[WIP] World Map for a Novel. Feedback Welcome.

[Niedfaru]

I'm working on a world for a novel I'm writing. This map is not supposed to be artistically appealing: when I get to that stage, I'll either spend copious hours working to improve it, or I'll pay someone to make a proper piece of art. What this is, at present, is a working tool to help me work out the rest of my worldbuilding. As such, I've just whipped it together in Wonderdraft. Right now, I'm primarily looking for feedback on the shape of the continents and the placement of the climate zones and biomes. Any other feedback is welcome, of course, but those are the main things I'm focusing on.

I did try to model things from tectonic plates upwards, but only very roughly, on paper, as I want to get to writing the novel sooner rather than spend a year on geology. So, as long as it is plausible, as in, "this feature sticks out, but it could be due to a microplate that collided with the continent two billion years ago, and has left almost no other evidence", I'm cool with it. That said, if anything like that can be made more plausible by something like "add a couple of island nearby", I'm totally down for that too.

Book World.png

[Naima]

I'm working on a world for a novel I'm writing. This map is not supposed to be artistically appealing: when I get to that stage, I'll either spend copious hours working to improve it, or I'll pay someone to make a proper piece of art. What this is, at present, is a working tool to help me work out the rest of my worldbuilding. As such, I've just whipped it together in Wonderdraft. Right now, I'm primarily looking for feedback on the shape of the continents and the placement of the climate zones and biomes. Any other feedback is welcome, of course, but those are the main things I'm focusing on.

I did try to model things from tectonic plates upwards, but only very roughly, on paper, as I want to get to writing the novel sooner rather than spend a year on geology. So, as long as it is plausible, as in, "this feature sticks out, but it could be due to a microplate that collided with the continent two billion years ago, and has left almost no other evidence", I'm cool with it. That said, if anything like that can be made more plausible by something like "add a couple of island nearby", I'm totally down for that too.

Book World.png

Shapes can be plausible, the climates not so much , check out the rainshadow effects.

[Niedfaru]

Would you mind specifying what is wrong with my interpretation of rain shadows? I did specifically include them, so if they're wrong somehow, more information would be greatly appreciated.

[Naima]

Cant be more specific if you do not add an equatorline and o latitudes , mine was just a first sight comment, I might be wrong but I think an all eainshadow on west and all arid on east on the main continebt is not correct.
It needs a currents and wind pattern study matched with the orography of the regions. Check where the cold and warm currents go and where the winds go off coast or incoast bringing or taking off the humidity.

[Niedfaru]

Aha! Thank you, that was the bump I needed. I did a bunch of research, I came back with this:

Bookworld Climates + Labels.png

[Naima]

That seems much better, I can't understand well the color codes, but that study is the way to go .

[Niedfaru]

What makes it hard for you to understand that colour code? Is that the colours are not distinct enough, or the labels don't quite match up, or something else? I had some trouble matching the colours from my GIMP map to the key, which I made in Illustrator. Even when I used the same RGB values, it didn't look quite the same, due to opacity settings. I've revised the map a little, but before uploading, I'd like to make sure the colour codes make sense and people can actually provide any sensible feedback.