Maps

My maps were orginally created for my fantasy roleplaying games. Then it just grew. So now everytime I write some based there, another realm gets fleshed out.

I guess it's a bare bones world.

I have drawn a map for my WIP--on the inside cover of a notebook, stuffed in a cupboard somewhere. I used to use it to keep the names of places straight, but I don't need it anymore. It has changed as I got to know my world a little better, but I just redraw the lines.

I always like maps for stories that have a lot of place names, but it is much better if you can describe the relationship of places in your work instead of relying on a map. Lots of places gets just too confusing.

I hope someone knows of a good mapping software program. I'd like to try that approach if it exists. It's been at least a decade since I last used DrawPerfect.

For the world in my fantasy WIP, I'm using modified maps of the US since I didn't want to have to come up with brand new geography.

For mapping towns, I'm having a little more difficulty. I've been getting some good suggestions in the "Mapping a Village" thread in the Science Fiction and Fantasy forum.

I created my map in Adobe Illustrator as I was writing my WIP because it became so involving, I had to know where every country, every city, every castle, every river, every forest, etc. was so I could say, "She went north to Moronica" without worrying that maybe I had said Moronica was actually southwest of where she was.

I like to make maps for my novels so I can be sure how things fit together, directions, distances etc, but I try to write my books so you don't need to look at the maps to read the story. I've never felt the need to drastically alter a map as I wrote, but I do tend to add detail as it becomes important.