The Importance of a Map

 

I wisely started with a map- J.R.R. Tolkien 

Creating a world for your wildest fantasies can be a difficult thing to endure, simply because for a world to feel real you need to keep up consistency. A town you mention in your D&D session or story can’t be up north one day and then down south another. It needs to have a solid look and feel to it. Just like the real world change comes slow and it needs to be an event to be remembered. A well-placed mountain range needs to have an impact as powerful as a real mountain can feel for us in the real world. So the basic step each world builder should take is to take a pen and paper and start experimenting with shapes. You should quite quickly be able to come to a blob that you can then start to carve out until you get closer to something resembling continents, islands, rivers and soon your world will come alive on paper before you have even started writing the stories. This step is not a mandatory one, however, it can help you out to plan ahead when starting a new game or embarking on a new, fresh story. There are several things to watch out for when starting like this though and we will get through them now. 

Realistic Geography

First things first, if you are looking into creating maps for your fictional wonderland then you might want to take a few real-world maps. When starting in any endeavor we need to do a bit of research to find out how things work. You could go for really fantastical maps but the human mind is known for figuring out the uncanny. The greatness of maps like those of Middle Earth is that they actually make sense, the mountain ranges feel solid and like they should be. When you look at the map you can get a sense of the climate in each region and each forest seems like it belongs there. These things are needed to make the world you are creating feel real and consistent. When you achieve that then you get a high level of immersion for those people who want to look into what you are creating. It might take you a bit longer than just scribbling away and going crazy, however, I believe it is more worthwhile to put in the work.

The Continents

Like our own world, you should feel free to make large landmasses with different biomes and diverse flora and fauna. This will add to the mystery of your creation, signaling to the reader that what they see at a moment's glance is not the whole story. If you take a look at most fantasy maps you’ll quickly see that most of them are just parts of a grander landmass with a wide range of diversity. Tolkien designed the whole world and then centered on a small part of it where he would set his story. You don't even need to give the continents a story, however, once you start creating it is hard to stop. And you will quickly find yourself drawing new islands and archipelagos, adding rivers and dusting off mountains. Adding some mystery to your world will also undoubtedly add to the immersion the readers will feel. Even now not all of our real-world history has been figured out, not all have been explored. This sense of the unknown mystifies us even now and that is precisely what it will do for anyone exploring the world you built.

Topographical names

This segment will need a bit of creativity and a whole lot of research, you see, the best part of Middle Earth for me are the names of the towns, rivers, and landmarks. This is because Tolkien put in a lot of work to make sure the world he was building felt like its own entity and not just an alternate reality of our world. Names like Minas Tirith and Minas Morgul show that there is a consistency in the naming itself not just in the geography and composition. Even though names such as those can be hard to pronounce it’s because of those names that we feel like there is something real, foreign, and mysterious there. And once we get a description of the places we get hooked. All of a sudden the name has a picture that goes with it and so we have a unique new memory in our heads of a place that doesn’t exist in our world. 

Originality 

While exploring other works of fiction you might get caught up in the creations of other people. What you should remember is that it’s ok to take inspiration and add things that you like to your world. In fact, it is almost inevitable that you will take some bits and pieces of other stories for yourselves. Where Tolkien differs is the reason he is considered the grandfather of fantasy. In his quest to give middle earth some reality he took inspiration not from other writers, but from old and new religions, ancient myths, and stories that have almost been forgotten. That's how we got orcs, trolls, and so on. When I started creating my world I strived to follow this example, exploring the mythology of long-gone tribes, and slowly I started changing things, giving them new meaning and so my world came to life. And this all was possible because there was a map standing as a foundation. I immediately knew where to put what name, how to compose the mountains, and where the peoples of my world would live.

Creating a world of your own won’t be easy, however, from the very first step I guarantee you will find yourself caught up in the exploration. When riding a bus your mind will wander to wast valleys and chasms of your world. This is the true magic of fantasy and it is experienced by both the readers and the creators.