Just realized I've been drawing my rivers wrong for years

I was working on a map for a novel set in a place called the Greymire Basin, and my rivers kept looking like weird, wiggly noodles. The problem was they were splitting apart as they went downstream, which I read is actually pretty rare in nature. So I tried a new rule: every single river line must get thicker as it goes, and tributaries can only join, never split. It made the whole thing feel way more solid and real... but now I'm worried my maps look too simple. Has anyone else stuck to a strict rule like this and found it helped, or did it just limit your creativity?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_miles1mo ago

My Greymire Basin rivers looked like spaghetti too.

reese_perry61mo ago

Right? @the_miles, my first try was a total mess. I had this one river that just looped back on itself three times like a tangled shoelace. Took me forever to fix the flow.