Guide to Worldbuilding
Maps
We are starting the Guide to Worldbuilding with Maps! Maps are the best way for you as a writer to understand your world. Writing an adventure across the continent without a map is going to cause timelines in travel to be off. Transportation and travel will be covered later in the “Cities” guide. I have a free printable for you. This PDF has a place to note down important information for your maps.
I found many free resources for creating maps while I was in high school and even more while I started college. I’m gonna share these with you as well as a very silly map making technique using small food stuffs.
Bean Maps
I don’t remember when I first saw this method, but it is by far my favorite way to make maps. You only need some paper and maybe a cup of food stuffs. You can use split peas, beans, rice or even macaroni noodles.
The process is super simple. Throw the food on the paper and trace around it! That’s it. I also like to add notes of forests and mountains, and will make them permanent as I write the story. You can look at the map I created for my homebrew D&D in the photos below for a more detailed walkthrough. This map if you use standard printer paper, can be easily scanned and adjusted in art programs to make a digital map. plan on adding this map to me new novel that is based off my campaigns!