EP 12: How to Create a Continent

Hello and welcome to the Art of World Building podcast Episode #12. Today's topic is how to create a continent. This includes understanding the effect of which hemisphere it's in, plate tectonics in their role, and various bodies of water such as seas, oceans, bays, and smaller areas. This material and more is discussed in Chapter 3 of Creating Places, Volume 2 in the Art of World Building Book Series. Do you want practical advice on how to build better worlds faster and have more fun doing it? The Art of World Building Book Series website, blog, and podcast will make your worlds beat the competition. This is your host, Randy Ellowson, and I have 30 years of world building advice, tips, and tricks to share. Follow along now at artofwilbilding.com. While we are talking about creating a continent today, we're looking at the big picture, and that means we're not talking about mountain ranges and forests, prairies, grasslands, and other details like cities. We will be talking about all of those things, but those will be covered by different episodes that dive in more deeply into those subjects. Regardless of how many continents we are creating, the same advice and procedures can apply to doing all of them. For any continent that we create, we don't have to create every last detail of it, especially if we're not going to use it. It helps to have an idea of what you're going to use it for, something like a trilogy or a long novel where the characters are going from one place to another and collecting tokens, as they're called, is going to need more places developed. On the other hand, if you're writing a short story, you certainly don't need to go that far. However, that said, even if you just focused on a local region, it will help to know where the equator is in relation to your story and how far away the mountain ranges are and what the weather patterns are like. So it does help to have that broader image in your head, but this can be general for most of the continent and go into detail just on the area that you're going to actually use. One of the reasons we might want to have at least a general sense of other areas on the continent is that we may be able to refer to them. Let's say that we have a country called outlandia, and we can just say, "Okay, from outlandia, they have great wines." And that might be the only thing that we have invented for that place. This might be all that we ever do with that, but then maybe later we decide to actually use outlandia, and at that point we start fleshing it out more. One reason I mentioned this is that it can become overwhelming to think about creating the details of an entire continent. So in the beginning, we just want to focus on some basics, and that's what we're going to start with. This same idea can apply whether we're talking about different areas of one continent or if we are talking about multiple continents. If the idea of creating one continent feels overwhelming, then that gets exponentially worse if we're talking about multiple continents. But sometimes all we need to do is name them and decide which direction they are in from the one that we're currently working on. We may never use them, we may never mention them, but if we decide to use them later, then at least they exist and we already know where they are in relation to our first continent. Another reason to go ahead and create these other areas of a continent or other continents is that travelers from far away lands may reach our shores eventually and become integrated into the world or the the local world that we're creating, the local area that we are intending to use. Using Earth as an example and just the United States, the native population had darker skin than white people from Europe. Black people from Africa, of course, had even darker skin. Unless you are planning to populate your story with people who are exclusively one race, which means they are from one geographic area, then you may want to have an idea where other races could have come from. And by races, I don't mean dwarves and elves, but races of humans. You've probably heard of the recent controversy about the whitewashing of Hollywood and how films sometimes show only white actors even when the location is ancient Africa and that is something that bothers people. Now whether you agree with that or not, it is still true that the skin color of people in one region is going to be determined by their location comparative to where the equator is. Since the equator is hotter, then people there tend to wear less clothing and as a result, they are exposed to much more sun and over the millennia, their skin is more likely to darken. By contrast, someone who is living closer to the poles is usually covered up when they're outside and this does not happen. This is a very general concept, but what you want to do is have at least some idea where the white people came from and where the black people came from, just using those two as an example. If they're from the same continent, then you still need to know where the equator lies on the continent that you are creating and then you need to understand how far away each region that you are drawing is from that equator. If the continent that you're creating is relatively small, then you're probably going to have a skin tone that is pretty similar throughout and that means that if there are people of a different skin color there, then they must have come from another continent and it's probably going to help you to know how far away that is, which will determine how likely it is that people from there end up here. If we don't want to invent that other continent in detail, then all we have to do is choose an area on that continent, give it a name and then we are good to go for now and if we ever decide to return to that and develop in more detail, well we've already got it. In a fantasy setting, travel is typically far less likely when we're talking about great distances than in a sci-fi setting. So in sci-fi, we're probably going to have much more integration. But of course in sci-fi, the problem may be exponentially worse because in that case, you might be talking about multiple planets and even multiple solar systems. But once again, we don't have to create all of those in great detail. Just create what you're actually going to use. There's a fairly simple process you can do to get started with creating a continent. The first step would be to roughly draw one on a sheet of paper and not worry about how great it looks because no one's ever going to see this except for you. Then you should decide where that land mass lies in relation to the equator and where it is in relation to any other continent. And that can be as simple as drawing an arrow pointing to the right side of the page and writing out landia indicating it is in that direction. Then of course, you're going to want to give that continent a name. Now you might just give it a working name for now because that might not be the best thing. For example, I made up out landia a couple minutes ago and I would never actually use that because personally I don't think it sounds very smart. But it just gives me a working title to use for now and I can replace it later. Once we have a continent drawn in rough form, we can start carving it up into sovereign powers. Now that said, I will recommend that you draw more features on that continent such as mountain ranges and forests because in my experience, when those are there, I can often use those to figure out what might be where as far as countries go. If you'd like a really detailed explanation of what I really mean, I would suggest picking up a copy of creating places and I think it's chapter one and it talks about case studies. And what this is is a detailed breakdown of exactly what I was thinking when I created certain areas of one of my continents and how I used land features like forests, mountains, even the sea to determine where those countries broke down in between one and another, you know, what the boundary was and then the reason they are that way and even how I decided based on land features, what the government type was and whether it was an aggressive or peaceful country, whether they have freedoms or slavery and all of that is discussed in detail in that one chapter. And that's one of the few chapters and so far the only chapter that I'm not covering at all during this podcast because it's a little too map specific. You kind of need to be looking at the maps that I have in that chapter in order to follow along. Now I believe at least one of those case studies is published on artofwilbiting.com. If you go to the menu for book two, there's a section, there's a link that says read free. You can get to the table of contents on there and you can go to that section and just, you know, read some of what I'm talking about. Now once we've got our sovereign powers decided, well, once again, going to need some names for these and we can follow the same process of just giving them some basic names that we can improve later. In my experience, names are sometimes hard to come up with and we're going to discuss this in another podcast episode. It's part of volume three cultures and beyond, but there are techniques we can use to come up with names and one of the things that happens is that anytime we are inventing names, not every name is going to be great the first time we try to come up with one. So in my experience, I have repeatedly replaced names that I just didn't like or, you know, it was okay, but in time I thought, okay, I'm finally going to fix that. So that brings up a basic problem with world building or just a situation with world building where generally we are often improving on what we've created. That comes up a little bit less with short stories because we're probably going to invent the world and the story outline and then write the story and not revisit that. The last thing we might want to do at a high level when creating these sovereign powers is just to decide what kind of sovereign power they are. Our choices are things like authoritative states, democracies, federations, and monarchies. We're going to cover a lot more of that when we get to creating a sovereign power. So in the beginning, what we really need to do is have a basic understanding of whether this is a benevolent or nefarious society. Is that somewhere where people have freedom and it's relatively peaceful or is it really horrible to live there? We can decide later what sort of government is responsible for that quality of life. We can also decide that certain areas of the continent have a reputation for one thing or another. Think about the earth and what intrigues this about a place. Some countries are known for their benevolence while others are known for being a source of tension that would include the Middle East. Other areas are known for their dictatorships and the brutal quality of life. An area might also be known for its hot and humid weather or it's hot and dry weather. There's at least one area on Earth that is synonymous with brutally frigid cold. More examples include a slave trade, huge forests, impenetrable mountains, vast deserts, and exotic animals. Mind you that exotic animals are only going to seem exotic to people who are from another place. To the locals they're going to seem normal, but this is one of the reasons to create this sort of reputation for certain areas and then be able to reference them in the area where you are setting your story. If you're looking for more world building resources, ArtofWillbuilding.com has most of what you need. This includes more podcasts like this one and free transcripts if you'd prefer to read an episode. You can also find more information on all three volumes of the Art of Will Building series, which is available in ebook, print, and audiobook formats. Much of the content of those books is available on the website for free. You can also join the mailing list at ArtofWillbuilding.com/newsletter. This gets you free reusable templates from each published volume in the series. You don't even need to buy the books to get these. I also send out contestant information, free tips, and other stuff to help with your efforts. Please note that I do not share your email address with anyone because that's against my privacy policy and you can unsubscribe at any time. Sign up today to get your free content and take your world building to the next level. The next subject we're going to talk about is a brief one and that is the effect of the hemisphere where your content is located. One reason I'm not going to spend too much time on this is that the previous two episodes talked about this in more detail. We can draw something like a mountain range without having decided where our content lies in relation to the equator, but we shouldn't draw things like deserts, grasslands, or forests without having made this decision. The reason is that all of those are going to be affected by where the content lies in relation to the equator. One reason for this is the prevailing winds and the latitude, and then of course there's the influence of those mountain ranges. The previous episodes talk about the subject of range shadows, which basically means that the prevailing winds are moving in a given direction. When they hit a mountain range, those winds go up and all of the water will not all of it, but most of the water in the clouds falls on one side of the mountain range and then on the other side there's no water left to fall, and as a result there is usually a desert there, and this is known as a range shadow. How do we know which direction the prevailing winds are blowing and which side of the mountain range is going to have forest and which will have desert? That's easy. It's going to be based on the latitude, which means the distance from the equator, which is why we need to know this. It changes depending on how far from the equator you are. I don't want to re-explain all of this, so if you haven't listened to episode 11.1 or 0.2, go ahead and check those out after this one. One last issue to talk about is that if you are living in a given continent, you are used to thinking that it's colder in one direction and warmer in another, but this is going to be reversed if you are in the other hemisphere. This is a big deal when you're creating a continent because you don't want to be creating a cold region to the north if you later decide that this continent is in the southern hemisphere because the colder region is actually going to be to the south and the northern area is going to be warm. Another issue is that the seasons are reversed. When it is winter in the northern hemisphere, it is of course summer in the southern hemisphere. The entire planet is not experiencing winter or summer at the same time. For those of you who support crowdfunding, I am on the page and said and would appreciate any support you can lend. It can be just $1 a month. Higher levels of support get you increasingly cool things such as PDF transcripts and P3s of my music, which you hear in these episodes, free e-books and short stories, bookmarks and even signed copies of books and CDs of my music. Many of these are unavailable to the public. Your support can help me cover the expenses of producing the show. Even better, you can help me promote it and make it more successful. Without you, there's no point in doing this. Are you benefiting from this free podcast? If so, just go to artofwilbilding.com and click the big icon for Patreon. And thank you for your support. If you're like me, you learned about plate tiktonics either in junior or high school, but you've probably forgotten some of the details. So we're going to discuss some of the basics you need to know when inventing a continent. The biggest reason that this matters is that plate tiktonics is going to determine where your mountain ranges are. This is not to suggest that we actually have to figure out where the plate hellines are when we are inventing a continent, but just to get a general understanding of what's going to happen and what is not going to happen. For example, I once drew a continent that had a circular mountain range. This is basically impossible. The only explanation for that is that those mountains were part of a range and they were once filled in, but then some sort of titanic explosion happened and carved out the center. I made that decision when I was a teenager when I couldn't have cared less about being correct. But that's the kind of mistake we were likely want to avoid. If you're wondering how I solved that problem later when I wised up, well I just told you, I decided that a huge explosion had created this situation. With some ingenuity there is often a way out of our mistakes, but it is better to avoid those mistakes in the first place. In theory, that's one of the reasons you're listening to this podcast. So let's get started. A planet like the Earth is composed of an outermost shell of slowly moving plates, and those plates either move towards each other which is called convergence or they move away from each other which is called divergence or they transform. We'll talk more about that last one in a minute. The converging or diverging ones are what give us mountain ranges and volcanoes, and most of the volcanoes occur where two plate boundaries intersect, but some of the volcanoes can exist in the middle of a plate due to a flaw in the plate, and what that means is that the crust of the Earth could be unusually thin right there, and as a result the magma below the surface is able to burst through and create a volcano. So one thing that this means is that we could have a volcano anywhere on our map, and no one can tell us no that's not possible, it couldn't be there. I can almost hear some of you breathing a sigh of relief the same way that I did. Since I live in the United States, I'm more familiar with what's going on on either coast, and I'm going to use this country as an example of something. The West Coast with California is known for earthquakes, but the eastern coast is not, and there is a reason for this. Every continent obviously has an area that is above water, but just offshore there is an area of the continental shelf that is underwater. This is an area of relatively shallow water compared to the deeper sea that is farther away. On the west coast, the continental shelf ends relatively near the end of the actual continent, but on the east coast, the continental shelf is relatively farther away. This is something that we can decide almost arbitrarily when we are inventing our own continents. After all, no one from this invented planet we are making up is going to come to Earth and tell us that we're wrong. One thing that this means is that deep ocean is just offshore on the west coast, but on the east coast is just farther away. And one of the things that this implies is that if we are creating the sort of world that has sea monsters, they are more likely to be close to the western side of the United States in this example, then the eastern side of the United States, if we are deciding that those sea monsters are truly enormous and they prefer having deporter to live in. The more important aspect of this is that the plate boundary is near the west coast of the United States, and that means that this causes dramatic activity at the boundary between the two plates. What kind of dramatic activity? Mountain ranges, volcanoes, and earthquakes. So something to keep in mind is that if there is deep water just offshore, that also would imply that there are probably mountains and volcanoes on the continent. One of the challenges of world building is that we sometimes don't really have a reason for making one choice or another, and therefore we get stuck by indecision. This is one way to get past that. If we would like sea monsters that prefer deep water to be near the eastern side of the continent, then we are probably going to have tall mountain ranges and volcanoes there. If we don't have a sea monster idea or story in mind, then we can still just make this decision somewhat arbitrarily, but understand what we are implying. A shipwreck on the eastern coast of the United States is likely to be relatively shallow water compared to one off the western coast of the United States, unless that shipwreck is relatively close to the continent. Let's talk about convergent boundaries. What this means is that two plates are moving together and one of them is destroying the edge of the other. The results of this can be varied. One result is called subduction, and this means that one plate is forced under the other, and this often happens when the two plates are for an ocean and the continent. This is known as an ocean to continent boundary. When this happens, the ocean plate is the one that goes under the continent, and this causes a mountain range that is on that side of the continent, such as the western side of the United States. One thing this means is that that mountain range will be parallel to the coast, so if the coast is running north to south, the mountain range is two, and the volcanoes that are here are usually very explosive. In fact, they are the most explosive volcanoes on earth. Of course, one of the things this means is that the residents on such a coast should be aware of volcanoes. Depending on how well they keep a written record, they may be well aware of when the last eruption was. They might also have myths about this and cultural milestones, such as the last time that eruption took place, because that might have destroyed the city or something else that's very important to everyone. Another scenario is that we could have two ocean plates where one of them is being forced onto the other, and what this causes is a chain of volcanoes just like those in Hawaii. Then there is the continent to continent boundary, and when this happens the plates converge, fold, and lift, forming very tall mountain ranges with no volcanoes. These are the tallest mountain ranges on the world, and they are located in the interior of the continents. When drawing a map or deciding on where things are, this is something we should consider. Earlier I mentioned another kind of boundary, and that is the divergent boundary, when two plates are moving away from each other. If this happens underwater, this can also form volcanic islands. If this happens on land, instead, what happens is that a low area of land can form, and then possibly fill with ocean water to create a sea, such as with the Mediterranean sea. You may have heard this idea that the Earth once had a supercontinent, which I think was called Pangaea. The reason this broke apart was divergent plates. The plates moved away from each other. Evidence of this can be seen just by looking at a map, because the left side or the western side of Africa looks like it fits into the right side or eastern side of South America like there's some sort of jigsaw puzzle. We may want to consider this one drawing two continents, because we could draw the right side of one, to be a mirror image of the left side of another one. Sometimes as world builders, we are looking for a reason to make a decision, and this can be one way to achieve that decision. That only can be decided what one side of a continent looks like, but we can decide on what another side of a different continent looks like. However, don't go overboard. Don't make every single edge of every continent look like it fits into some sort of jigsaw puzzle. The last type of boundary is called a transform boundary, and this means that two plates are grinding past each other without either of them getting destroyed. This causes really strong earthquakes, but aside from this, there's no evidence like mountains or volcanoes that they actually exist, unless we are a scientist studying this sort of thing. What this means for us as world builders is that we can basically ignore this type of boundary. It's not going to affect what we indicate exists on a map. On the other hand, we could decide that there are strong earthquakes somewhere that is far from a mountain range, and that this is the reason for it. One way to tell that such a boundary exists is if a road that used to connect has a break in that road that is 20 or 30 or more feet apart from each other. We could have our characters see that a road they are following suddenly ends, but that it is continuing, but it's 30 feet away. In doing so, we would be implying that this area is prone to extremely strong earthquakes. If you'd like to subscribe to this free downloadable podcast, here's how to do it. For iPhone, iPad, and iPod listeners, grab your device and go to the iTunes store. Then search for the Art of the World Building. From there, download the free podcast app by Apple, and then subscribe to the show from within that app. For Android listeners, you can download the Stitcher Radio app, which is also free, and search for the Art of World Building. This only needs to be done once, because new episodes will become available in the app each time one is released, and you will never miss an episode. There's one more major subject that we should discuss when we are creating a continent, and that is the bodies of water that are surrounding that continent. Here on Earth, we talk about there being five different notions, and those are the Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Arctic, and Southern notions. But the reality is that these are all one continuous body of water that is a kind of world ocean. Why do we divide them up? Because it makes it easier to refer to one area of that ocean versus another. Also bear in mind that sometimes we talk about there being a Northern Pacific and a Southern Pacific ocean, for example. This is done for the same reason. These are really the same body of water. One of the things that we're talking about right now is why different bodies of water are named different things. For example, you may have wondered what the difference between an ocean and a sea is, and the quick answer to that is that there is actually no difference. This is one reason why we can all be confused about that. We're assuming that there is a difference, otherwise why would people have two different words? But I guess people just like to use different words for the same thing. It's called a synonym. That said, the word sea is typically used to refer to a smaller area than a notion, and it is often an area that is surrounded by land on several sides. What that means is that it's going to be near a continent, of course. There is of course something called a lake, and one of the differences between a lake and a sea is that a lake is completely surrounded by land, whereas a sea is only partially surrounded by it. That said, sometimes a very large lake is called a sea, and there could be several reasons for this. One of those might be that technology is not great, and therefore the people who are living on one shore of that lake feel like this, the lake extends indefinitely, and it might extend so far out of reach that they think it's a sea when it isn't. There's another reason to call a lake a sea, and that is simply because the name might sound better. The sea of sadness sounds more interesting than the lake of sadness. Another explanation is that the word sea can often have a connotation that the land on the far side of that sea is somehow untamed and wild, and therefore it is untamed and dangerous. You may have noticed that we are basically using the wrong word sea to refer to a lake, that we can sometimes get away with this and justify it, although we don't necessarily have to explain to our audience why we have chosen that name. One point here is if real people on earth are using the wrong word for something, then there's certainly no reason that we can't use it to. One problem to be aware of, though, is that there will be people who think they know everything. You know, there are no at all, and they could come along and say, "Well, you don't know what you're talking about, but we do have some flexibility here." When we are creating our continent, there are other words we can use to refer to different areas of the edge of that continent where it meets the water. I'm going to quickly run through some of these. Like a sea, a bay is a body of water that is surrounded on several sides by land, and it can be part of a notion or a lake. A gulf is a very large bay. A cove is a smaller bay and is usually circular, with a narrow passage that leads into it or out of it. If fjord is a narrow bay with a steep terrain on either side of it, or usually both sides of it, an inlet is a narrow, but long, indentation of shoreline, and which often connects a bay to another body of water. There could be a group of these, and those are often called a sound. A sound is large enough to draw on a continent-sized map, and they can be big if not bigger than a bay. Finally, if there are two large bodies of water that are separated by a narrow area of water, that smaller area is called a straight channel, pass, or passage. If you're having trouble remembering all of that, then you could pick up a copy of creating places, and chapter 3 has all of this listed out for you. All of the show's music is actually courtesy of yours truly, as I'm also my musician. The theme song is the title track for my "Some Things Are Beddell" left on set album, but now we're closing out with another tune. This is Journey's From the Firebird. You can hear more at RandyLifson.com. Check out artofwoolbuilding.com for free templates to help with your world building. Now please rate and review the show with 9 tunes. Thanks for listening. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] 1/2 tbc sdmr 1/2 tbc sdmr 1/2 tbc sdmr 1/2 tbc sdmr www.tbc.com.com