Creating Lishka’s Map

When I wrote the first draft of LISHKA, I created an initial map to show me general proximity of the major places in the book and also for a fun bit of worldbuilding. The original map was not to scale, which was just fine for a first draft.

When I wrote the prequal, THE WOLF QUEEN, I realized that I needed to better understand distance for timing out travel. As I wrote, I heard my editors’ voices in my head asking for consistent details on place locations and logical time to travel between them (editors, amiright?). To help myself remain consistent, I drew a more robust map, this time with a measured scale to ensure I understood number of miles between places. Whenever I had a character move from one place to another, I’d go to this map with ruler in hand to remind myself number of miles they would be travelling. Then I’d use that number to calculate how long the journey would take (accounting of course for species ability and difficulty of terrain).

Several months later, tired of looking at a draft pinned to my office wall, I took the next step and created a more detailed, final version (which in fairness was all a part of my writing procrastination).

First, I measured out a border that would actually fit in a standard size frame. I then penciled in the general shape of the continent and place locations. Side note - yes, that is a sewing ruler I used (pictured). It’s all I had on-hand and worked really well!

Next, I drew the compass. I’m particularly proud of this, because normally where I would free-hand, I actually measured this one out! I did pull up some pictures to help me pick an overall compass aesthetic. There were many to choose from. Then I drew in the border, because what fantasy map doesn’t have a lovely, detailed border? As I finalized parts of the map, I traced over the pencil with a nice fine-tipped pen, using different weights for different areas of the map.

My little helper was not so, erm, helpful, so I had to transition my drawing station from my office desk to the main living area. (Pictured: Paul).

I found drawing pretty calming, parked on the island in our open floor kitchen with a movie playing in the background. Honestly, it was a nice break from the fast-paced critical thinking of my day job, and the creative and technical demands of editing LISHKA.

Then came the harder part: I created a scale to measure and plot each place in relation to each other, staying consistent to what I’d already written in the books. Luckily, I had made my second draft to scale so I was able to mostly use that as a guide. I googled ‘fantasy map mountains’ to help pick an aesthetic for the mountains, same with trees. The more I drew on the map and finalized, the more I liked it… and didn’t want to mess it up with any mistakes!

I still need to figure out some of the lower right of the map so that remains unfinished. I figure more of the world may come to me as I continue to explore the terrain in the second and third books in LISHKA’s journey.

As of now, this hangs framed over my desk so I can look up for inspiration and reference when writing. At some point, I may enlist a professional to redo it for LISHKA’s published version… or maybe I’ll lean into the self-aspect and include this finished version!

Finished (mostly) version of LISHKA’s world map!

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