I'm a bit of a mapping geek, so I thought I'd see if anyone else around here shares my view. The question at hand is: do you use maps for your worlds? If so, how do you draw them and how thorough are you? If not, why not? What are some of your favorites?

Just thought I'd start picking your brains.

I like making maps for fantasy worlds. I can't draw them very well, though, so they're just for reference.

If you want to map, map. Map as much as you want. Even if you never show your map to other people, you've increased your understanding of your world, which will enhance your writing.

For me, maps are a nearly essential tool to have to make sure I'm consistent, but I'm not artistically inclined so I'm very lax about drawing them, and while I'd like to use a computer program to create a map that matches my vision for the bits I have envisioned and fills in the gaps I don't have any ideas for, I haven't been able to find a program that meets my needs.

Good point, Neil. Having a visual representation of your world, with location names and geographical features, really solidifies it in your mind. At least for visual people like me.



Maps are essential for me, too. Even if they weren't, I would probably draw them since I love doing it. I would also like to find mapping software that would enable me to create digital copies as well as the ones on paper. I haven't yet figured out how to transfer what I already have onto the computer. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

I have one map, one very bad map, of Tevo which I did on Paint. I should probably hand draw some, I'd find I could do it better that way I think.

For mere "digital copies," I'd suggest either a good digital camera or a good scanner ... but for what you probably meant, you'd probably be interested in this thread (which itself links to my blog posts outlining the features I'm looking for).

I find drawing maps by hand to be easier.

I love drawing maps by hand (I copied California out of the atlas when I was 11 for Pete's sake, and that was only the beginning). That said, I want to have both forms so I can share my worlds with my readers who I don't know personally.

I love mapping! I do detailed maps for each continent, and then extremely detailed for countries I use in books, though that detail is more political, such as duchy boundaries, etc, as opposed to topography. The political side fits my purposes better. I do all mine by hand, and then scan them so others can see.

Drawing maps is one of my favorite parts of world-building... I usually draw by hand, as Paint is more unwieldly and drawing with a pencil is more natural/easy...

I've drawn exactly three decent maps of my fantasy world in my lifetime (the other few maps are fated to burn in a bonfire one day). One was of my entire world (that can be found in this forum... somewhere...), and the other two were maps of one country, Elani, which is where my fantasy trilogy takes place.
I draw them by hand, because anything I draw on the computer is a failure (not that my hand drawings are much better). I'm... fairly thorough, I think. I draw the different terrain and climates using different colored pencils, and I add a legend and a compass. If that's not thorough, then no, I'm not.
If I had to say why not, I would say it was because I'm a terrible artist, and I'm afraid to get anymore thorough for fear of messing everything up.

My favorite would have to be a pencil drawing of Elani that I did. No colors in that one, and it's based off of Tolkien's style of map-drawing. I'd show a picture, but it's too big and I can't take a decent photograph of it.

I make lots of maps for my worlds just so I can keep track of things and not make any errors.
Wither or not I would add a map in the actual story or not I don't know since I haven't finished the story. But I think I probably will.

I also don't make only geographical maps. I've got political maps, resource maps, road maps, trade maps, and I'm planning to make a wind pattern map.

Wow, I like how thorough you are.

Wow! Impressive!

I absolutely love maps! They really help me visualize things better, and in some cases *coughLordoftheRingscough* if I hadn't had a map to look at, I'd have been entirely turned around and not known where in the universe the character was heading. So I would opt for doing maps, not only because they're helpful, but they're also fun. They don't have to be fancy to be serviceable, but I can understand needing to map wind patterns and such if one does a lot with dragons or something.

I marked absolutely. Now... I've never made a map before, but I do love them. Which is why I answered the way I did.

MAP absolutely! I make my maps on Photoshop using a drawing tool and brushes of Tolkein, which have mountains houses.

My memory is not the best so I feel as if maps would help keep everything organized, if only you use it for your novel's "fact bible". Although, I do enjoy looking at maps in different books where there are fantastic lands and such. It gives more of a realistic tint to it all. Only when I saw the map from LotR did I realize how far everyone traveled.