Day One: Mapping
October 13th 2009 12:28
Today your goal is to develop two maps. One is going to be of the continent on which your story takes place, and the other is going to be of the city in which your story begins. (Or town, or village.)
Figure out now what climate you want to write your story in. It's probably best to go with the climate you live in-something familiar for your first Nanowrimo. That way you don't have to do as
1. Continent
First you need to decide how big your continent is going to be. You need to decide if you want it to take up the whole page or not, whether you're going to have islands or not, and if you do have islands, how big they are going to be.
If it isn't going to take up the entire page, draw a long jagged line that goes across part of the page, down it, back across, and then up to meet itself. Make it big; the inside of this shape you just made is your continent.
Never make land solely with straight lines; it's unnatural and looks odd.
If you have coloured pencils, use a blue one and cover everything except the shape you just made blue. (If you want islands make them a bunch of smaller shapes and don't colour these in either). That's the ocean.
(Start here for whole page)
Now draw a series of upside down V shapes. These are mountains. Hills are upside down U shapes. Trees are the things you drew in kindergarden/grade one, with trunks and cloud-like treetops. These maps are very basic, just to give you an idea of where stuff is in your kingdom rather than anything else.
Now draw lakes and rivers; blue lines and blue coloured-in circles. You should also decide where the borders between countries are-and there should be more than one country in a kingdom, even if there's only two or three. Draw these in black.
For villages I draw two tiny houses side by side, towns are three or four, cities are five with a circle (a wall, basically) around the city. You can colour-code these. Each colour is a different city, and then you have a legend with colours and names of cities.
Spend a couple minutes thinking about why the borders are where they are and what key differences are between lifestyles. Quickly brainstorm possible country names and name each country.
2. City map
For this you need two sheets of blank or graph paper to be displayed side by side. Start with a line around both sheets of paper for the city wall. Mark off gates to the city.
Now draw roads-lines of varying width to show the size of each road. Along each, draw houses and mark off parks, guardhouses, and stores. Figure out where temples, inns, and markets would be and draw them; decide if you want there to be separate markets for the rich, and separate temples. There will definitely be separate inns for the rich.
Name all of the important roads; pick very basic names. Some of them should be names that are probably names of people. You don't have to decide on any historical figures at this point, but at least a couple roads are going to be named after them... pick moderately common names for this.
You're almost done...
Answer the following:
1. What are three key differences between the two biggest countries on this continent?
2. How many cultures are you willing to create&work with?
3. What is the level of poverty in the place where your story begins? (In other words, how common is it and how extreme. And there will be poverty, you can't escape it.)
4. Are the deities abstract or do they show themselves fully and interfere directly? If the latter, how often do they make their presences felt?
5. Why does your story start there?
6. Do the people here have magic? If so, how powerful is it? (Just give a vague idea; more on this later)
Sorry this didn't come out yesterday. I was too tired.
Figure out now what climate you want to write your story in. It's probably best to go with the climate you live in-something familiar for your first Nanowrimo. That way you don't have to do as
1. Continent
First you need to decide how big your continent is going to be. You need to decide if you want it to take up the whole page or not, whether you're going to have islands or not, and if you do have islands, how big they are going to be.
If it isn't going to take up the entire page, draw a long jagged line that goes across part of the page, down it, back across, and then up to meet itself. Make it big; the inside of this shape you just made is your continent.
Never make land solely with straight lines; it's unnatural and looks odd.
If you have coloured pencils, use a blue one and cover everything except the shape you just made blue. (If you want islands make them a bunch of smaller shapes and don't colour these in either). That's the ocean.
(Start here for whole page)
Now draw a series of upside down V shapes. These are mountains. Hills are upside down U shapes. Trees are the things you drew in kindergarden/grade one, with trunks and cloud-like treetops. These maps are very basic, just to give you an idea of where stuff is in your kingdom rather than anything else.
Now draw lakes and rivers; blue lines and blue coloured-in circles. You should also decide where the borders between countries are-and there should be more than one country in a kingdom, even if there's only two or three. Draw these in black.
For villages I draw two tiny houses side by side, towns are three or four, cities are five with a circle (a wall, basically) around the city. You can colour-code these. Each colour is a different city, and then you have a legend with colours and names of cities.
Spend a couple minutes thinking about why the borders are where they are and what key differences are between lifestyles. Quickly brainstorm possible country names and name each country.
2. City map
For this you need two sheets of blank or graph paper to be displayed side by side. Start with a line around both sheets of paper for the city wall. Mark off gates to the city.
Now draw roads-lines of varying width to show the size of each road. Along each, draw houses and mark off parks, guardhouses, and stores. Figure out where temples, inns, and markets would be and draw them; decide if you want there to be separate markets for the rich, and separate temples. There will definitely be separate inns for the rich.
Name all of the important roads; pick very basic names. Some of them should be names that are probably names of people. You don't have to decide on any historical figures at this point, but at least a couple roads are going to be named after them... pick moderately common names for this.
You're almost done...
Answer the following:
1. What are three key differences between the two biggest countries on this continent?
2. How many cultures are you willing to create&work with?
3. What is the level of poverty in the place where your story begins? (In other words, how common is it and how extreme. And there will be poverty, you can't escape it.)
4. Are the deities abstract or do they show themselves fully and interfere directly? If the latter, how often do they make their presences felt?
5. Why does your story start there?
6. Do the people here have magic? If so, how powerful is it? (Just give a vague idea; more on this later)
Sorry this didn't come out yesterday. I was too tired.
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