When creating any type of world dealing in a fictional environment that spans a large area, you need to do this first. Maybe not first, but it’s should be in the top five things you do first. The best example, is as always, the world around you.

Erosion

Erosion is a big aspect of shaping the earth. Look at the Grand Canyon. Erosion comes from friction, and in this case, lots and lots of friction. Rivers will eventually create a little dip in the earth. Wind erodes less because it’s not a continuous force. It blows from one direction usually, but not constantly. If you have a large desert in your world, consider sandstorm erosion. If a city has been in a desert for a while, the buildings will have sand eroding at the buildings. Otherwise, sand doesn’t do much to other sand. Large rock formations in a desert give a majestic feeling, and a sense that your characters are small compared to the world. If that’s what you want. Current erosion in the oceans does a considerable amount to the shaping of continents, and the direction of your current shapes the coastline.

Mountains, and Tectonic Movement

Tectonic movement is what you learned in grade school, and never thought about again. Basically, the earth’s outer crust is broken into several large plates. If your story spans an entire world, you may have to plan out all of them, but with a single continent, you many need only one or two.

Mountains are formed by tectonic movement. These plates move against each other along fault lines, and landmass is just pushed up. The Indian plate is a good example of this. It moves north, and has formed the Himalayas. Another example is California, which has the Pacific plate moving north, and the North American moving south. This creates the rather small mountains along the California coastline, and consequently the Sierras.

This is the reason mountains are formed in ranges, and why Helgrind bugs me to no extent. If you have your continent, mentally map out tectonic movement so your mountains form realistically. Also note, fault lines don’t run through large places, they mainly surround landmasses. And, plates can only move in one direction, they don’t expand.

Gravity and Rivers

Water flows down. Stuff comes down, snow comes down. Rain and its various forms go down. It’s how the world works. Rivers generally come from two origins, snow on mountains, and lakes on a higher level than the rest of the world. Along the mountain, in the spring, snow melts into water, and it flows down. Or a lake that simply overflows, and water pours out. The best example of the last option is the Nile River, which flows north from Lake Victoria. If you’ve gone far enough to draw a map for your world, you can’t just make a wavy line from a mountain leading into a lake, or the ocean. Each turn in the river indicates the land around it. In effect, hills. Water is simply guided by hills or other large formations. Also, rivers in a similar area have to flow in the same general direction. Two rivers side by side flowing in opposite directions is very strange, and makes it feel forced, unless there might be a tall hill in between them. While you can have rivers slowly veer away in the direction you need them, it has to stay with the land formation. When examining rivers and lakes, imagine your map in three dimensions. The higher points are your mountains or hills, and coastlines are usually lower. So now imagine your rivers, and be sure they follow your rules.

Rivers, lead into other rivers, lakes, or the ocean. This is a simple concept, and easily grasped. Cities are also built along rivers, for trading purposes. Although rivers only flow in one direction, so your people with have to walk the other way.

Oceans

Oceans are essentially giant lakes with too much salt. If you’re accepting the laws of physics, your planet will have poles. Not poles, poles. The frozen top and bottom where the sun can’t do its job properly. The ocean is maintained by the ice breaking off, and eventually melting. Oceans aren’t hard to recreate, but the stuff inside of can be.

Reefs, shoals, and shallow water are all nasty aspects of the ocean. Depending on how much emphasis on sailing you put into your story, the more you’ll want to plan these things out. Reefs are large constructs of coral and other stuff, and can wreak havoc on ships, especially wooden ones. Also, the closer you get to land, the shallower your water should be. While this isn’t true anywhere (nor should be, for realism), it dictates where your people will build port cities. No one wants to park their galleon two miles out because some idiot decided to start a port in shallow water. Shallow water hinders ships, and by extent, rocks. While a ‘Shipwreck Cove’ is overused, a simple passage between islands can provide this hindering aspect.

Islands, are islands. Little dabs of land in the ocean. Islands are made in a few different ways. Madagascar, if you’ve ever looked at it on a map, fits neatly into the side of Africa. So naturally, it broke away at some point in the past while the Earth was changing. While it won’t fit like that five thousandth puzzle piece, the general contour should be recognizable, because current erosion has changed it. Another island creation method is undersea volcanic eruption. The Hawaiian islands have a curve to them, as if they are being pulled off to the northeast. They are being pulled, by the Central Pacific current. Undersea volcanoes belch out earth and rock, and it floats up and hardens, and the water pulls it. This effect gives your world a natural movement.

Currents are flows of water. Take a look at a world map of currents for ideas, but currents also affect climate. Newfoundland in eastern Canada and Britain are nearly on the same parallel. Newfoundland is under snow for the majority of the year, but Britain got off easy with rain and fog. The North Atlantic current is the answer. Water from the equator is warmed, and carried upward past Spain, Portugal, and Britain. it goes up around Greenland, and is cooled again, then flowing back down along Canada and the Eastern seaboard. Currents have a major effect on climate, and vicariously, on your civilization. A quick note: Warm water from the equator flows naturally to the poles, and the cold water from there moves back towards the equator, and becomes warm. This should be a simple guideline if you’re thinking about currents. Sail ships use currents all the time in the absence of a tailwind. Many times detours would be taken to follow currents.

Wind

Wind is formed by air currents. Warm and cool currents spiral horizontally and creates wind. The direction wind comes from is an important factor. A wind coming through a desert onto a coastal town will give warm air during the day, and unnaturally cool air at night. A wind coming from a snow capped mountain range will be cool year round.

To be continued.. I’ve been sitting down for too long.

Comment

  1. SlyShy on 11 October 2008, 13:00 said:

    Hey Virgil,

    Good article. The part about rivers is especially important for people to keep in mind, because placement of cities in largely determined by the availibility of freshwater. And of course, rivers also mean trade.

  2. Virgil on 11 October 2008, 14:35 said:

    Thanks. Rivers are an important aspect, many times ignored completely.

  3. Snow White Queen on 11 October 2008, 19:29 said:

    great article! i’ve heard many people on here debating how to approach this subject.

    but one thing i’d like to ask is how important having a geographically accurate map is to a story. i mean, having one giant mountain in the middle of nowhere that’s ten billion miles tall or whatever is ludicrous, but how integral to a story do you think it is that the map is geographically accurate?

    i’m wondering because i’ve already made a map for my fantasy world that i spent a sizeable amount of time on, but didn’t really factor that much of my geology knowledge into it, although it’s not completely laughable. is it a good idea for me to scrap the whole thing and start over?

  4. Virgil on 11 October 2008, 19:54 said:

    I don’t think so, as long as nothing’s blatantly obvious and horribly impossible, you’re fine. Of course, since you already know what you want everything to look at, it might not take as long, but it’s up to you.

  5. Virgil on 12 October 2008, 10:49 said:

    For some reason I can’t comment on Realistic Land Mass #2, so I’ll thank you here, Sly.

  6. Carbon Copy on 13 October 2008, 17:14 said:

    The answer to how important a geographically accurate map is depends entirely on the story you are trying to tell. If you are telling an epic, world-spanning tale then you better know what you are talking about on a global scale. Conversely, if your story is about a bed-ridden hermit who never leaves his home, then a basic idea of how the world he lives in looks and works should be all you need.

    Basically, if you are going to have characters spend ages travelling through the desert, then research all you can about deserts. If you are only mentioning a desert in passing, you probably don’t need to know everything.

    As long as you don’t have any glaring mistakes (for example, rivers with no starting point that flow up into the mountains), you should generally be okay.

    The most important thing to remember is that if you draw a map for your world, you are potentially digging yourself into a hole. Of course, it is helpful to draw a map for your own use when writing the story, but if you then publish that map in your book, people WILL study it, and if what you have drawn doesn’t tie up with what you have written, then it will be obvious.

    If a reader can pick up your book and enjoy it without having a map to follow, then you are best not ever letting the reader see your map unless you have gone through the kind of world building process that can take years.

  7. Morvius on 18 October 2008, 08:43 said:

    I have been planning out a map for my series too. One, I created when I was around 12 or so and so there are ALOT of problems geographically. I am currently redrawing the map with a friend of mine who does Geography. Since maps can be quite important to fantasy books, why don’t you allow people to put up their maps for critique?

  8. Virgil on 18 October 2008, 08:57 said:

    A good idea. I’m sure I could, but you’ll need to talk to Sly to be able to post it.

  9. reychelle on 23 November 2008, 08:15 said:

    what is landmass?

  10. reychelle on 23 November 2008, 08:18 said:

    thank’s for the wonderfull ideas here.there are so many lessons i learned.

  11. Virgil on 23 November 2008, 10:29 said:

    Any bit of land, really. Like a continent or island.

  12. ProserpinaFC on 20 January 2010, 20:07 said:

    Land!

    Geography plays such a big part in my stories, I kept my college text book. XD

  13. War Wizards are the best on 5 November 2011, 00:43 said:

    What about the physics of travel? Is there an article on here that covers that? I was just checking some statistics on how far/fast horses can travel to base the distances between cities on and that kind of brought me here.