I’ve been working lately on a map for some worldbuilding for the story I’m working on.
The story started as a timed writing practice that when I pushed it farther is leading to a tale much broader in scope than I anticipated. So a map and then some worldbuilding is in order.
I love drawing maps. I have been drawing them for fun since high school. After I married, I showed my husband the set of maps that were my favorites. Three continents with close ups of each of the countries and a brief description of them all. He perused them for only a moment before pointing out that rivers flow down hill and not from the ocean inland. So many details to keep straight.
There is a big difference though between drawing for fun and drawing with a purpose. At least in my mind. The coastal lines and the major geographical features; hills, mountains, rivers, lakes, deserts, marshes, etc. These are easy to draw (keeping in mind gravity). What I find hard to do now is make up the names for all the places. I am now really self conscious of my made up names. I spend a lot of time tossing out letter combinations as “stupid” sounding. Then mentally huffing and just throwing down the latest word when I feel I have taken long enough with a name.
Character names are easier. I feel the names I come up with sound more like people names and not place names. Weird.
July 28th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
I tend to tie my place names to the history of the place. I ask myself who lives there and why are they there, and who was the first person they knew of to view it and what they would have called it. For some reason it is always easier for me to come up with what a character would name a place than to do it myself.
I like my places to have a bit of history, and that history informs my place names. Sometimes when thinking about names, I come up with the history instead.
Ironically, I just came across a detailed world map last night that I had developed 25 years ago. I don’t remember coming up with any of the names on the map, but most of them resonated very deeply with me when I read them, so I must have spent a lot of time thinking about them. I like to think that my characters have the same sense of strong emotional response to their local place names that I do to names like America and the Columbia River.