• Step One: Recall About Geography
    • Mountains
    • Rivers
    • Borders (Natural and Political)
    • Settlements
  • Footstep 2: Don't Remember, Just Create
  • Step Three: Think Virtually How Your Fantasy Map Will Announced in Your Volume
    • Do information technology yourself
      • Cartoon your own fantasy map
      • Map-making tools
    • Hire an artist
  • You're prepare to start drawing your fantasy maps

If you've read more than a handful of fantasy books, yous can easily deduce that fantasy authors love maps. We assume that fantasy readers love maps likewise, which is why nosotros continue putting maps in our books. I remember it'due south a safe assumption but, if information technology isn't, fantasy maps are here to stay anyhow; of the height 25 fantasy books, almost one-half take maps. (Truth be told, I'd expected more!) Just, if you lot're not a professional cartographer, drawing an entire earth can be daunting. And so I've put together some hints, tips, ideas and tools that will help the fantasy author, Dungeon Principal, or anyone else to draw their own fantasy maps.

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

Step One: Think Nearly Geography

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

Simply, for readers to believe in the fantastical elements of your world, you lot need to get the other fundamentals right. That'south because you're asking 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 bladder on by, but ONLY if y'all don't inquire them to believe in also much. One time you lot enquire for also much, the entire illusion is broken.

So, with that in mind, brand sure yous get your geography right. Here are some common fantasy map mistakes that can rip your reader out of the world:

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

And here'south what you lot tin can do to make sure you don't make the same 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 means that mountains tend to exist in long lines (take a expect at the mountain ranges on Earth). Mount ranges aren't going to plough corners because tectonic plates aren't rectangular. Even where they practice 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 there'south country under water, and so mount ranges would go on past a coastline to create islands.

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

Rivers

Rivers have one goal: get to the lowest point possible, past the easiest road possible. The everyman indicate is often sea level, and the easiest route possible is always down. So rivers tend to race abroad from mountains and stop up in the ocean.

This is as well why rivers showtime in loftier places (mountains and hills).

Of grade, rivers don't catamenia in straight lines to the oceans. That's because they follow the path of least 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, it might course a lake. state gets flat and open with loftier terrain on all sides, they might grade lakes. Rivers tin go hush-hush too; whatever gets them down faster.

Rivers also like to go sociable; they bring together together where possible and very rarely split. In fact, retrieve of rivers like tree branches, when the trunk is an ocean 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 volition usually find an escape road and form a new river to bring together the body of water.

Only like rivers, lakes tin can flood with torrential rain and dry out during droughts.

Borders (Natural and Political)

Natural borders are barriers that are hard (but not impossible) to cantankerous. These tend to be places of high altitude (mountains), low altitude (canyons), and inhospitable geography (deserts, oceans, etc.). It'due south possible to traverse all of these things, only information technology'south difficult. Fifty-fifty rivers can exist a pain; unless they're very shallow, you'll demand a bridge, which acts both as a bottleneck that doesn't only irksome you downwardly but is too easy to defend.

Armies march as far every bit they can, then everyone packs up and goes dwelling.

That'southward why political borders (i.e. the borders between kingdoms/states/realms/etc.) tend to coincide with natural ones. Armies march as far every bit they can until they reach something that'south hard to cantankerous. A determined leader might make the effort simply, at some point, the army can't find an piece of cake way to traverse the barrier, and and everyone packs up and goes home.

Simply where a border is established past peacemakers instead of warmakers, your borders will await a petty different. Most statesmen won't think about natural borders; they'll carve up the land in straight lines that are easy to draw. A lot of the problems we accept in the modernistic globe take their root in the directly lines drawn through cultures and people by a bunch of people stood around a map. Information technology'south awful in the real world. Merely information technology could create some interesting strife in your fantasy world. Something to remember nigh.

Settlements

People similar convenience. So they're not going to put down roots somewhere that makes their lives difficult. If y'all're about to put a urban center onto your map, call up about why it'southward at that place. Is it near a water source? People need h2o, and they won't want to travel far to get it (considering that's inconvenient). Unless, of course, there'south another reason to build there. Possibly at that place's a natural resource nearby? People won't want to slog miles to become to a mine, and then there'due south a reason to build a boondocks around the mine and ship someone to fetch water for everyone.

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

Settlers will besides call back about defence unless your globe is particularly peaceful. Rivers aren't just a handy water source, merely they're hard for armies to traverse, so a town might nestle itself into a bend in a river, or with mountains at its dorsum.

Footstep Two: Don't Think, Just Create

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

Drawing a fantasy map is an act of creation. 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 let your pencil go where information technology will. You can gear up any geographical mistakes later.

Because information technology might turn out that they're not mistakes. In his volume How to Write Fantasy and Science Fiction, Orson Scott Bill of fare relates how, in the process of cartoon a metropolis map, he accidentally blocked off a gate.

"Except that I believe, when it comes to storytelling – and making up maps of imaginary lands is a kind of storytelling – that mistakes are often the beginning of the best ideas. After all, a mistake wasn't planned. It isn't likely to be a cliche. All you lot accept to do is think of a reason why the fault isn't a mistake at all, and you might have something fresh and wonderful, something to stimulate a story yous never idea of quite that way before. So I thought – what if this gate has been permanently closed off?"

Card goes on to chronicle how he decides the gate was actually a magical entrance 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 Hope.

So it might be that you accidentally create a river that connects 2 oceans. Or a volcano that has no business being there. But before you fix your mistake, accept a second look; it might turn out to exist a happy accident that makes your novel even better.

Step Iii: Think About How Your Fantasy Map Volition Appear in Your Book

If you're anything like me, your fantasy map is an unattractive putter that has no business beingness in front of human being eyeballs. So how do you get it into your book?

Practise information technology yourself

If your artistic talents are greater than mine (not much of a claiming), yous could e'er describe your own fantasy map. If you choose this path, you'll take two options: hand draw it, or use software. Whichever path you lot choose, you lot need to think carefully about what your map will look similar. After all, the map you made for yourself is probably stuffed full of details and notes. The map y'all make for your reader needs to be useful, yes, but information technology also needs to expect pretty.

Drawing your own fantasy map

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

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

"I choose to manus draw my maps because the looseness of real illustration gives it a more traditional feel 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 not fit in the world created.

I use ink on carte to create a textured experience. It may not come up across in the final volume, but information technology 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 ways I can remove or rearrange the pieces to add a catamenia to the map and prevent it beingness cluttered.

Incidental elements (landmarks that don't appear in the story itself) are a useful mode to suspension up any empty expanse and make the earth feel more real and lived in. But information technology'due south important not to clutter a map. Representative graphics, rather than detailed analogy, can be used for events or places to avert bogging a map down in detail.

I also like to include unlabelled landmarks for the reader to notice later on the story's over."

Map-making tools

If you lot don't feel upwards to the job of cartoon your fantasy map, you've got two options open to you: utilize 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 Metropolis Generator

These tools are specially useful for the D&D or wargame player who wants a map but doesn't want to hire an artist to depict them (which would stand for a item dedication to the hobby!)

Hire an artist

This is my option of choice; while software can offering a fantastic way to go a decent fantasy map into your volume, goose egg can beat the skills and creative flair that an artist tin can bring to the table.

Beginning 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 exist up for the claiming.

And if you spot a good-looking map in a fantasy novel, have a look at the copyright page; the creative person'southward copyright should be listed in that location, giving you a proper noun to hunt for and arroyo for your commission.

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

You're ready to start drawing your fantasy maps

It'due south daunting, I know. But don't wait. Dive in. Make some mistakes, larn on the fly, and if you lot accidentally draw a mount range with corners, a river that connects 2 oceans, or a edge that makes no logical sense, don't panic! Endeavour to find a reason why your mistake isn't a fault later all, and you might find that you've accidentally created a brilliant new twist on your fantasy novel.