• Step One: Think Nearly Geography
    • Mountains
    • Rivers
    • Borders (Natural and Political)
    • Settlements
  • Step Two: Don't Recall, Just Create
  • Pace Three: Think About How Your Fantasy Map Will Appear in Your Book
    • Do it yourself
      • Drawing your own fantasy map
      • Map-making tools
    • Hire an artist
  • You're ready to start cartoon your fantasy maps

If y'all've read more than a handful of fantasy books, you lot can easily deduce that fantasy authors love maps. Nosotros assume that fantasy readers love maps too, which is why we keep putting maps in our books. I think information technology's a prophylactic assumption simply, if it isn't, fantasy maps are hither to stay anyhow; of the pinnacle 25 fantasy books, almost one-half have maps. (Truth be told, I'd expected more!) But, if yous're not a professional cartographer, cartoon an entire world tin be daunting. So I've put together some hints, tips, ideas and tools that will aid the fantasy writer, Dungeon Principal, or anyone else to describe their own fantasy maps.

(Looking for the practical stuff? Skip down to step iii!)

Step One: Think About Geography

You lot're writing fantasy, which ways your world likely contains things that our would does not. Whether it's dragons, magic, or unusual landscapes where the laws of nature don't seem to employ.

But, for readers to believe in the fantastical elements of your world, you need to get the other fundamentals right. That's considering you lot're asking the reader to believe in something they know isn't real. And readers are pretty obliging in that sense. They'll believe in dragons, they'll believe in magic, they'll believe in a canyon where gravity is screwy and mountains bladder on by, but Simply if yous don't inquire them to believe in likewise much. Once you ask for too much, the entire illusion is broken.

So, with that in mind, brand sure you become your geography correct. Here are some common fantasy map mistakes that tin can rip your reader out of the world:

  • mountains that turn corners
  • rivers that connect 2 oceans
  • rivers that menstruum towards mountains
  • towns or cities in the centre of nowhere
  • borders that don't make sense

And here's what you tin can do to make sure yous don't brand the same mistakes on your map:

Mountains

The map of Mordor is an excellent example of how mountains don't work
Mountains don't plow corners!

Mountains are formed by tectonic plates colliding with each other. That means that mountains tend to exist in long lines (have a look at the mount ranges on Earth). Mountain ranges aren't going to plough corners because tectonic plates aren't rectangular. Fifty-fifty where they do have corners, they are a) enormous and b) irregular. Any mountains along the edge of a plate are going to draw a gentle curve across your map.

Don't forget that in that location's land under water, then mountain ranges would go on past a coastline to create islands.

For this reason, mountains don't tend be lonely (sorry, Tolkien). Volcanoes tin be lonely only because they've put in the work over time; erupted cloth settles around the volcano over time, allowing it to grow.

Rivers

Rivers take one goal: become to the everyman bespeak possible, past the easiest route possible. The lowest point is often body of water level, and the easiest route possible is always down. So rivers tend to race away from mountains and end up in the ocean.

This is too why rivers outset in high places (mountains and hills).

Of course, rivers don't flow in straight lines to the oceans. That's considering they follow the path of least resistance. They'll tumble and meander around hills, rises, through canyons and crevasses. If the river enters and expanse with high terrain on all sides, it might grade a lake. land gets flat and open with high terrain on all sides, they might course lakes. Rivers can go undercover too; whatever gets them down faster.

Rivers also similar to go sociable; they join together where possible and very rarely split. In fact, think of rivers like tree branches, when the torso is an body of water and the twigs are the starting points of your rivers.

Lakes are areas of land with high terrain on all sides, and are mostly fed by rivers or rainfall. The water will usually observe an escape route and form a new river to join the ocean.

Simply like rivers, lakes can alluvion with torrential rain and dry out during droughts.

Borders (Natural and Political)

Natural borders are barriers that are difficult (just not impossible) to cross. These tend to be places of high altitude (mountains), low altitude (canyons), and inhospitable geography (deserts, oceans, etc.). Information technology'south possible to traverse all of these things, but it's hard. Fifty-fifty rivers tin can be a pain; unless they're very shallow, you'll need a bridge, which acts both equally a bottleneck that doesn't merely slow y'all downward but is also like shooting fish in a barrel to defend.

Armies march every bit far equally they tin, and so everyone packs up and goes home.

That's why political borders (i.eastward. the borders between kingdoms/states/realms/etc.) tend to coincide with natural ones. Armies march as far equally they can until they reach something that'due south difficult to cross. A determined leader might make the effort but, at some point, the army can't find an piece of cake mode to traverse the barrier, and and everyone packs up and goes dwelling house.

Simply where a border is established by peacemakers instead of warmakers, your borders volition look a trivial different. Most statesmen won't call back virtually natural borders; they'll carve up the land in direct lines that are easy to draw. A lot of the problems we have in the modern world have their root in the straight lines drawn through cultures and people by a agglomeration of people stood around a map. Information technology'south awful in the real earth. But it could create some interesting strife in your fantasy world. Something to think about.

Settlements

People like convenience. So they're not going to put down roots somewhere that makes their lives difficult. If you're near to put a urban center onto your map, think most why information technology's at that place. Is it near a h2o source? People need h2o, and they won't want to travel far to get information technology (because that's inconvenient). Unless, of course, there'southward another reason to build there. Perhaps there's a natural resource nearby? People won't desire to slog miles to become to a mine, then there's a reason to build a town around the mine and send someone to fetch water for everyone.

Don't forget about trade. Points where roads intersect are perfect places to host beds for weary travellers, as well as introducing traders travelling the different roads.

Settlers will also call back about defence unless your world is peculiarly peaceful. Rivers aren't merely a handy water source, but they're difficult for armies to traverse, so a town might nestle itself into a bend in a river, or with mountains at its back.

Step 2: Don't Think, Simply Create

Having spent some time writing about all the technical aspects of how to draw a fantasy map, I'll now tell y'all non to worry about them. Non at starting time, anyhow.

Drawing a fantasy map is an act of cosmos. Some people wonder whether world-building or plot comes first; the truth is that y'all'll probably get the best results if you lot let both abound together.

So let all those facts about geography sit at the back of your mind and allow your pencil go where information technology will. You can fix any geographical mistakes later on.

Because it might plow out that they're not mistakes. In his book How to Write Fantasy and Science Fiction, Orson Scott Card relates how, in the process of drawing a city map, he accidentally blocked off a gate.

"Except that I believe, when it comes to storytelling – and making upward maps of imaginary lands is a kind of storytelling – that mistakes are often the start of the all-time ideas. Afterwards all, a mistake wasn't planned. Information technology isn't likely to be a cliche. All you have to practice is think of a reason why the error isn't a mistake at all, and you might accept something fresh and wonderful, something to stimulate a story you never thought of quite that way earlier. So I idea – what if this gate has been permanently closed off?"

Card goes on to relate how he decides the gate was actually a magical archway to the city that was closed off, and how this then mistake leads him to create a mythology of truthful gods that becomes the backdrop to his novel Hart's Promise.

And so information technology might be that you accidentally create a river that connects 2 oceans. Or a volcano that has no business beingness at that place. Just earlier you lot prepare your mistake, have a 2d expect; it might turn out to be a happy accident that makes your novel even ameliorate.

Footstep Three: Remember Almost How Your Fantasy Map Will Appear in Your Book

If you lot're annihilation like me, your fantasy map is an unattractive putter that has no business concern being in front of homo eyeballs. So how practise you get it into your book?

Do it yourself

If your creative talents are greater than mine (not much of a challenge), you could always draw your own fantasy map. If you choose this path, you'll accept ii options: hand draw information technology, or utilize software. Whichever path y'all choose, y'all need to think carefully about what your map will look like. After all, the map you lot made for yourself is probably stuffed full of details and notes. The map you make for your reader needs to be useful, aye, but it also needs to look pretty.

Drawing your own fantasy map

Given my complete lack of creative skills, I turned to Howard Coates, the artist behind the maps in the Realm Rift Saga books, for his communication on how to hand draw a fantasy map.

An excerpt from the fantasy map drawn for The Northern Wastes.
Graphical representations of elements make a fantasy map squeamish to look at.

"I cull to hand draw my maps because the looseness of real analogy gives it a more than traditional experience which fits into the fantasy genre. I always had in mind that these are representative of the maps Katherine would have in the book. A digital image with perfect lines would non fit in the world created.

I apply ink on card to create a textured experience. It may not come beyond in the terminal book, merely it feels important for the visual aesthetic to exist authentic.

Each area is drawn separately and I use Photoshop to put the elements together like a jigsaw. This means I tin remove or rearrange the pieces to add a flow to the map and prevent it being cluttered.

Incidental elements (landmarks that don't appear in the story itself) are a useful way to break up whatsoever empty area and brand the world feel more existent and lived in. But information technology'due south important not to clutter a map. Representative graphics, rather than detailed illustration, tin be used for events or places to avert bogging a map downwardly in particular.

I also like to include unlabelled landmarks for the reader to discover afterward the story'southward over."

Map-making tools

If you lot don't experience up to the chore of drawing your fantasy map, yous've got ii options open to you: use some software tools to help you lot, or hire someone else.

I've used some of the following software tools in the by with varying success:

Wonderdraft

Campaign Cartographer

Medieval Fantasy City Generator

These tools are particularly useful for the D&D or wargame player who wants a map only doesn't want to hire an creative person to depict them (which would stand for a particular dedication to the hobby!)

Rent an artist

This is my pick of selection; while software tin offer a fantastic way to go a decent fantasy map into your volume, naught can beat the skills and artistic flair that an artist can bring to the table.

Get-go your search on DeviantArt, Pinterest and Instagram. Exist sure to expect for artists who are already drawing maps; although you might have luck approaching an artists who is drawing portraits or landscapes, odds are that they won't be up for the challenge.

And if you spot a skilful-looking map in a fantasy novel, take a look at the copyright page; the artist'due south copyright should be listed in that location, giving you a name to chase for and arroyo for your committee.

Or you could only hire Howard Coates. He's pretty good.

You're ready to kickoff drawing your fantasy maps

Information technology's daunting, I know. But don't await. Dive in. Brand some mistakes, learn on the fly, and if yous accidentally draw a mountain range with corners, a river that connects 2 oceans, or a edge that makes no logical sense, don't panic! Try to find a reason why your mistake isn't a mistake after all, and you might find that yous've accidentally created a vivid new twist on your fantasy novel.