10 Lessons on Realistic Worldbuilding and Mapmaking I Learned Working With a Professional Cartographer and Geodesist
Hi, fellow writers and worldbuilders,
Itâs been over a year since my post on realistic swordfighting, and I figured itâs time for another one. Iâm guessing the topic is a little less âsexyâ, but Iâd find this useful as a writer, so here goes: 10 things I learned about realistic worldbuilding and mapmaking while writing my novel.
Iâve always been a sucker for pretty maps, so when I started on my novel, I hired an artist quite early to create a map for me. It was beautiful, but a few things always bothered me, even though I couldnât put a finger on it. A year later, I met an old friend of mine, who currently does his Ph.D. in cartography and geodesy, the science of measuring the earth. When the conversation shifted to the novel, I showed him the map and asked for his opinion, and he (respectfully) pointed out that it has an awful lot of issues from a realism perspective.
First off, Iâm aware that fiction is fiction, and itâs not always about realism; there are plenty of beautiful maps out there (and my old one was one of them) that are a bit fantastical and unrealistic, and thatâs all right. Still, considering the lengths I went to ensure realism for other aspects of my worldbuilding, it felt weird to me to simply ignore these discrepancies. With a heavy heart, I scrapped the old map and started over, this time working in tandem with a professional artist, my cartographer friend, and a linguist. Six months later, Iâm not only very happy with the new map, but I also learned a lot of things about geography and coherent worldbuilding, which made my universe a lot more realistic.
1)Â Realism Has an Effect: While thereâs absolutely nothing wrong with creating an unrealistic world, realism does affect the plausibility of a world. Even if the vast majority of us probably know little about geography, our brains subconsciously notice discrepancies; we simply get this sense that something isnât quite right, even if we donât notice or canât put our finger on it. In other words, if, for some miraculous reason, an evergreen forest borders on a desert in your novel, it will probably help immersion if you at least explain why this is, no matter how simple.
2)Â Climate Zones: According to my friend, a cardinal sin in fantasy maps are nonsensical climate zones. A single continent contains hot deserts, forests, and glaciers, and you can get through it all in a single day. This is particularly noticeable in video games, where this is often done to offer visual variety (Enderal, the game I wrote, is very guilty of this). If you aim for realism, run your worldbuilding by someone with a basic grasp of geography and geology, or at least try to match it to real-life examples.
3)Â Avoid Island Continent Worlds: Another issue that is quite common in fictional worlds is what I would call the âisland continentsâ: a world that is made up of island-like continents surrounded by vast bodies of water. As lovely and romantic as the idea of those distant and secluded worlds may be, itâs deeply unrealistic. Unless your world was shaped by geological forces that differ substantially from Earthâs, it was probably at one point a single landmass that split up into fragmented landmasses separated by waters. Take a look at a proper map of our world: the vast majority of continents could theoretically be reached by foot and relatively manageable sea passages. If it werenât so, countries such as Australia could have never been colonized â you canât cross an entire ocean on a raft.
4)Â Logical City Placement: My novel is set in a Polynesian-inspired tropical archipelago; in the early drafts of the book and on my first map, Uunili, the nationâs capital, stretched along the entire western coast of the main island. This is absurd. Not only because this city would have been laughably big, but also because building a settlement along an unprotected coastline is the dumbest thing you could do considering it directly exposes it to storms, floods, and, in my case, monsoons. Unless thereâs a logical reason to do otherwise, always place your coastal settlements in bays or fjords.
 Naturally, this extends to city placement in general. If you want realism and coherence, donât place a city in the middle of a godforsaken wasteland or a swamp just because itâs cool. There needs to be a reason. For example, the wasteland city could have started out as a mining town around a vast mineral deposit, and the swamp town might have a trading post along a vital trade route connecting two nations.
 5) Realistic Settlement Sizes: As Iâve mentioned before, my capital Uunili originally extended across the entire western coast. Considering Uunili is roughly two thirds the size of Hawaii  the old visuals would have made it twice the size of Mexico City. An easy way to avoid this is to draw the map using a scale and stick to it religiously. For my map, we decided to represent cities and townships with symbols alone.
 6) Realistic Megacities: Uunili has a population of about 450,000 people. For a city in a Middle Ages-inspired era, this is humongous. While this isnât an issue, per se (at its height, ancient Alexandria had a population of about 300,000), a city of that size creates its own set of challenges: youâll need a complex sewage system (to minimize disease spreading like wildfire) and strong agriculture in the surrounding areas to keep the population fed. Also, only a small part of such a megacity would be enclosed within fantasyâs ever-so-present colossal city walls; the majority of citizens would probably concentrate in an enormous urban sprawl in the surrounding areas. To give you a pointer, with a population of about 50,000, Cologne was Germanyâs biggest metropolis for most of the Middle Ages. Iâll say it again: itâs fine to disregard realism for coolness in this case, but at least taking these things into consideration will not only give your world more texture but might even provide you with some interesting plot points.
 7) World Origin: This point can be summed up in a single question: why is your world the way it is? If your novel is set in an archipelago like mine is, are the islands of volcanic origin? Did they use to be a single landmass that got flooded with the years? Do the inhabitants of your country know about this? Were there any natural disasters to speak of? Yes, not all of this may be relevant to the story, and the story should take priority over lore, but just like with my previous point, it will make your world more immersive.
 8) Maps: Think Purpose! Every map in history had a purpose. Before you start on your map, think about what yours might have been. Was it a map people actually used for navigation? If so, clarity should be paramount. This means little to no distracting ornamentation, a legible font, and a strict focus on relevant information. For example, a map used chiefly for military purposes would naturally highlight different information than a trade map. For my novel, we ultimately decided on a âshow-off mapâ drawn for the Blue Island Coalition, a powerful political entity in the archipelago (depending on your worldâs technology level, maps were actually scarce and valuable). Also, think about which technique your in-universe cartographer used to draw your in-universe map. Has copperplate engraving already been invented in your fictional universe? If not, your map shouldnât use that aesthetic.
9)Â Maps: Less Is More. If a spot or an area on a map contains no relevant information, it can (and should) stay blank so that the readerâs attention naturally shifts to the critical information. Think of it this way: if your nav system tells you to follow a highway for 500 miles, thatâs the information youâll get, and not âin 100 meters, youâll drive past a little petrol station on the left, and, oh, did I tell you about that accident that took place here ten years ago?â Traditional maps follow the same principle: if thereâs a road leading a two dayâs march through a desolate desert, a black line over a blank white ground is entirely sufficient to convey that information.
10) Settlement and Landmark Names: This point will be a bit of a tangent, but itâs still relevant. I worked with a linguist to create a fully functional language for my novel, and one of the things he criticized about my early drafts were the names of my cities. Itâs embarrassing when I think about it now, but I really didnât pay that much attention to how I named my cities; I wanted it to sound good, and that was it. Again: if realism is your goal, thatâs a big mistake. Like Point 5, we went back to the drawing board and dove into the archipelagoâs history and established naming conventions. In my novel, for example, the islands were inhabited by indigenes called the Makehu before the colonization four hundred years before the events of the story; as itâs usually the case, all settlements and islands had purely descriptive names back then. For example, the main island was called Uni e Li, which translates as âMighty Hill,â a reference to the vast mountain ranges in the south and north; townships followed the same example (e.g., Tamakaha meaning âCoarse Sandsâ). When the colonizers arrived, they adopted the Makehu names and adapted them into their own language, changing the accented, long vowels to double vowels: Uni e Li became âUunili,â LehĹ e Ähe became âLehowai.â Makehu townships kept their names; colonial cities got âEnglishâ monikers named after their geographical location, economic significance, or some other original story. Examples of this are Southport, aâyou guessed itâport on the southernmost tip of Uunili, or Caleâs Hope, a settlement named after a businessmanâs mining venture. Itâs all details, and chances are that most readers wonât even pay attention, but I personally found that this added a lot of plausibility and immersion.
I could cover a lot more, but this post is already way too long, so Iâll leave it at thatâif thereâs enough interest, Iâd be happy to make a part two. If not, well, maybe at least a couple of you got something useful out of this. If youâre looking for inspiration/references to show to your illustrator/cartographer, the David Rumsey archive is a treasure trove. Finally, for anyone who doesnât know and might be interested, my novel is called Dreams of the Dying, and is a blends fantasy, mystery, and psychological horror set in the universe of Enderal, an indie RPG for which I wrote the story. Itâs set in a Polynesian-inspired medieval world and has been described as Inception in a fantasy setting by reviewers.
Credit for the map belongs to Dominik Derow, who did the ornamentation, and my friend Fabian MĂźller, who created the map in QGIS and answered all my questions with divine patience. The linguistâs name is David MĂźller (no, theyâre not related, and, yes, we Germans all have the same last names.)
