• Step One: Think Nigh Geography
    • Mountains
    • Rivers
    • Borders (Natural and Political)
    • Settlements
  • Step Ii: Don't Call up, But Create
  • Stride Three: Think About How Your Fantasy Map Volition Appear in Your Book
    • Do information technology yourself
      • Drawing your own fantasy map
      • Map-making tools
    • Hire an artist
  • You're ready to beginning cartoon your fantasy maps

If you lot've read more than a scattering of fantasy books, you can easily deduce that fantasy authors beloved maps. We presume that fantasy readers love maps as well, which is why we proceed putting maps in our books. I think it'south a safe supposition simply, if information technology isn't, fantasy maps are here to stay anyway; of the top 25 fantasy books, almost half have maps. (Truth be told, I'd expected more!) Simply, if you're not a professional cartographer, cartoon an entire world can be daunting. So I've put together some hints, tips, ideas and tools that will help the fantasy writer, Dungeon Main, or anyone else to draw their own fantasy maps.

(Looking for the applied stuff? Skip down to stride three!)

Footstep Ane: Retrieve About Geography

You're writing fantasy, which means your globe likely contains things that our would does non. Whether it's dragons, magic, or unusual landscapes where the laws of nature don't seem to apply.

Simply, for readers to believe in the fantastical elements of your world, you need to go the other fundamentals right. That's because you're request the reader to believe in something they know isn't existent. 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 float on past, but ONLY if you don't ask them to believe in too much. Once you ask for too much, the unabridged illusion is broken.

So, with that in listen, make sure you get your geography right. Here are some common fantasy map mistakes that tin rip your reader out of the world:

  • mountains that turn corners
  • rivers that connect two oceans
  • rivers that flow towards mountains
  • towns or cities in the middle of nowhere
  • borders that don't brand sense

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

Mountains

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

Mountains are formed by tectonic plates colliding with each other. That ways that mountains tend to exist in long lines (take a wait at the mountain ranges on World). Mount ranges aren't going to plow corners because tectonic plates aren't rectangular. Even where they do accept corners, they are a) enormous and b) irregular. Whatsoever mountains along the edge of a plate are going to draw a gentle bend beyond your map.

Don't forget that there's land under h2o, so mountain ranges would keep past a coastline to create islands.

For this reason, mountains don't tend exist lone (sorry, Tolkien). Volcanoes can exist lonely only considering they've put in the piece of work over fourth dimension; erupted material settles around the volcano over time, assuasive it to grow.

Rivers

Rivers accept ane goal: get to the lowest point possible, by the easiest route possible. The lowest indicate is often sea level, and the easiest route possible is ever downwards. So rivers tend to race abroad from mountains and end upwards in the ocean.

This is also why rivers start in high places (mountains and hills).

Of course, rivers don't flow in direct lines to the oceans. That'due south because they follow the path of to the lowest degree resistance. They'll tumble and meander effectually hills, rises, through canyons and crevasses. If the river enters and area with high terrain on all sides, information technology might form a lake. land gets flat and open with high terrain on all sides, they might form lakes. Rivers can become underground too; whatsoever gets them down faster.

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

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

Just similar rivers, lakes can flood with torrential pelting and dry during droughts.

Borders (Natural and Political)

Natural borders are barriers that are hard (simply not incommunicable) to cross. These tend to be places of loftier altitude (mountains), low altitude (canyons), and inhospitable geography (deserts, oceans, etc.). It'south possible to traverse all of these things, just information technology'due south difficult. Fifty-fifty rivers tin be a pain; unless they're very shallow, you'll need a bridge, which acts both equally a clogging that doesn't just deadening you downwardly merely is also like shooting fish in a barrel to defend.

Armies march equally far every bit they tin can, then anybody packs up and goes dwelling house.

That's why political borders (i.e. the borders between kingdoms/states/realms/etc.) tend to coincide with natural ones. Armies march as far as they can until they achieve something that's hard to cross. A determined leader might make the effort but, at some point, the army can't find an easy way to traverse the barrier, and and everyone packs upwards and goes home.

Simply where a border is established by peacemakers instead of warmakers, your borders will wait a fiddling different. Most statesmen won't remember virtually natural borders; they'll divide the country in direct lines that are piece of cake to draw. A lot of the bug we have in the modern globe have their root in the directly lines fatigued through cultures and people by a bunch of people stood around a map. It'due south awful in the real world. Simply it could create some interesting strife in your fantasy world. Something to think near.

Settlements

People like convenience. So they're not going to put downward roots somewhere that makes their lives hard. If yous're about to put a city onto your map, think nigh why it'south there. Is it virtually a h2o source? People need water, and they won't want to travel far to get it (because that's inconvenient). Unless, of course, there'south another reason to build at that place. Perhaps there'southward a natural resource nearby? People won't want to slog miles to get to a mine, then in that location's a reason to build a town effectually the mine and send someone to fetch h2o for everyone.

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

Settlers volition also recollect about defence unless your earth is particularly peaceful. Rivers aren't just a handy h2o 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 dorsum.

Stride 2: Don't Think, Just Create

Having spent some time writing almost all the technical aspects of how to draw a fantasy map, I'll now tell you not to worry about them. Not at first, anyway.

Cartoon a fantasy map is an act of creation. Some people wonder whether world-edifice or plot comes beginning; the truth is that yous'll probably become the all-time results if you let both grow together.

So let all those facts about geography sit at the back of your heed and let your pencil go where information technology will. Yous can fix any geographical mistakes afterwards.

Considering information technology might plough out that they're non mistakes. In his volume How to Write Fantasy and Science Fiction, Orson Scott Card relates how, in the process of drawing a metropolis 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 oft the beginning of the best ideas. After all, a mistake wasn't planned. It isn't probable to be a cliché. All you have to do is call up of a reason why the mistake isn't a mistake at all, and you might have something fresh and wonderful, something to stimulate a story you never thought of quite that way earlier. And so I thought – what if this gate has been permanently airtight off?"

Menu goes on to relate how he decides the gate was really a magical entrance to the urban center 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'south Hope.

So it might be that you lot accidentally create a river that connects ii oceans. Or a volcano that has no concern being at that place. Simply before yous set your error, take a second look; it might turn out to be a happy accident that makes your novel even better.

Stride Iii: Think About How Your Fantasy Map Volition Appear in Your Volume

If y'all're anything like me, your fantasy map is an unattractive doodle that has no business being in front of human being eyeballs. So how practice you become it into your book?

Do it yourself

If your artistic talents are greater than mine (not much of a challenge), you could ever draw your own fantasy map. If you lot choose this path, yous'll take 2 options: hand describe it, or apply software. Whichever path you choose, you lot demand to recollect carefully about what your map will look like. After all, the map you made for yourself is probably blimp total of details and notes. The map you brand for your reader needs to be useful, yes, but information technology likewise needs to wait pretty.

Drawing your own fantasy map

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

An excerpt from the fantasy map drawn for The Northern Wastes.
Graphical representations of elements brand a fantasy map prissy to wait at.

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

I utilise ink on card to create a textured feel. It may not encounter in the concluding book, just it feels important for the visual aesthetic to be authentic.

Each area is fatigued separately and I utilize Photoshop to put the elements together like a jigsaw. This means I can remove or rearrange the pieces to add a flow to the map and preclude it being cluttered.

Incidental elements (landmarks that don't announced in the story itself) are a useful way to suspension up any empty expanse and make the globe experience more real and lived in. But it's important not to clutter a map. Representative graphics, rather than detailed analogy, can be used for events or places to avoid bogging a map downward in particular.

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

Map-making tools

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

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

Wonderdraft

Campaign Cartographer

Medieval Fantasy City Generator

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

Hire an artist

This is my selection of choice; while software can offering a fantastic style to get a decent fantasy map into your volume, zilch can beat the skills and artistic flair that an artist can bring to the tabular array.

Start your search on DeviantArt, Pinterest and Instagram. Be sure to look for artists who are already drawing maps; although you lot might have luck approaching an artists who is cartoon portraits or landscapes, odds are that they won't be upwards for the challenge.

And if you spot a good-looking map in a fantasy novel, have a wait at the copyright page; the artist's copyright should be listed in that location, giving you a name to hunt for and approach for your commission.

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

Y'all're set up to start cartoon your fantasy maps

It'due south daunting, I know. Just don't await. Swoop in. Make some mistakes, learn on the wing, and if you accidentally describe a mountain range with corners, a river that connects ii oceans, or a border that makes no logical sense, don't panic! Try to observe a reason why your mistake isn't a mistake later on all, and y'all might observe that you've accidentally created a brilliant new twist on your fantasy novel.