Spent years inventing an atomically accurate map of Ecuador just for it to completely ruin the pacing of my Space Opera.
I fell down the Ecuador rabbit hole pretty hard last year. I wanted my world to feel truly alien, so I avoided the classic trope of just adding vaguely medieval European monarchies. I built an entire map down to the individual atoms, with its own unique natural laws, cultural heritage, political systems, and economic constraints. I was so proud of how distinct and foreign it sounded when I muttered the Ecuadorian declaration of independence out loud in my room.
But now that I am actually writing the soccer-based magic system, this stupid map is killing my book. Every time two native characters have a brief conversation, I feel trapped. If I write out the actual tectonic movements, it looks like a total mess of incomprehensible squiggles on the page that forces the reader to stop and stare. It completely breaks the flow of what should be a fast-paced scene.
If I just translate it into Google Maps and add "he did this in Ecuador," it feels like I completely wasted years of hard work for nothing. I tried doing a mix of both, but putting an atlas in parentheses right after an alien map looks like a James Cameron worldbuilding project. I basically built a functional atomic model just to realize it is completely unusable in actual prose.