Pretty Sure Naethan Apollo Wrote A Song Abt This

Pretty sure Naethan Apollo wrote a song abt this

Zero words a day is fine. There's so much more to writing than just putting words on paper, and sometimes you just don't have time to write, especially if it isn't your only job. I spend months planning my stories before I ever make anything concrete, and even then I go through bare-bones draft phases before actual writing. Word count doesn't measure writing any more than IQ scores measure intelligence.

300 words a day is actually fine. listen to me. 150 words a day is still writing. 1200 words one day and then zero for the next week is also fine. there are no rules. please don't let writing become a tedious task just because you don't think you're doing the daily word count right.

Okay so you've asked a relatively simple question which obviously means that I need to overexplain and create an unnecessarily long "here's how I do this thing." So here's how I do this thing

Step 1: Tectonic plates. Just draw lines. They don't need to be good, they don't even need to make sense. I don't do geography or geology but drawing lines pretty randomly seems like what nature did.

Boom. tectonic plates.

Step 2: make a continent. There should be more continent along the tectonic plates, because that's where land gets pushed up. I like making lots of islands, I feel like it makes it pop. Otherwise, just squiggly lines

Ta-da, you have a continent. This is one big one, but feel free to make oceans and such.

Step 3: Mountains. Throw some foothills in there too. I make mountains as varying sizes of bottomless triangles, and if you want to make them stand out more you can make crest lines with shadows. Mountains should follow the tectonic plates, at least mostly.

You can see here that I ignored the left most line of the tectonic plates and threw some mountains in the south. For fun.

Step 4: Rivers and lakes. These should be based on the mountains, at least partially. Runoff from the mountains will create a lot of the rivers, and water will pool in valleys, creating lakes. These aren't the only sources of water, but they're kinda most of what I use

You can see some of the rivers weave in between the mountains, because they'll flow towards the lowest point. I don't usually put a whole lot down, just some of the big ones I might use

Step 5: Biomes. This includes all kinds of plains, deserts, swamps, jungles, etc. I usually use different brushes to make these happen, but I only really make maps digitally so I might not be the person to ask with regards to traditional art.

The north and south are going to be colder and have pine trees, while the center has a large desert because I wasn't sure what else to do with the area.

Step 6: Details. In this case, I put waves to separate ocean from land, and water buffers to make the land pop out more, especially with regards to lakes

Use as necessary

Step 7: Cities and towns. Not always necessary, depending. You might want to mark out kingdoms and territories, but I just did large towns and cities. Most of them should be near a water source, but it's fantasy so do whatever.

Here, I marked the "old world" cities with black, and the "New World" cities with red, because that was relevant to this specific story. I like to give them all names, but depending on map size that might not be practical.

Et voila! A map. Anyways thank you for coming to my ted talk. I use maps as a place to put the story I'm working on, and will usually draw a timeline on them to help me out. I make maps specifically because they help me with my writing, and they are crafted with that and only that in mind. I'm sure theres a published author or a geographer who could give better advice but you know what its fine.

So yeah. Tectonic plates.

anyone know how to simulate plate tectonics when creating a fantasy map

Random people who've never seen my blog in their life

Get ready

please can we do inbox trick-or-treating this year. can we make that a thing on tumblr. please please please please please

This conversation is so fucking funny to me