivid sensations: rocky, wet, and smelling of basin swamps and mountain air. It unspools —north, south, east, west. Each compass needle pointing to a story.
I’m particularly drawn to old maps. Visual atlases of how things were and are no more. The major road once connecting A to B is now gone. The major river once separating communities dried up fifty years back. Hilltops are laid low by our human wear and tear. Chunks of the earth are apportioned into territories/countries/states then divided further. Wars shred the landscape, bearing something new—not worse or better necessarily. Just changed.
And all the secret understanding is tucked into the mapmaker’s key (also called the ‘mapmaker’s legend’) at the bottom of the page, outside the plotted world; so if the journeyman is confused by the exact distance, surface, or body of water out of sight, the key will provide meaning. It’s a skill and an art: mapmaking.
Despite my dunderhead beginnings, I became deeply reverent of maps through the writing of my forthcoming novel, The Mapmaker’s Children. We, authors, are story cartographers. We navigate characters, plot courses of action, and direct readers in an expedition across unfamiliar terrains. We map our fictional worlds using the storyteller’s legend. Some writers might do this more formulaically with sticky notes, graphs, lists, and outlines; while others see it all from a bird’s eye view in their imagination. Sort of like the story mats and figurines I played with as a child. Little painted pathways and mini-obstacles along the way to save the world.
While the creative process of plotting might be similar, it transforms dramatically based on the contextual elements of each story. The way I wrote this book was far different from the way I wrote my last.
For The Mapmaker’s Children, I first outlined as “Sarah the author,” an external omnipresence looking down into the historical diagram. Once intimately familiar with the two protagonists, I began to draw out the story as the characters would’ve seen and experienced; free of presets and full of the colors, shapes, and inventive forms. I interposed the structured lines (facts) with rich illusion (fiction).
I made miscalculations along the way—had to erase whole narrative trajectories and reroute. I learned that it’s easy to become consumed by a corner, lost in the historical particulars of busy scenes and fretful over getting the course of a river just right. But then, rivers and cities change. They are fluid and transmuting, just like humanity, life, and history. And so I pulled back to view the whole: the narrative in its moment of time for these unique characters.
It was intense, magical process that I enjoyed with a similar spellbound experience I have when running my finger along the ink grooves on old charts. It’s the thrill of being a visual adventurer, being able to move across hundreds of thousands of miles with a gaze. It’s the same thrill we get as readers engrossed in a time and place removed from our own.
When I was very young, I used the floor of my bedroom as a giant storyboard. I’d make up elaborate plots for my toy figurines: Barbie finds an imprisoned My Little Pony trapped in GI Joe’s tower and she must Speak & Spell correctly to free her plastic, pink pal or lose her to the underworld of Garbage Pail Kids foreverrr! I’m sure all of you, writer friends, had similar dramatic playrooms… or at least, I’ll presume so here. Ahem.
Before catching the school bus each morning, I’d set all my characters in their designated positions so the course of actions could take place. Then I’d dream all day about the dastardly challenges they faced, the triumphant celebrations, the new friends they’d pulled from my toy chest to join their exploits, and so forth. (It was my favorite game to play during Math class.)
I’d rush home after school, disregarding my mom’s warm cookies, classmate’s playground invitations, sing-along cartoons—straight to my secret world. I wanted to see what my characters had been up to in the hours I was missing, always convinced there would be evidence of their adventure somewhere… if I looked at the map careful and close enough. I was never disappointed.
I may still be an unreliable navigator on road trips with my husband, but not because I’m stumped. I’m curious what lies off the demarcated streets, if only we were willing to get lost in the unknown. My husband would argue that defeats a map’s purpose, but I like to think of it as merely the legend of possibilities.
SARAH McCOY is the New York Times, USA Today, and international bestselling author of the novels Mustique Island, Marilla of Green Gables; The Mapmaker’s Children;The Baker’s Daughter, a 2012 Goodreads Choice Award Best Historical Fiction nominee; the novella “The Branch of Hazel” in Grand Central;The Time It Snowed in Puerto Rico; and Le souffle des feuilles et des promesses(Pride and Providence). Her work has been featured in Real Simple, The Millions, Your Health Monthly, Huffington Post, and other publications. She hosted the NPR WSNC Radio monthly program “Bookmarked with Sarah McCoy” and previously taught English writing at Old Dominion University and at the University of Texas at El Paso. She lives in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, with her husband, Brian, an orthopedic sports surgeon, her dog, Gilly, and her cat, Tutu.
I’m a crappy wingman too, Sarah. I drive and hubby navigates.
Love the direction of this post though.
Denise Willson
Author of A Keeper’s Truth and GOT
Denise, I’m glad I’m not alone in my wing-woman shortcomings but… I can always promise my husband a good STORY while we’re lost on the drive. ;)
Thanks for commenting and I’m glad you enjoyed the post.
Yours truly,
Sarah
Saraah-
“The legend of possibilities.” Love that. Map as an overview, but the journey is on the ground.
There are other ways to map a story in advance. Character arc is one, so is the *reader’s* emotional journey: i.e., how the reader’s feelings will evolve with respect to characters, the plot problem or anything at all over time.
Themes can be mapped, as can dynamic (changing) character relationships.
Organic and intuitive writers tend to distrust maps, as if the whole journey is *only* playing or getting lost. As Jim Bell counsels, there’s no need to be suspicious.
A map is a suggestion. If you don’t take detours and explore unmapped roads, you’ll miss so much. At the same time a journey needs a destination, otherwise it’s not a journey but an amble.
Nice post, thanks.
Missteps, accidents and breakdowns are useful too. For instance, by typing too fast I discovered that your name could be changed to Saraah.
Aah. Think about it.
Donald,
Yes, sir, the mapmaking analogy applies across the board to our business. You eloquently and astutely described all those various avenues of theme, emotional arc, character development, narrative structure, etc., etc., etc. Thank you, Donald!
I adore you for being a writer nerd-bird like myself. I had to rein myself in on this post. Otherwise, I might’ve ended up with a 10 page soliloquy, which while I would’ve enjoyed greatly, doesn’t lend itself to the online ‘blog’ mode. ;) So I’m grateful to you for bringing up all these poignant craft bits.
I agree with you also about missteps and accidents most often being the muses at work to guide us to an unexpected ah-ha! moment in our story journey.
I’m glad you enjoyed my post. Such a pleasure to read your reply.
Yours truly,
*Saraah (new nom de plume)
Great post. I can’t read a map to save my life – thank goodness for GPS. Like you, I like to get a little off the beaten path and see what’s out there. You never know what you’ll stumble upon.
Exactly, Brianna! To be trite for good cause… You made me think of Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” poem:
“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth…”
It’s not fiction narrative form but OH what a story adventure Frost is describing. I admire poets greatly. They’re able to magically do all that we (as prose writers) do in such tiny packages.
I’m glad you enjoyed my post and thanks for reaching out to comment, m’dear.
Yours truly,
Sarah
Fantastic post! I loved the expression ‘visual adventurer’. That’s a perfect way to describe a fiction writer, explorer of the ideas and capturer of the imagination.
I revised my book twice, leaving it alone for months in between, so I could see more objectively what is missing. The first time I struggled, not quite sure how to proceed. The second time around, words were bursting out in an inexplicable rate. I felt as if I was just a device, merely recollecting events of a distant world I was allowed to peak in.
It was the most exhilirating feeling for me as a writer. At that moment I knew, I was on the right track.
Go, Stanislava, go! I love hearing that you’re inspired to get your journey-woman boots on and head OUT to stomp the writing roads! So glad my post reaffirmed your inner ‘visual adventurer’. It’s always my privilege to rally behind hardworking writers. Onward, m’dear!
Yours truly,
Sarah
As a former military guy, boy scout, and guy whose spent much of my life in the woods I’ve learned both the value and handicap maps can provide. They key value is of course that a map can, if read correctly, put you in the right direction on your journey. The handicap though is that a nice little two dimensional map may not adequately describe that thousand foot chasm with the raging river at the bottom that cuts off your direct route to the destination. It may also leave out the fact that there is active volcano on one side, and a family of hungry lions on the other.
Of course that is where the story gets interesting, and the dolls in the GI Joe Tower really have get creative isn’t it.
Ha–oh, Basil, your response was the best!
As the daughter of an Eagle Scout turned West Point graduate turned Army Ranger turned 30-year career Army officer and the wife of an Army Dr. Major stationed at Fort Bliss, you can understand why the men in my life are so frustrated by my lack of 2-D map skills. ;)
Also, I nearly fell over when I read your last line as my younger brother and I used to have GI-Joe battles in my Barbie Tower Townhouse. Not. Even. Kidding.
Story mapmakers rule the world! Thanks for reading my post and commenting so wonderfully.
Yours truly,
Sarah
Maps puzzle me many times; however, I like the challenge of trying to figure out where a road will lead. The tie-in with writing is so apt!
I agree, Patricia! I love the challenge of discovering a new path. Thanks so much joining the conversation!
Yours truly,
Sarah
Haha, you seem to have a love affair going on with maps, I love how you’ve used ‘unspools’, its my new favorite word, I think :)
And I hear you loud and clear: thanks to GPS, though still in rudimentary stages here in India, I get around. Otherwise, I can’t tell the head of a map from the tail.
Unspooling heads and tails– now that sounds like an exotic jungle safari! Thanks so much for reading and chiming into our map-loving chat. Waving to you in India, m’dear.
Yours truly,
Sarah
Ooh – being a newly minted map nerd (thanks to my historical research – both familial- and fiction-inspired), I loved this post and related to all of it. Your analogy is perfectly stunning. You’ve such a way with words, Miss Sarah. Love the bird’s-eye view and the street-level references.
As for dreaming of writing in math class: yes. Passing up homemade cookies in lieu of playtime: umm… no.
Ha! Oh, Melissa, you are obviously a woman of a much wiser childhood. I always had my head in the clouds… I would’ve played right through Breakfast-Lunch-Dinner if my mom hadn’t insisted I take a break. So glad you enjoyed this post and thanks for all the Twitter love for it!
Keep on off-roading through the desert in Jeep Betty and forging ahead on the page, sweet friend.
Yours truly,
Sarah