NaNo Prep: World Building

We're approximately three weeks out from Nano and I've started my NaNo Prep! This will include character sheets, world building, a story outline, and anything else I can organize into my NaNo Kit. The past two years I haven't done a whole lot of prep work, but this year I'm going to need all the help I can get. I'm working harder now than ever before and because of that my free time is limited, meaning that when I sit down to write during NaNo I'm going to need lots of inspiration and road maps to get me where I'm going.

So today I decided to create a little map of the town where The Peregrine Trials takes place. Helena is a sea-front province in the country Quinland. It has an ever shifting climate, with cold, wet winters and muggy summers. The mountains in the east protect the middle class homes from the onslaught of weather, while the castles in the north are surrounded by thick forests that keep out the worst of the snow and rain. But the homes of the impoverished families lie in the west, near the sea, and are left out in the open where rain, snow, and heat batters them to pieces.

Town Square is centralized and can be easily accessed by anyone in the province. I plan to create another map specifically for the Town Square to depict where different shops and vendors are.

And in the south, near the ocean, is the prison. Separated from the rest of Helena by tall guard towers, the prisoners have only one chance of escape; the sea, which is rough and rocky.

I'm not quite finished with the map, but I'm happy with this WIP of it.

I'm getting more excited every day!

Natalia