The Cartographer and the Diviner: On Two Ways to See a Story

I once watched two friends, both talented writers, prepare for the same daunting task: starting a new novel. One, let’s call her the Cartographer, unfurled a massive sheet of butcher paper across her dining table. On it, she began to draw. Arrows indicated character arcs, boxes housed chapter summaries, and a complex system of colored strings connected themes to plot points. The map was her territory, a blueprint she would follow into the wilderness of the first draft. Her approach was one of meticulous planning, of knowing the lay of the land before taking a single step.

The other writer, the Diviner, did nothing of the sort. He bought a new notebook, wrote a single, enigmatic line in the centre of the first page, and closed it. For days, he walked. He listened to conversations in coffee shops, revisited a memory of a certain slant of light on a childhood wall, and waited. He wasn’t planning; he was divining. He believed the story was already there, a subterranean stream waiting to be sensed, its path revealed one tremor of the dowser’s rod at a time. His draft would be an act of discovery, a following rather than a building.

These two archetypes—the Cartographer and the Diviner—represent a fundamental schism in the creative process, a contrast that extends far beyond the page to how we build audiences and shape our editorial craft. The Cartographer’s method is one of clarity and control. For an audience, this looks like a carefully planned content calendar, a clear value proposition, and a reliable, predictable rhythm of publication. The reader knows what to expect and trusts the mapmaker to deliver them to a satisfying destination. The headline is a promise, the prose a well-engineered path.

The Diviner’s path is messier, more intuitive. Building an audience here is less about a mapped journey and more about shared discovery. The blog post or newsletter is not a promised destination but a report from the field. The headline might be a question, not a statement. The writing itself is the act of divining, and the audience gathers to watch the water bubble up from the ground, attracted by the authenticity of the search. They aren’t following a map; they’re following a person.

The danger for the Cartographer is rigidity. A map, once drawn, can become a cage. What happens when a character you’ve so carefully plotted suddenly demands to turn left instead of right? The meticulously built audience might revolt if you deviate from the promised path. The danger for the Diviner is meandering. Without an internal compass, the search can become an aimless walk in the woods, leaving a potential audience confused and unmoored, wondering what, if anything, is being found.

Most of us are not pure Cartographers or pure Diviners, but exist on a spectrum, our position shifting with each project. The real craft, perhaps, lies in knowing when to wield the sextant and when to trust the rod. It is in the tension between these forces—the need for structure and the faith in emergence—that the most compelling and human writing often occurs. It is the map that leaves room for miracles, and the divination that knows a stream, to be useful, must eventually flow somewhere.

Notes & further reading

A few pages I came back to while writing this: