This mini-series of suggestions started with what tools you should have to drawn dungeon maps and how to concept the map as a flowchart. Here are some practical tips to render your map into a final product to go to a cartographer. Most of these are "consider X, but also Y," and it's important to maintain a balance between conflicting considerations.
Consider Reality, But Only a Little Bit. Its important that you consider real-world aspects of the creatures who live in your dungeon. Where do they eat? Where do they sleep? Where do they put waste? Where, if anywhere, do they meet up with each other (their "neighbors" in the dungeon)? However, you should always keep in mind that the purpose of a dungeon is to serve as the setting for fun adventure. A real-world defender might include a three-foot-wide passage with several twists, so attackers can only clumsily come in one at a time from a single direction. But that's rarely fun for a group of friends playing together as a party. Sewers are notoriously enormous as adventuring locations because the heroes need to move around and fight monsters there, so you can ignore the structure and civic necessities of such cavernous areas. A classic "unrealistic" map is one that, from the top down view, shows a skull or religious symbol, or something like that. These spaces aren't visible as such to the dungeon denizens, but they look neat and hint at a sinister (or holy) purpose to the dungeon. Realism is important, but fun trumps realism in your maps.
Avoid Squares and Symmetry. A good map is visually attractive on its own. Square maps are boring, as are symmetrical maps. If your dungeon is symmetrical, the players only need to explore one half of it before they feel jaded, and that can cause the fun to drop. By mixing this up, you can keep the players on their toes and surprised at what they find. Keep in mind the character of the dungeon's builders; chaotic builders might have no real consistency, while lawful builders might have more symmetrical dungeons (although even they would vary from true symmetry for any number of reasons). One counterpoint on this is that rounded areas, twisting passages, and asymmetrical spaces are difficult to draw on a battle map at the gaming table. Keep a balance of an interesting dungeon experience with ease of play.
The Untagged Map. You'll want to create a version of your map that's clean, lacking any numbers or letters (except for a scale and some indicator as to which way is north). This should be, as previously discussed, done with black pen on a blue grid. This map might include some sparse furnishings to show what a room is for (table for a meeting room, bed for a bedroom), but don't go overboard drawing every stick of furniture. The cartographer can add those.
The Tagged Map. Make a copy of your untagged map and then put tags on it. These should be done on a computer so the tags are all legible, unless you've got particularly neat handwriting. Good tags briefly say what the map depicts ("ruined temple in rocky badlands"), what's in each room ("kitchen"), and notable features ("fountain filled with blood"). You don't want to get too cluttered, but don't worry too much about this because you'll be sending in both your tagged and untagged map. If you feel like you've got a lot to say about your map, you can prepare a Word file with some instructions keyed by encounter area, like this: "A1. This is a meeting room paneled in dark wood. It looks like it might have been really cozy, but it's been trashed by burglars. A2. This is a small pantry stuffed full of shelves, boxes, etc."
If you're like me, you'll always find some error with your map during the tagging process, sigh, fix it on the untagged map, make a new copy, and start tagging over.
What Not to Tag. You shouldn't put creature locations, small items, or anything that's easy to move on your map. These are likely to get moved (or killed) by the characters, rendering the map outdated almost immediately. Sometimes big wagons, crates, or the like are useful to have on your map, but most times you shouldn't include them. A stable map might include a pile of hay and a cart, perhaps, but shouldn't include any horses. One exception is when a fixture or piece of furniture is itself a creature, like a statue that animates or a mimic in the shape of a sideboard. Those should go on the map, because having them there is part of the "trick" to the players of "you thought this was an ordinary thing, but it's not!" Also, there's a longstanding debate about whether to include corpses on a map; I'm in favor of including them, to show visually that something has gone very wrong in the area. This is doubly so if they're corpses who will be rising to attack!
Provide The Tagged and Untagged Maps Digitally. Make sure you get good, clear scans of your maps at a high resolution. Cartographers may need to zoom in to get details right, and clarity matters. Shading or fading in your scans will result in worse maps, so be careful with this last step.
Then, send them in to your developer/cartographer, and wait for the final result!
In : RPGWriterTips