My Worlds Map

[Erudite]

My worlds map was drawn freehand, modeled after Japan. I'm not writing about the Japanese, it's entirely fictional, and the map only meant to give realistic proportions to traveling, and show conflict areas. Is this problematic?

 

[The Construct]

The image doesn't seem to be showing up. At least not for me. Perhaps a link?

 

[Erudite]

Sorry, couldn't edit the OP for some reason.

Edit: doesn't seem to be showing the image there either. I'll include a link, if this is out of forum rules I apologize in advance.

http://postimg.org/image/63hq0u2gl/

This image is family safe.

 

[The Construct]

Sorry, but that isn't showing up either.

 

[Erudite]

Could be a lack of privileges on my part, or perhaps a mod needs to okay the links?

 

[Jabrosky]

I can see it just fine. It would be interesting to see how you make an original world out of Japan's geography.

 

[Erudite]

You don't think it will be too much of a draw-towards? Something unnecessary in the writing?

 

[The Construct]

The link works fine, I must have missed the edit when posting.

But quite simply I really see no problem with using a Japan-like area of land for a non-Japanese-based setting. It's just a map after all, I'm sure you could find that type of geography anywhere in the world and a multitude of cultures could have developed there.

It is fantasy after all. In the end it's all up to you.

 

[ThinkerX]

Hmmm...From the color scheme, I assume this is a political rather than topographic map.

If so, it looks like you have a couple of 'split' countries: the yellow one at both ends of the main island, and the green one spit into two sections. Or are these all separate countries and you had a limited color selection?

Are the 'x' or '+' signs disputed borders? disputed cities? battlefields? Or something else?

With no delination of terrain or marked population centers, let alone at least some names and a few words for each country, it be difficult to say much of anything.

 

[Erudite]

Thanks for the input ThinkerX.

Yes, more of a political map, the intentions behind this posting was to see if the similarity between Japan and my map could cause issue, and if you'd change it.

Yes, the x or + (was supposed to be an x) is intended to show conflict.

Finally, the colour selection wasn't necessarily "limited," but I had a hard time differentiating the colours to maintain a partly "hand-drawn" nature. Also, couldn't figure out how to add patterns to the colours in photoshop

The terrain, cities, and differentiating factors will come at a later time.

A quick point:

Most of the provinces on the west side of the island (including the islands) are intended to be humans.
The two middle greens are intended to be different variations of Elves.
The two grey provinces are part of the Dwarven kingdom.
The northernmost yellow and the contested island are intended to be rare races, perhaps Giants, Golems, Trolls, Hobbit-like peoples, or something of this nature.

 

[Gurkhal]

I hate to be a possible ass but I think that if this isn't supposed to be a Japan inspired world then you may want to change the map. To me it gives off Japan-vibes, which should be understandable given it was inspired by Japan, but a reader might turn his mind into Japanese and Samurai expectations and be somewhat confused. I don't think that it will drive away readers who have decided to give your book a try, but I think that it gives incorrect expectations to readers and people just giving it a glance may pass it over or give it a try based on Japanesque expectations.

 

[TheMirrorMage]

To me, I thought it looked more like the UK on it's side than Japan...

But that's just me.

TBH, I don't think people will automatically assume or expect a particular culture if they see a familiar landform. I think people will find the style of the map and the names of the places more indicative of the culture of the peoples there (and then the title of the book, the writing style, languages other than English etc within the writing itself) than the geographical features. Many people won't even notice the likeness, and I probably won't have if you hadn't mentioned it!

 

[Asura Levi]

It actually looks more like UK than Japan.

You might want to tilt it a little bit, not much change is needed to take away the 'japan/uk' feeling

 

[uknowitbeb]

I really like your map, and I doubt anyone would ever notice a likeness between it and Japan.

 

[Erudite]

Great input, thanks everyone.

 

[Inglorion]

I immediately saw Japan and Korea when I looked at the map.

 

[Abbas-Al-Morim]

I played Shogun II, so the map is very familiar to me. I immediately associated it with Japan (it's almost an exact copy, isn't it?) and so I do expect eastern influences. That being said - I wouldn't be crushed if your world was populated with knights and dragons.

 

[SineNomine]

It is instantly and obviously an exact map of Japan and the Korean peninsula...If there isn't some sort of explanation, I'd be incredibly confused as to why your story was taking place in Japan.

 

[The Construct]

The thing is, picking up a book the first thing most people are going to look at is the blurb on the back. Only after that would I open the book and see the map inside. But if the blurb was talking about knights and kingdoms and non-Asian influenced names and such, then I'm clearly going to think the book is about knights and kingdoms and people that aren't based on Asians. Opening it up and seeing a map that looks a bit like Japan isn't going to suddenly flip my view from knights and kingdoms to samurais and empires. Especially if the map is drawn without any Asian influences. I'm going to look at it and picture what was mentioned in the blurb happening on those islands. As long as nothing in the blurb leads one to believe it's supposed to be based on Japan, then the map is just a map and not a contract promising a Japan-based story.

 

[SineNomine]

I...suppose it depends on your familiarity with maps, because that isn't a map that looks a bit like Japan, that is a map of Japan. Straight up. It has shikoku and kyushu and korea is where it is supposed to be, the kii, bousou, izu, and noto peninsulas are all where they should be, so is lake biwa.

I'm not saying you can't do it, but to try and draw a parallel, imagine opening a fantasy book and seeing this as the map (forgive the crudeness of it). Are you telling me you wouldn't be confused and wondering why the story takes place in north america?

Just trying to give my impression here, not attack TC to be clear.