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INTRODUCTION

To map or not to map?

For many authors, this is an obvious question that they deal with at some point early in the writing process. For others, it’s not even a question: of course they’re going to use a map to help plan their story! Or else… Of course they’re not! Why on earth would you need a map?

However, the question of whether or not to use a map for your story is more fraught than you might think.

While many authors simply go with their personal preference when it comes to using or including a map, knowing at least the principles behind mapping can lend a richness to your story that may otherwise be missing.

The obvious benefits of constructing a map for your story include being able to keep track of disparate locations, allowing you to calculate distances between them, make sure the sun is setting in the right direction, and other such practical considerations.

However, these same benefits can quickly turn into liabilities if you are someone who’s prone to getting mired in the details: I spent several years constructing detailed maps and backstories for a particular world with a friend of mine which we never ended up writing in, because it always felt like there was something else we needed to establish causation for.

This kind of bogging-in-the-details that sometimes happens with maps can also encourage you to approach your story with your critical brain rather than your creative brain, and this can be problematic because the critical voice is linked to issues of self-doubt, writer blocks, and a generally painful and protracted writing process.

Your creative brain, on the other hand, is the (usually-subconscious) part of your thinking that provides the best plot twists, the ‘realest’ characters, and (usually) the best entertainment, and is responsible for the feeling of ‘flow’ that you get when the words are just pouring onto the page.

(Note that this is not a commentary on plotting-versus-pantsing; there are ways to integrate creative voice into plotting, and plenty of ways to get stuck in the critical voice when you’re ‘pantsing’.)

All of this sounds awfully like an argument against mapping… But it’s not. It’s certainly an argument about putting mapping ahead of writing in terms of importance, but if you are going to write stories that involve non-historical, non-factual cultures, understanding the impact of a map on your story is of paramount importance.

While we all tend to intuit that the geography of a population influences their culture, it’s important to understand that this influence extends further than simply food and clothing.

The ways in which a culture responds to its surrounding geography and climate extend also to expectations around family relationships, attitudes toward health and illness (as well as commonly available treatments), social codes and mores, and more.

And while you certainly don’t have to draw a map to figure out your culture’s climate, it’s an exercise that is worth completing at least a couple of times in your life in order to really internalise the ways that climate and geography can be influential.

This process can be as complex or as simple as you like.

On the one hand, you can use layers of tracing paper (or Photoshop) to figure out your world’s tectonic plate lines, which then predict the mountain ranges and volcanic hot spots, which in turn predict deposits of precious resources and various soil types, all of which influences which bits of the map are continents (or just land) and which are oceans (or lakes if you are working at a smaller scale), which then determines where your warm and cold currents go, influencing which prevailing winds (determined by the rotation of the world and significant mountain ranges) will be carrying water and which will be dry, thus determining climate, which, along with water sources, determines where people are likely to settle and in what manner they are likely to live.

On the other hand, you can draw a blob on a map, pick a climate from a handy list (which can no doubt be found on Wikipedia or the like), and go from there. The point is, though, that you understand what climate your population is living in, and you know how this is likely to impact the kind of culture that develops there.

As I noted earlier, it helps to go through the whole process at least a couple of times to internalise it, but after that… Well, the question of whether to map or not becomes a lot more about the practical aspects of distances and timing, rather than being a fundamental tool in your worldbuilding kit that helps to ensure your invented cultures are both plausible and ‘true’. 

Of course, you can skip all of this and make up the worldbuilding as you go along, and this is a legitimate decision, particularly if it’s what keeps you from getting stuck in the mire of worldbuilding and means that you actually write the story.

But on the other hand, it’s important to remember that you can’t just steal a suit of armour, a few words of Latin-esque and a serfdom or two and call it a medieval fantasy.

At best, this is sloppy world-building, dictating that social structures arise for no reason other than that you, the Author-God, say so.

At worst, it suggests that cultures themselves are superficial, and that there is no need to understand the factors by which cultures arise. And after all, if we are going to write stories in cultures other than our own, surely we are doing so because we love exploring what makes other cultures different, or because something about our story demands the cultural milieu we have chosen—or both.

(And if it’s because something about the story demands an invented culture, the process of building that culture thoughtfully and with an understanding of the interplay between geography, climate and culture adds depth and detail to the story in ways that arbitrarily decided cultures can never do.)

And so, on the assumption that you are here because you would indeed like to learn how to create a plausible, accurate map (and thus world) for your story to operate in, giving necessary attention to the connections between your story’s world, its people, and its conflicts, I invite you to join me now on a journey that will teach you step by step just exactly how to build this kind of world via a map.

If you’re not planning to get particularly fancy with your worldbuilding, mucking around with things like gravity and the seasons and the length of days, nights and years, feel free to skip straight ahead to section four, Plate Tectonics.

Table Of Contents

• Introduction  
• Stars 
• Planets  & Gravity
• Moons & Time
• Plate Tectonics 
• Mountains & Volcanos 
• Rocks & Soil 
• Resources From The Ground 
• Atmosphere
• Oceans
• Precipitation
• Rivers, Lakes & Streams
• Resources From Water 
• Climates 
• Populations  
• Using Your Map
• Conclusion 
• References