How maps can ground your story's world

I use Novelcrafter in 95% of my work on streams. 99%, if we’re being honest. But there are a few times when I divert from just asking AI to researching on other websites, and one of those is Google Maps (or another map website, i.e. Apple Maps, OpenStreetMaps).

Seriously, they’re a goldmine for world building. I’m going to share with you a few of the ways I use online maps to help with my writing:

• Naming locations avoids AI-isms and keeps your place names realistic by taking inspiration from the real world.
• Learn how real life cities developed to inform your fantasy locations: look and see how different Salt Lake City and Paris are, for example.
• Branch out into less traditional maps (crime hotspots, infrastructure/cell service) to learn where to hide the body…

Naming Locations

Using AI to name characters or locations leads to a world of repetition. I like to turn to Google Maps in these cases to be inspired by real-world towns.

Need to name the streets in your cosy village? Zoom into any city and you’ll discover patterns. London’s streets reflect their historical purpose (Baker Street, Pudding Lane) while American cities tend toward numbers and presidential names. These patterns can inspire naming conventions for your own fictional locations.

What I like to do is get a list of places that I like, and then mix up the suffixes, or add in a reference to a geographical feature. You’d be amazed at how many places are named after what they were built near.

See how Civilisation Changes

“Satellite view” is a great way to see how geography affects the development of a civilisation. Cities form near river valleys, ports huddle in natural harbours, and mountain passes dictate trade routes. Other geographical aspects to consider when writing include:

• Settlements developing in defensible locations like hills, peninsulas, or islands (think of ancient Athens, Constantinople/Istanbul, or Venice)
• Communities emerging near valuable resources like metal deposits, stone quarries, or forests (as seen in mining towns or lumber communities)
• Civilizations developing along climate transition zones where they can access multiple ecosystems (like Mediterranean civilizations that balanced coastal and inland resources)
• Major cities forming at the intersection of natural travel routes, whether by land or water (like Istanbul connecting Europe and Asia, or St. Louis at the junction of major rivers)
• Towns clustering around reliable water sources in arid/dry regions (seen in desert civilizations like those in the Arabian Peninsula)

Populations being isolated by mountain ranges, deserts, and dense forests, leading to distinct cultural development (like the Inca in the Andes or Tibet in the Himalayas)

Journey Times & Real World Knowledge

Say you have an urban paranormal set in modern-day New York; you can use Google Maps to work out the exact journey times depending on the time of day. You can find where the subway stations are, calculate walking distances between locations, and even use Street View to describe authentic scenery your character encounters along their route.

In researching for this blog post, I went into a detour on all the specialist maps you can get access to, and want to share some gems with you:

• Crime statistics overlays: Some cities offer crime heat maps that can help you portray neighbourhood safety or police presence in crime fiction.

• Infrastructure limitations:

  • Find out if your location has good mobile/cellular coverage with maps from mobile carriers (T-Mobile, Verizon, etc) or third-party sites like Ookla.
  • In America, you can use transit agency maps to show route coverage. Is your novel location in a transit desert?

• Population density: Understanding where crowds gather or thin out informs realistic character interactions and privacy expectations. Census Bureau (or your country’s equivalent) maps can provide data on areas of higher population density.

• Light pollution: NASA’s Earth at Night maps showing light pollution, helping you describe night skies in different settings. P.S. This can help reveal informal settlements not on official census data. Inspiration for a new story, perhaps?

This isn’t all… If you switch to “Street View”, you can virtually walk through different cities. Compare the organic, winding lanes of medieval European towns to the rigid grid systems of planned cities like New York. Notice how shops cluster together, how residential areas spread outward from commercial centres, and how wealth distribution often follows geographical features.

You can use the “time slider” feature to see how areas have developed over recent years, for if your novel is set in recent history.

Even in purely fictional worlds, real-world geography provides tried-and-true templates. After all, the same factors that determined where our ancestors built cities - access to water, defendable positions, trade routes - would influence any civilization.

How will you use maps to aid in your next creation?