How To Draw A Map For Your Novel

An ongoing trend for fiction and fantasy novels is having a map for the reader to follow along with, just later the title page in the book. It is besides very helpful for the writer and the development of their fictional world.

When I first started writing my immature adult fantasy novel, MER, I was like "A map seems way also hard." But I REALLY wanted one. And despite my inhibitions, I dove in head get-go. Hell or high-water I was going to have a map for my book, even if it meant handing my ii-year-old a newspaper and crayons, and calling the scribbles my map. (Hey that'south not such a bad idea! Hahaha!)

I'thousand going to talk a little about my experience with creating my map for MER, before long to be released in belatedly Dec, forth with other methods of either creating or obtaining your map. And don't worry, yous absolutely practise not have to be Michelangelo to create a map. I am no artist, believe me! Here is a stride-by-stride how I created mine.

METHOD #1 HAND-DRAWN MAP (This is always the beginning step, even in the following methods)

ITEMS NEEDED:

*newspaper (duh)

*tracing paper or vellum

*pencil and eraser

*Markers, colored pencils, or crayons (I was only half-joking about the crayons. That is really what I used to color my map.) 🙂

*Reference Maps (Atlas, globe, print-outs of real life maps, your favorite fantasy book with a map.)

How I started was past picking a continent (fantasy novels, for some reason, usually take 1 super continent as their world to beginning out.) My inspiration was Greece. Don't ask me why. I recollect I just liked the manner information technology looked and it was surrounded on 3 sides by h2o and islands (which I needed lots of.) 😀

Image courtesy of Kevin Anderson, Flickr Creative Eatables

I started out with just a agglomeration of circles, squiggles, and lines. It looked terrible! (That's the way it'southward supposed to expect at commencement.)

Once y'all've got something that you generally like as your footprint (the outline of the continent and perhaps some full general towns from you lot story etc…) and so it is time to start adding lakes, castles, towns, villages, rivers, mountains, roads etc. Now this is where the tracing paper or vellum comes in. Equally y'all refer back to your story and start transferring landmarks to your map, you will need to make changes (more than probable, A LOT of them, LOL!) Similar, "Expect! I demand a castle here, and this river needs to motion." And instead if erasing your little heart out, place the tracing paper over your original drawing, copying what you like and changing what you don't. This is irksome and, in my opinion, the least fun part. Merely the fun role is, every bit yous do more and more than drafts, your map volition start to make clean itself upward and start to wait more like a map!

Then afterwards adding what towns, castles, and rivers that are in your story, you will need to first filling in the dead space, otherwise your map might look a trivial barren. Make a listing of names that you might like for your landmarks.

I referred to George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Burn maps, and (not ever copying) took inspiration from his name styles, just putting in my own twist and keeping true to the theme of my story. I came upwards with some cool names like Castlebridge, Saltstone, Duskenford, Eve's Port, Dawn's Port, Fish Middle Lake, Frozen River, etc… Adding these extras is also super beneficial in the development of furthering your story (say you are doing a second book in the serial.) You can refer back to your own map to meet where your grapheme'due south journey might take them, (and not have to break from your writing to come up with the perfect proper noun for that dumb river they have to cantankerous!! Haha!)

Here is a list of Landmarks your map may have.

MAP LANDMARKS

1. Castles
2. Towns
3. Villages
4. Churches (I utilise very picayune religion in mine, so I have no marked churches.)
5. Ruins
6. Rivers
7. Lakes
8. Swamps
9. Oceans
10. Seas
11. Roads
12. Forests
13. Mountains
14. Bridges
15. Ports
16. Islands
17. Compass

Don't limit yourself to this listing (equally I've probably forgotten some things LOL!), but reach for the sky! This is your masterpiece, your creation, do with it what yous want. In that location are no limits. This is fiction we are talking about here!

Once you lot've finished matching the map to your story, filling in dead infinite, and naming all of your landmarks, it'southward time to color in your map. If y'all only want black and white (which will exist i-dimensional) you probably won't want to colour it, but if you lot desire colour or fifty-fifty gray scale, you lot will want to, to assistance differentiate water from country, etc.

Now if you are an artist and feel that you have a masterpiece, by all ways, use this equally your map. I definitely couldn't, Haha! You will just need to format information technology to size, according to your publishers guidelines, or take it formatted for you. There are many low-cost formatters out in that location on google. The ane I used is April Martinez, mail@aprilgem.com. She formatted my book (and map epitome). But e-mail an inquiry and she volition send yous back a list of prices.

METHOD #ii Have IT PROFESSIONALLY RENDERED

Now that you take your rough draft, yous could always contact a Graphic Creative person or Cartographer to have the drawing digitally and professionally rendered for you. This is what I did.

I scanned my wanna-be-map into my computer (if y'all don't take a scanner go to Kinkos and go it put on a jump-drive or disk). I then sent it (along with a listing of all of my towns, castles, rivers, mountains, etc..and their right spellings) to my Graphic Designer/Artist friend, Juan, equally a rough draft. From there he worked his magic and Wallah! A beautiful map! (Soooo glad I didn't have to do that role. I'k techie-illiterate. LOL!) Find Juan C. Heinrich here on facebook http://world wide web.facebook.com/jchstudio. There is besides a guild of cartographers who use various software to create fictional maps for a commission. You lot can notice them here http://www.cartographersguild.com/

And here it is again! Woo hoo! MER's Map of Merenia! I had no idea my book could have such an amazing map!

METHOD #iii DO Information technology YOURSELF DIGITALLY

Now I'yard not going to pretend to know a lot near this, every bit I said earlier I'chiliad computer illiterate when it comes to stuff like this. But I will tell y'all some software you may use if you would similar to try information technology yourself.

You will still want to practice METHOD #1 and create a manus-drawn typhoon of your map.

A. PHOTOSHOP/ MS Pigment

You can browse your map into Photoshop or Microsoft paint and digitally dispense information technology to insert text (landmark names), do a cool watery effect, create mountains, city and castle symbols, etc… Here is a good blog mail service on doing your map via Photoshop http://www.brodt.dk/peter/maps.html.

B. SPECIALIST MAP-MAKING PROGRAMS

AutoREALM, which is a super cool software created past Fantasy and RPG geeks to create maps. (No offense, I am 1 of those also. Not the kind of geek that creates software, of course, but the kind that plays Final Fantasy and does ALL of the side quests.) Haha! Download AutoREALM for gratis here http://autorealm.sourceforge.internet/

Now, after that data overload, let'due south accept a break and look at some well-known authors who used maps in their novels.It all started with the granddad of fantasy maps/ fictional world evolution, Tolkien and his Lord of the Rings. This is the Map from The Hobbit, the prelude to the Lord of the Rings.

A few other well known'southward are…

George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Burn down(HBO Series A Game of Thrones)

Robert Jordan'due south A Wheel of Fourth dimension. (One of my favorite serial!)

C.South. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia (Dearest!)

Equally an writer or author-to-be of a fantasy serial, you lot more than probable will have one of these in your home library. If you don't,which I would find hard to believe :D, I strongly urge you to get one and written report information technology and its usage of maps.

Cheers for reading about map cosmos with me today! I wish you lots of luck in your writing journeys. And don't ever, ever give up! It can exist overwhelming, especially if you are cocky-publishing, to put all of the pieces together by yourself. Just take a deep jiff and keep on plugging on!

Please leave a comment if you have whatever other helpful information on map cosmos for your novel. Or even if yous don't I'd love to hear from yous!

Please Like my book, MER on facebook here http://www.facebook.com/merbook1  to read cool snippets and get updated info on the book release!

Delight follow me on twitter here http://www.twitter.com/JadeMPhillips

Thank you! And may the power of words be with you!

Source: https://jademphillips.com/2012/12/05/creating-a-map-for-your-fantasy-novel/

Posted by: tanneronsch1951.blogspot.com

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