In essence, I think you're saying that mountains allow for huge climatic differences in small areas; all your examples involve them.
Anyway, I think that it would be possible to say that place names ending in "dor"/"dhor" or "or" are something of a cliche. In Middle-Earth alone there's Eriador, Arnor, Gondor, Mordor, Numenor and Valinor.
Another one is swamps/marshlands/whatever the size of nations. I've seen fantasy world maps with wetlands which, if you scale them out, must be bigger than France. Even vast marshlands are tiny, on a global scale.Originally Posted by Tomalak
Another one: Big clumps of forest surrounded by... not forest. Even in medieval societies forest is utilized. There might be big stands of forest, but on the whole they are unlikely to be hundreds of miles across.
--HBrown
Exactly, Ghostman! When world-building, especially when writing novels, it becomes increasingly important to have your little naming details make sense. Tolkien is the gold standard for this. In my recent contest entry, I used Elf and Dwarf words of my own creation for place names. I decided that "dam-" was a Dwarf root for "water", resulting in "Damák" as a word for lake and "Damist" as a word for river. "Kilím" is a Dwarf word for tall mountains, resulting in "Kilím-Dathűl" for one set of mountains and "Orok ul'Kilím" for another. Reference: (http://www.cartographersguild.com/at...progress_8.jpg)
Here's one.
Look at a satellite map. How many houses can you see... not nearly as many as you'd think. Trees are often much taller and extend over houses. So on many maps you would see more trees and less structure, even in many cities. Even roads and rivers are often obscured by tree cover.
I think cliches happen a lot for many reasons, and not all bad ones. A map is used to convey information. That's really its primary goal throughout history. So the purpose of the map is central to what it will look like and what will be there.
And as pertains to fantasy and new or alien concepts - if you want to sell it people need to be able to understand and connect to it. If they can't do that then you've lost your audience. If that happens - history may remember your work as original and NEW but you may not get a lot of work.
Cliches, like stereotypes are there because it gets people from point a to b quickly with less explanation. Good or bad, it's true.
Ultra-realism is great but if it doesn't make the story more compelling or make it resonate with an audience then it's just academic in the end.
Okay. My 10 cents worth.
I just had a thought about maps being off to the right - I think it's less of a cliche and more about more people being right handed and maybe that's why. Being right handed people start drawing to right side of the page. Just a thought.
Do you mean larger land masses on the right, kinda like how Asia and Africa generally appear on a standard world map? People like the familiar. Or having the water on the left? On that note, I live on the east coast of the US... maybe it feels more exotic to put the water in the west.
Interesting theory. I think it could be at least partially true. Although, if you think about it in terms of ink-on-parchment, drawing from the right would just get your arm dirty and your ink smudged.
I think a lot of it actually has to do with composition. That artistic principle is probably what defines people's opinion of whether a continent looks "good" or not, unless it's just completely improbable (haha). In a similar way, it affects where the viewer thinks the landmass should be placed. Since all of us Westerners read from left to right and top to bottom, and the majority of us are right-handed, having a landmass on the right might feel "right" (pun not intended) and, therefore, seem like a better composition, as good composition is not set in stone - it's merely a perceived thing. Of course, much of it has to do with balance as well. That's me having a go at explaining it, but I think that people equating their continents to Europe is the best bet for explaining the origin of the cliche, as others said. Feel free to disagree, or prove me wrong (right if I'm lucky)
@-max- sorry! I thought it was on there, I'll have a look around the forum for where I saw this mysterious Valendhor though...
however, people think left to right on the page, in this country.
What do you mean "off to the right"? Placing more map elements/details on the right side?
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- My tutorials: How to make a roll of parchment graphic in GIMP
I make use of Wag's mountain brushes.
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