Worldbuilding 101: Geography
Since I’m primarily a fantasy writer, I apologise that this post will have a spec fic slant. If you write contemporary, you’ll have a whole other slew of problems that I’m very glad I don’t have to deal with… making sure all your streets are in the correct place and that you don’t put a Piggly Wiggly on the corner of Smith and Classon Ave when everyone knows it’s been a Walmart for years.
There are four main areas to focus on when worldbuilding: geography; politics; technology (or lack thereof); and society. You’ll probably be spending a lot of time planning out the specifics of your world, especially if you’re starting your own fantasy land from scratch, so don’t feel like you have to figure it all out at once. Sometimes the best ideas come out of the blue.
This post will focus on geography. Or…
What Are We Standing On And Why Is It Currently Exploding?
Geography is probably your most basic note in the worldbuilding symphony. The crotchet, if you will. It’s surprising how much your geography will influence the other three areas of your worldbuilding. A country composed mostly of impassible mountains and valleys, for example, will probably not have a large trading culture or sense of national identity. Instead, I’d expect each mountain hamlet to be almost xenophobic towards strangers and to teach the value of self-sufficiency and hardiness. If they have a monarchy, the ruler most likely wouldn’t have any real power to command his people.
So as you can see it affects almost everything. About now, I bet some of you are cursing your hatred of high-school geography right now (I know I am). It’s easy to draw some squiggly lines for a coast, plop trees down and a couple of mountains for flavour and call it a day. But how do all the geological features work together? If you don’t get this one crucial thing right, many readers might not notice it at once, but I firmly believe they’ll intrinsically sense the wrongness… and the last thing you want is readers starting off on the wrong foot before they even reach Chapter 1.
Geography For Dummies
To quote from the far more knowledgeable Matthew Lowes:
Large mountains almost always occur in ranges.
Rivers flow from mountains and hills down into bigger rivers or open bodies of water.
Forest can occur almost anywhere there is sufficient water for trees.
Grasslands and hills can occur almost anywhere.
Swamps, marshes, and lakes occur in flat areas with a lot of water.
Canyons are carved out by rivers or streams.
Major deserts are a regional function of the trade winds, but small deserts often form inland, on the far side of mountain ranges.
Springs and oases can occur almost anywhere.
Volcanoes occur in chains or regions of vulcanism. This usually happens closer to coastlines or islands.
Glaciers, like water, flow downhill, and glaciated areas tend to have broad U-shaped valleys.
Towns and cities need a source of fresh water. Larger cities often occur on trade routes.
If you’re looking at huge timescales and you want some billion year old ruins, the centers of continents tend to be the oldest geologic areas.
(Seriously, go check out his site – great info if you’re interested in fantasy or table-top gaming.)
Once you know the basic rules, it becomes fun and easy to piece together a unique fantasy map. But there are still a few other questions that can help with the process:
What landscape does my plot require? Will your protagonists join a trading caravan, for example? If so, you’ll probably want to consider the type of landscape conducive to trading – flat land, plenty of water and fodder for horses, many towns to stop at along the way (or enough sources of food that they’re able to forage for long distances). Do you need some drama? How about a river that they have to cross? Or a canyon that’ll provide a great place for an ambush?
Realistic travel times. Do you want the protagonists to spend most of your book travelling? If not, you’re going to have to look at your map sizes and scales. A healthy person can walk 30 miles a day, but that’s travelling fast and not stopping often. Horses? 50-60 miles a day, but that’s with a light rider and hardly any provisions. If you’re travelling with a group, it’s likely to be far less than that.
What kind of a society do you want your protagonist to come from/meet along the way? Steppes or desert are great geological reasons for a nomadic society. A country with flat land and many rivers is going to be able to support more farms, which means increased prosperity, possibly a vassal system, and most likely trade with other countries for luxury items. A good example of this is Ancient Egypt, which had vast wealth and traded as far away as Afganistan and Nubia.
Technological/magical influences. Technology can have a GIGANTIC effect on the shape of the world. You only need to look at Britain during the Industrial Revolution or places like China or the Middle East in the last 60-70 years to see this in action. I’ll cover this in greater detail later on, but for now: what’s the fastest form of transport in your world?
Courier horse? Then you’re going to need good roads and inns every 100 miles or less to service horse and rider, plus fresh horses at each leg of the journey. That means hay, which means farmland or an expensive trading concession.
Train? I hope you weren’t too attached to that hill, because it’s getting dynamited so the train can run through it. Likewise no doubt to many many forests, which will be cleared both to make the tracks and provide a space for the train to run through. Plus the metal, of course, which will have to come from a mine nearby or be shipped down (are there rough seas? Any coves or inlets to provide safe harbours for sea trading?).
Airship? Coal and tonnes of it. Where’s it all coming from? What kind of an area would the airship need to dock safely?
And magic can be even more unpredictable. Does the land have inherent magic that happens to flare up every year/week/day? Perhaps the people are constantly on the move because if they don’t, they’ll find themselves turned into chickens or with their skin on inside-out. Is there a vast swathe of nothing but twisted rock in the middle of your map? Perhaps it was the site of an ancient magical battle and the flora has never recovered.
The ‘fantasy’ of fantasy can provide a lot of fun opportunities to play around with your world and really make it your own.
Should I draw it myself or use a program?
This is a tomayto/tomahto situation. It’s really down to your personal preference. I drew mine out impressively badly, but things only really came into shape when I jumped on photoshop and graphed out my coastlines using this awesome technique. From there you can get to the fun part of arranging and re-arranging forests and mountains till your heart’s content.
There are many programs available if you’d prefer to get some help. Autorealm and Campaign Cartographer are probably the most well known. I haven’t tried either of them so I can’t recommend them, but they look pretty fantastic, so if you’re willing to spend some money, you might want to give them a try. I’d love to hear of other map-making software out there as well, so let me know in the comments.
And that’s pretty much it. This post has become pretty long, so I’ll move onto the other three aspects of worldbuilding in the next couple of days. Feel free to let me know your favourite world, or the most unique aspect of your own worldbuilding in the comments.
Recommended reading:
Michael James Liljenberg’s phenomenal Creating Fantasy and Science Fiction Worlds series. Read it. You will not be sorry you did.
