posted
Here's something I'm struggling with at present...
Is there a resource that helps you to "Map out" your world? What I'm getting at is, how do you determine how far/how long it will take to get to a place? My world is set in a pre-industrial/semi-mideval setting. There are horses, wagons, carts, ships...that sort of thing. Communities are small for the most part, and not necessarily that far apart, but with no cars and such...I think you get my drift.
posted
Average person walks 2.5km an hour or 1.5 miles an hour. Horse cart, depending on the weight of the load and cart, probably about the same speed.
Now, a human can walk for longer during a day, leaving at dawn and ending well after dark. Horses, not so much, half a day, long rest, shorter distance in the other half.
posted
Most towns were located either at crossroads or river crossings and such, or were about twenty miles apart, which was about as far as a person might travel in a day. I heard a person walks about two and a half miles per hour, and one can figure at most walking about ten hours, which makes about twenty to twenty five miles a day. Use whoever's figures you trust most.
Posts: 1008 | Registered: Feb 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
If you are creating a rich, detailed new world, and your characters are going to be wandering around it quite a bit, it is in your best interests to draw maps. Maps of the country. less detailed maps of the world, if necessary. If there are very large cities that characters will be moving around in, maps of those too. When you know where everything is in relation to everything else, it makes the writing easier and helps you to avoid little errors.
If distances give you plot problems, you can always fiddle with them, or change the entire scale of the map.
You don't have to be decent at drawing to do this. Squiggly lines are roads, borders or rivers. Triangles are mountains and ranges, etc. If you want to get more creative, look on a website about maps and learn the symbols for desert, swamp, etc.
Plus, this can be great fun in its own right. It can give you lots of ideas to add to this story or another. I know OSC likes to doodle maps. Hart's Hope got its start from a map that he was drawing just for fun.
[This message has been edited by authorsjourney (edited August 10, 2006).]
I am working on a novel-length story and found the need for a map crucial. I refer back to the information repeatedly. I have adjusted travel times based on geography (part of my story is set in steep, mountainous terrain). I had to do quite a bit of research, as my co-author disagreed with me on how fast the characters would travel. MPD = Miles Per Day. Here is what we came up with:
WALKING - Normal conditions Leisure pace: 2-3 mph for unfit beginners, after 1 month 8-10mpd. Active pace: 12 mpd Destination pace (pushing hard): 15 mpd Endurance pace (flight of fear or urgent messenger): 30mpd
WALKING - Difficult, mountainous terrain Leisure pace: 3-5 mpd Active pace: 5-7 mpd Destination pace (pushing hard): 8-9 mpd Endurance pace (flight of fear or urgent messenger): 15 mpd
Horseback Leisure pace: 20 mpd Active pace: 30mpd Destination pace (pushing hard):40 mpd Endurance pace (flight of fear or urgent messenger): 50-75mpd
Not only must you keep in mind distance, and time, you must consider burden and endurance. The average horse can carry (on its back) 20% of its body weight, without strain, up to a maximum of 250 pounds. You must also consider terrain. Is there enough water and food to keep a horse going? Is it thick jungle? Desert? Steep mountains? Flat land? Bogs? There are a multitude of factors to consider.
Historical facts: The trip on the Oregon Trail took pioneers an average of eight to ten months of travel at 12 to 18 miles per day, oxen pulling covered wagons. The Pony Express averaged 9 mph over 25 mile stages. In 1973 Secretariat ran 1-1/2 miles at Belmont in 2:24 and ran 37.5 mph. In 1886, Frank Hopkins (of Hidalgo movie fame), rode a stallion named Joe 1800 miles from Galveston, Texas to Rutland, Vermont, in 31 days, averaging 58 miles per day. Joe finished in excellent condition after traveling no more than 10 hours per day.
Fit hikers traveling the Pacific Crest Trail average 15-20 miles per day. I found one report of someone hiking the Australian outback at 30 miles a day. Horses don't travel much further on foot per day than humans do, but the big difference is how much weight they can carry. A horse can travel 25-30 miles a day, but needs to stop for food and water and cannot walk and eat/drink at the same time. Stallions in the wild are known to walk 40 miles a day. Endurance rides are races where a horse covers between 50 and 100 miles in a single day. Horses have to be trained for this.
"A league is a unit of length, used to express distance, long common in Europe and Latin America, although no longer an official unit in any nation. In the 1800s in the United States, a league was also a unit of area... The league, as a unit of length, expresses the distance a person, or a horse, can walk in 1 hour of time (usually about 3 miles or 5 kilometres)."
"A unit of distance called a mile was first used by the Romans and originally denoted a distance of 1,000 (double) steps (mille passuum in Latin), which amounted, at approximately 29 inches (0.74 m) per (single) step, to 1,618 yards (1,480 m), or 5,000 Roman feet, per mile."
I like the sound of leagues better than miles, considering the time my story takes place in. But, it sounds like I'll have to figure it out in miles first, in order to determine leagues, eh?
I have the country mapped out already, and am working on the detailed maps of the cities, towns, and villages that are specifically in the story.
Thanks all! This has been HUGELY helpful, and I appreciat it!
Elan, thanks for the suggestions. I tried travel time, but didn't think to use horse to search...duh me! LOL
posted
In my fantasy world, I don't know miles. I know how long it takes to get from one place to another in days walking. Paper maps, though I have them, are never "the actual representation" since mapping technology was limited. So I know that from city A southwest to city B is 2 days walk. halfway between the cities is a fork with three inns. The other fork leads to city C, four days away. From city C there is another week east of civilized lands then two weeks of wild, untamed mountains and forests before getting to city D (most travel to city D is by water)
Basically, make it take however long it needs to to get from place to place. But, be consistant. Find the point in the story where the time it takes is important and every other time people make that same trip, its going to take that long.
A healthy adventurous MC can walk 20 miles in a day. A skilled hunter can walk 30-40, but they don't see anything strenuous about a 14 hour day of walking and jogging.
An army moves very slowly - 8 miles a day for infantry. But can be pushed to go faster if you leave the supply wagons behind.
posted
Remember also that you slow down in crossing different terrain. If it's swampy, scrubby, too hot, too cold it might be slower in terms of speed or just how far you can go in a day. If there good roads or bad roads, this makes a difference. In WWII before the army sealed the road to Darwin it took around four days to get from Alice to the railhead at Larrimah. But when the wet season came it could take up to six weeks. That was with trucks but the same went for horses and camels earlier on. When they built a proper road the journey took 3 days max.
Posts: 92 | Registered: Jun 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
I remember hearing about where someone wanted to travel to the other side of the mountain. They were offerred two routes. One, going over the mountain was like a tenth as long as the route going around. The person then asked HOW MUCH TIME and learned that going around was faster.
Posts: 1008 | Registered: Feb 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
[Average person walks 2.5km an hour or 1.5 miles an hour. Horse cart, depending on the weight of the load and cart, probably about the same speed.] quote
Leigh I think you got your mile-kilometer conversion wrong. The distance a person can walk in an hour depends on how much weight they carry.
4km per hour counting in the stops (ie, in an eight hour day, you stop to pee, rest, eat...) if you're carrying about ten percent of your weight on your shoulders. Without weight you can go 5km/h. Of course if you're only going for a short distance, you can go much faster, even running. That's a comfortable pace. The limit isn't so much how far people can walk in a day, as how far people would want to walk in a day. If you're a merchant carrying stuff from city A to city B every day of your life, you might be able to go 50km, but you'd probably be grateful if there was an in at the 25km mark to stop for the evening.
The Road to Santiago is a traditional pilgrimage from the middle ages. Look it up, you'll find useful info since most people walked or rode horses. The inns are separated by an average of 25km. It makes sense since people going to Santiago were of all ages and all physical conditions. (Sick people went to be "cured" of their illneses). Even for healthy people, if you're walking for months, you might like to shorten some of your days a bit. It's rough on the body to keep a very strong pace. In very long trips (months) I've noticed that as people near their destination, they start walking longer and longer days. I have to assume that they aren't any fitter after three months walking than they were after two and a half, it's the "I'm just there" feeling. Interesting thing to put in a book.
With training, most people can walk 8-10h a day comfortably, but it also depends on environmental conditions: if it's really hot, you'd better walk at dawn or else, if it's cold and rainy the discomfort might make you stop after 10km.
Total: walking 840km takes about a month.
[This message has been edited by Sara Genge (edited August 14, 2006).]
Excellent, excellent, excellent! I had originally started writing it in the "It takes x days to get here, n to get there," mode. I was afraid that would be too vague, so that's why I was asking. Is that the lazy way to go? will my story suffer if I don't take the time to really work at the mapping? I'm extrordinarily A.D.D., so the more time I can actually spend on story part of my story, the better.
posted
One could always write the story first, then correct later when you have something to correct.
Posts: 1008 | Registered: Feb 2006
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
