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Hot take: fantasy maps with no scale are just lazy
I was looking at a map in r/worldbuilding last week and the creator said the continent was 'about the size of Australia.' No scale bar, no mile markers, just a squiggly coast and some mountains. How am I supposed to care about travel times or distances when I have to guess? If you're writing a 300-page novel, throw in a simple 50-mile scale. Otherwise, your epic journey feels like a walk to the corner store. Am I the only one bugged by this?
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rileyellis3mo ago
Yeah, that Tolkien comparison really hits home for me. It's wild how much a simple scale bar can make or break the whole sense of journey and danger in a story.
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laura_black315mo ago
Read somewhere that Tolkien actually drew his maps to scale and calculated distances for The Lord of the Rings, even used a real compass for the coastlines. Made the whole journey from the Shire to Mordor feel genuinely long and dangerous. Without that kind of effort, those fantasy maps just look like doodles on a napkin.
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