I love maps. It’s always so cool to see where something is in comparison with where you are. Now, I’m not talking about the “you are here” type of map. I’m talking old ancient maps that lead to nowhere on this earth.
In this blog, I’ll be walking you through on how to make a realistic looking map to your fictional world.
To start off, you need to section of the land and sea. Most shores aren’t straight lines. Use the squiggliest lines you can muster to create your borders.
Once you have the overall shape of your land, here’s the fun/hardest part. Picking the name. one of my favorite techniques is to pound around on the keyboard and see what pops up. Ihuhdfs hjserert bjefpijhtnb mvxciuertb, jbf jfauyto wioqiyytbnmcvbnce ygouqrwioiozx mnaijriuy bvenruiriu wewvcm cjklkemnv. From these I can see Ihudt, Klemv, Fauryo, Wemville, Cijek, and Beijh. Wonderful new words to choose from.
Another technique I love using is to take a name, in this example I’ll use London and Jessica, and reverse their letters. Nodnol and Acissej. Boom! Two more names to use!
The final technique I use is to pick a common word, such as chair, and play around with how it sounds. Do you pronounce the ‘ai’ how you would an ‘a’ in France? Is the ‘r’ tapped? Maybe the ‘ch’ makes a ‘sh’ sound. There are endless possibilities within these three ways.
Now that you have a wide selection of names to choose from, you can decide where they’ll go on your map. Klemv sounds like it’d have mountains. Maybe I’ll put Nodnol along the coast. Wemville sounds like it’d be a small town that’s landlocked.
Some icons to include in your map are trees, mountains, rivers, towns, ruins, harbors, islands, ships, etc.
And voila! You have your own fantasy map to develop and design as you see fit as your story world evolves.