My fantasy world map took three weeks to get the river flow right

I was building a continent for a new story and wanted the geography to feel real. I drew the mountains first, then started adding rivers flowing from them to the coast. A friend who knows geology looked at my draft and pointed out that three of my major rivers were flowing uphill, crossing mountain ranges to get to the sea. I had to re-learn basic watershed principles I hadn't thought about since middle school. I spent the next 21 days redrawing the entire central basin, erasing and moving city locations that depended on the old water sources. It was a huge delay, but now the land makes sense. Do you think this level of geographical accuracy is necessary for reader immersion, or can you hand-wave it for the sake of the plot?

2 comments

2 Comments

amyb541mo ago

Totally worth the effort. Readers might not know the rules, but they can feel when a world is built right.

the_rowan1mo ago

Exactly! You can just feel it.