Maps! Everybody loves maps. Now, I know I don’t have an official map for Land of Szornyek (yet!) but I do draw my own to keep everything organized in my head. I am considering putting together an “official” map (not to scale!) for the final book of the series, but please stay tuned for updates on that lunacy.
The main reason I haven’t included a map in the books before now is because of my serial pantsing (or discovery writing for you politer people than I). I didn’t want to lock myself into a map that wouldn’t end up working for a future book. And I couldn’t make a major map, because I don’t decide anything up front, so I didn’t know what types of locations would be relevant, and again, didn’t want to lock myself in.
I thought, however, it might be interesting to some of you, to see the maps I’ve been using over the past few years. It’s very helpful to at least have an idea of where everything is located and how it is organized, especially when I’m describing where the sun is in the sky, what direction the characters are walking in, and how long it takes them to get from place to place. I use rough estimates, and figure that as long as it’s close enough, that’s good enough for me.
Note: if you’re partially through the series or haven’t read any of it, the following sections may contain spoilers!
Maps for Tentacles and Teeth
This map served as the primary basis for Book 1: Tentacles and Teeth. I added a few notes so you can see better all the different locations. At the top, you’ll see Capa Lake and the L-shaped rock, which were based on a chapter that ultimately got deleted from the final manuscript. This also won’t be entirely accurate for the final map version (if I do it), but it functioned well enough for drafting a manuscript.
The other map I have for Tentacles and Teeth is of the cave where they encounter the barlang. I struggled a bit with the cave because while I’ve been in a few, I haven’t been in that many, and I wanted to create something bigger than anything I’ve experienced. So, I googled a few pictures and YouTube videos, and then just went for it. It’s fiction, after all! I can create whatever caves I want to fulfill the needs of my narrative.
As you can see, this map also accounted for rough population numbers and the location of the other monsters during the final battle scenes. I even noted the time of day.
Fun fact: it’s easy to forget where the sun is when you’re in the middle of writing an action-packed battle. But that doesn’t stop time from moving forward, and the sun from rolling through the sky. Even in imaginary worlds (unless you’ve created an imaginary world without a sun, or a static sun, or…).
Maps for City of Dod
I made several maps for City of Dod. Because Askari has to travel relatively far away from her starting point, I struggled to keep all of the various locations straight in my head, and so I ended up drawing multiple maps to either keep myself sane or to inspire new chapters.
This first map doesn’t include the starting point of the book, which would be north, but if you look on the right side, you can see the location where they ended up camping after getting thoroughly beaten by the bogar, and almost killed by the nando.
You’ll also see some locations on this map which, again, did not make it into the final draft of the manuscript. The Underground Library (infested with a particularly awful swarm of monster bugs) was a plot point which ended up being a distraction and irrelevant, though. The Szall was a dragon-like monster that I decided was too similar to your regular mythical dragon, and Devor showing up turned out to be a much better plot arc anyway, so that became Devor’s barn. If you squint, you can see a reference to the gerinc queen—another weird monster where the queen was an exploding blob of acid. You can also see a scribbled reference to “Vadasok Camp.” Originally, the Rokkin were named Vadasok.
Fun fact: the word “Vadasok” is based on the word “vadászok” which means “hunter” in Hungarian. The word “Baratok” means “friends” in Hungarian. But I updated my naming conventions after Book 1. The Baratok might use their Hungarian-English dictionary to name everything they see, but everyone else does not. “Rokkin” is based after “the rok” and “kin” (meaning family), as in family to the great mythical Rok, bird of prey that could defeat massive creatures.
The next map is a close up of the Rokkin Camp (referred to as Vadasok on the map). Again, this is not entirely accurate—the City of Dod is south of the camp, the Bikak enounter north. In addition, Devor’s barn and the szamos field ended up being to the east of the camp. And the gerincs got d.e.l.e.t.e.d.
Also, Fane’s name used to be “Sven", so you can see his tent down there, and Rona (yes, I do regret naming her this), used to be Veleto. See? Aren’t you glad I updated my naming convention? Lol.
Also, if I were to do this again, I’d swap the water, wood, resources with the latrines—put them as far away from the dining area as possible lol.
The next couple maps are more for inspiration than anything. I was trying to put my brain inside Askari’s head—what would she be feeling? What would she be thinking?
Ultimately, the direction is off too. The dome is directly east of the city.
And in this second sketch, the arrow indicates the direction the Rokkin entered the city from, evading the Field of Screams.
Lamplighters Society Maps
My main focus for the Lamplighters Society was inside Greystone City, so I don’t even have a map that shows everything. All I really needed to know was that Ardilla Woods and Gota Field were south-ish, and Orange City was north-ish.
Inside, however, it was really important for me to keep everything straight.
I used a map of a real mall and taped together features of other malls I’ve been in to create a fake, but hopefully realistic-feeling mall. I started with Northshore in Boston, but wanted it much, much smaller than that, so I tried Fox Run in Newington, NH, but that was too small, so I did a bunch of Googling and hacked together my own.
As with the other maps, this is not entirely accurate, and I’ve added a few details that are not included in this original images, such as multiple entrances, where medical is located, Askari’s room, etc. The drawing for this mall also makes it look much narrower than it truly is, but there’s a lot of room inside that you can’t see. And I didn’t include a food court on this map, but that’s where the food would be—not at the end of some random hallway outside Lord&Taylor lol.
Also, please don’t ask me why I wrote “hypno-bat” on the edge. It was probably an idea for a monster that never became anything, but I don’t really like the idea of imagining a “hypno-bat” and what it might want from me (blood, probably lol).
Next up is a real quick sketch of Hank’s laboratory room. Not included is the front room with the big table and chairs. I mostly used this for marking out the blocking, and even used random items I had around my office as characters (a small Lego figurine of a weeping angel, a cat figurine, and a roll of stamps—Hank was the weeping angel, obviously, Askari the cat, and Lilith, the stamps lol).
The last map I’m going to show is actually a map of the US, which you’re probably already familiar with, but I made it when I was plotting out all the locations of all the portals. Again, it’s not entirely accurate (there are portals all over the world, not just in the US), but it was helpful for ideating.
Maps for Vault of Bones
I only have one map for Vault of Bones and it’s inside the Vault. I have included the Marketplace and the Lake on future maps, but I can’t show those to you yet, because of spoilers for books 6 & 7.
I researched actual prepper bunkers for this map, and again, hacked together something I thought would work for the story, rather than using one specific design. The one difference here is that the map mentions a second hatch. I’m not actually sure there is any reference to that in the book, and I can’t remember if I took it out, or actually indicated that there was no second exit hatch. Either way, this map is probably the closest to what actually happened in the book out of all the maps in this post.
Voro’s Return Map
I had to examine this map closely before posting, to make sure it didn’t include any spoilers for Book 6, lol. Turns out, it DOES.
However, it’s still super useful for understand where things are in relation to each other. So I’m including it anyway. Don’t get too spoiled. I also included a few references to things that happened in previous books, so you can see how they’re related as well.
Anyway, that’s all for today! I hope you enjoyed my map-making adventure.
I do plan on having an “official” map at some point. Hopefully, I’ll be able to have it ready before the launch of the final book.
In the meantime, happy reading, and watch out for monsters!
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