Author KIA Valcent was advised by her sister and several fellow writers that it’s best to write about places one has personally visited. This approach helps readers visualize the setting instead of feeling as though the characters exist in a blank, undefined space. Although she enjoys exploring diverse settings in her stories, the author doesn’t travel often and doesn’t want all her characters to live in the same location. To solve this, she began creating fictional cities, towns, and villages inspired by the island where she lives and by places she hopes to visit one day.

     However, as her fictional world expanded across multiple books, she found herself overwhelmed trying to keep track of where everything was. Since she enjoys cross-referencing her stories and having characters from different books interact or mention each other, she decided to create a detailed map. This map helps her visualize where her characters live and how their locations connect within her world.

     After finalizing the names of each place, it became much easier for her to describe distances and include consistent geographic details in her writing. She even introduced two fictional royal countries to enrich the world’s depth. The map, which she created using rollforfantasy.com, draws inspiration from both her imagination and the real places of her home island, Saint Lucia.