Writing Story Opens the Door to Great Graphics! – Good writers think and see with the mind’s eye, what they are trying to portray through narrative. Your characters act a certain way, different from each other. The scenery changes as the story line moves from one environment to the next, or from one room to the next, or from each characters’ movement within a single scene. But in your mind’s eye, you can visualize what things and people look like. Could you draw a character if asked to? Could you tell where the furniture is within a room, and draw a picture?
So, Start Drawing! – Put your writing aside and get out paper, a pencil or pen, and take one scene and draw parts of it. Just imagine what something or someone actually looks like! Maybe, take that person out of the scene and draw them on a piece of paper or sketch pad. Are they a villain? The hero? A girl? A guy? Is it a pet dog? Draw them in rough sketch. Just practice using a light touch of the pencil and light touches for any object. Don’t throw it away, but store your rough sketches in a manila folder or file folder.
When I had completed my trilogy, I felt I needed a map of The Realm of Lasting. I could see with my mind’s eye where certain regions were and roughly what they might look like from an areal view. I studied fantasy maps online and enjoyed getting a lot of ideas from those for my map. I also visited a friend who is a wonderful pencil-sketch artist! He advised me on shading, height/mass of objects, and other ways to portray realism in drawing.
After a Lot of Practice – My map of The Realm of Lasting took at least eleven tries over a period of weeks, to draw something I liked. I drew rough sketches, printed labels and titles of places onto the map; and liked some of the earlier drawings better than the later ones. Finally, I emailed my publisher and told them I wanted to add a map of The Realm of Lasting to my first book!
Publish Your Creations! – Choose your best work and add it to your story. Getting advise again can help, but you do not want someone to discourage you. So, I decided to submit my work without another opinion. My map is unique. It has both areal and ground-views of The Realm of Lasting. It is found in book one, on pages xiii and ix. It is black and white, and lists all the areas I wanted my readers to see, like I saw in my mind! Now, I’m an illustrator, too!
Maybe you will create drawings as you write. I waited till my trilogy was finished. Either way, write and draw and publish your beautiful work! Let me know if you need any other advise. I’m your humble servant and para-friend, one who comes alongside to help.