My stories are set in lots of places. I finally mapped all of them to date.
Some anthologies and magazines ask writers to come up with a brief author biography. In my bios, I often state, “I take readers on voyages to far-off places.” I wondered if I could capture all these travels on a single map. Here it is:
On this map, green dots indicate published stories and red ones indicate unpublished stories for which I’ve written at least a first draft. There are some stories in which I don’t specify a geographical location, so I can’t show them on the map. In two of my stories, characters venture underground, and I just showed their departure and return points on the surface.
As far as coverage goes, things get cluttered in Europe and the United States. Obviously, I need to write some stories set in Russia, Australia, South America, and Antarctica.
Some writers feel they must travel to the settings of their stories and conduct research to give their tales a sense of credibility. That’s less common with science fiction writers, for obvious reasons.
I’ve traveled to almost none of my story setting locations, and I don’t think it detracts from reader enjoyment. Today’s readers care more about characters than setting, anyway. They crave stories that explore the mysteries, motives, fears, anxieties, and yearnings of the human mind. That’s much harder territory to depict on a map.
Even so, strange and interesting settings are fun to read about, and often the setting itself brings out all those character qualities. Many of us love ‘journey stories,’ and I’ve shown mine as lines on the map.
Well, enough of all that. Are your bags packed? Have you securely fastened your seat belt? Who knows to what extraordinary places you’ll go next with—
Poseidon’s Scribe
