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@emily-d YAY! I love worldbuilding! *happy dance* 🙂

Worldbuilding for me starts with asking questions, whether it’s something small like: “What is the terrain for this country like?” to “What do my people believe the stars are?” or something larger like: “What would it be like if trees could talk?”

Over the past year, I’ve come up with a list of questions that I use when devolving a people group or country. Then I just write those questions out in a document, begin to answer them, more questions rise, answer those, go back and clarify, etc.

A helpful way to look at worldbuilding questions such as “Where are mountains?” or “What resources are in this area?” or “What animals dwell here?” is to link it all back to how that effects life for humans.

For example:

1. After asking “Where are mountains?” then ask: “How does that effect where my people live? Where they hunt? How they travel?”

2. After asking “What resources are in this area?” then ask: “How does that effect my characters’ lives? What do they build their houses with? What do they eat?”

3. After asking, “What animals dwell here?” then ask: “What to people think of those animals?”

It’s really simple. Just pick one question to ask and begin to write it up. I’ve found that answering one questions usually leads to another which leads to another… which leads to another etc.

As to maps…

So one of my friends used a really cool website to make some maps for a group writing project. I was blown away with how they turned out! Here is the website he used: https://inkarnate.com/ (Which is something @steward-of-the-pen might be interested in too.)

Other resources I’ve heard people use before for worldbuilding is Trello (https://trello.com/) and Notebook (https://notebook.com/) – both of which you might want to check out.

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Soooo… I just finished writing all this out, and realized that you were only talking about maps! Ooops. 😛

Oh well… you get the extra advice for free. 😉