Writing Blog Number 2

20250430 World-building - Mountains

World-building - Mountains

Some brief posts about how to create or build your world when writing, especially in fantasy or science fiction.

Thought I’d start with the most obvious landscape feature – mountains.

Let’s look at the three ways mountains form.
1) Volcanoes. These exploding busts of magma as lava forced rock upwards and as they solidify, form new rock with new peaks. Example: New Zealand.
2) Tectonic Shift. The tectonic plates under the world’s crust grind against one another. If one is forced beneath a second, then mountains form. And if they push against one another, the edges are forced up, and mountains form. Example: Himalayas.
3) A passive uplift. This is where the edge of a tectonic plate is moved upwards simply by sideways forces or other parts of the plate moving downwards. Example: Greenland.

The first two are associated with earth tremors and earthquakes and some instability; the last is a very long time occurring, and its actual geophysics is not completely understood yet.
         However, what this means is that mountains very rarely occur in isolation. A volcanic peak could be there, especially if it was once in the middle of a sea and the surrounding areas have been eroded by water and then time. As such, mountains tend to be in lines, following the tectonic plates of a world.
         “But my world doesn’t have tectonic plates!” Then it doesn’t have mountains or volcanoes or earthquakes or oceans or seas or anything else like that. Your planet is probably dead.
         Depending on the height of mountains, the ability of people or animals to live on them varies. The higher you go, the thinner the atmosphere, and so the physiological changes in your inhabitants should be noted and you will need to research. Your barbarian who lives at high peaks will have a greater endurance at sea level, but strength will be diminished. Your knight from a flat land it even a hilly land will run out of energy at elevation very quickly.
         Mountains can very easily run the length of a continent, but as they tend to follow tectonic plates, this will curve, and there will be earthquakes and risk of tsunamis (in the sea, obviously) in these regions.
         Mountains that do seem to sit in the middle of nowhere with no nearby ocean will be at the edge of what used to be an ocean, such as the Mountains of the Moon region in Africa.

What?
         Yes, tectonic plate movements are what enable the land to subside enough for oceans and seas to form. Mountains and seas are aligned. Mountains also cause atmospheric disturbances, resulting in rain, snow and especially wind, creating both deserts and forests. Don’t forget, the peaks tend to be colder as well, and this affects human habitation and animal life.

Now, this is very simplistic, but when world-building, where you put your mountains can be very important.