Worldbuilding questions: 197 questions to build a fictional world

Worldbuilding questions are the questions a writer answers about an invented world, from where the water comes from to what people swear by, so that the story's places, powers and conflicts hold together. The 197 below are grouped by subject: geography, history, politics and law, economy, religion, magic or technology, daily life, language and conflict. Don't answer them all. Answer the ones your first chapters touch, and come back when a scene asks for more.

The worldbuilding template gives the answers a place to live, with sections for each area and tables for the timeline and the rules. This page is the long list behind it, and none of its ten plot questions are repeated here. After the list, eight answers for one invented city show how far a single geographic fact can go.

Questions about geography and climate

Geography decides how long everything takes and who has what. Answer these with a rough map in front of you. Questions 1, 13, 17 and 19 are color. Answer them when the answer changes what a character can do, such as when a ship can sail or how a stranger who uses the map's name is treated.

1. What does the land look like from the highest point your viewpoint character has ever stood on?
2. Where does the drinking water come from, and who controls the nearest source?
3. Which way does the prevailing wind blow, and which side of the mountains gets the rain?
4. How long does the trip from the capital to the border take on foot, by horse and by the fastest means anyone has?
5. Which river, desert, range or sea keeps two peoples apart, and what happens at the one place it can be crossed?
6. What grows here without being planted, and what has to be coaxed out of the ground?
7. What is the worst natural disaster in living memory, and what did it destroy that was never rebuilt?
8. Which season is the dangerous one, and how do people get ready for it?
9. Where are the things everyone wants, such as metal, salt, timber or fuel, and are they where the power is?
10. What lies past the edge of the map, and what do people believe is out there?
11. Which animals are dangerous, which are useful, and which are sacred?
12. Where do people refuse to settle, and what do they say happens to those who try?
13. How do the moons, stars or tides shape the calendar, sailing and superstition?
14. What does the nearest sea or lake give each year, and what does it take?
15. Which roads are old, who built them, and who keeps them up now?
16. Where would a fugitive go to hide, and how long could they last there?
17. What does a traveler smell first on arriving in your main city?
18. How has the climate changed in the last few generations, and who noticed first?
19. Which places have two names, one on the map and one the locals use?
20. Is there a place that couldn't exist in our world, such as a floating island or a valley without sunlight, and what are its rules?
21. How does the landscape shape the way people fight, farm and travel?

Questions about history

History matters when it is still causing trouble. Look for the old event that explains a present grudge, law or ruin. Questions 23, 29, 39 and 43 stay in the background until a character acts on the answer, say a grandmother whose memory contradicts the official story.

22. Who founded the oldest city, according to its own people, and according to its neighbors?
23. Which event do people count the years from?
24. Who ruled before the current rulers, and where are their descendants now?
25. Which war is still within living memory, and how are the people who lost it treated?
26. Which treaty, marriage or betrayal drew the present borders?
27. What was lost long ago that people still search for?
28. Which historical figure is a hero to one group and a villain to another?
29. What did everyone believe a hundred years ago that now seems absurd?
30. Which ruins can still be seen, and what do parents tell children about them?
31. What invention, discovery or arrival changed everything, and how long ago?
32. Who writes the history books, and what do they leave out?
33. Which disaster was blamed on the wrong people, and do they know it?
34. What anniversary falls during your story, and who is dreading it?
35. Which old law is still on the books though nobody enforces it, until someone does?
36. What did your protagonist's grandparents do that the young either resent or admire?
37. When did your two main cultures first meet, and how did it go?
38. Which part of the past is forbidden to teach?
39. What does the oldest person alive remember that nobody else does?
40. Which family has held power the longest, and how did it start?
41. What happened to the last person who tried what your protagonist is about to try?
42. Which artifact from the past sits in a museum, temple or private collection, and who wants it back?
43. Which era do people romanticize, and what was it actually like to live through?

Questions about politics and law

Most plots are fights over power, so this group tends to pay off fastest. The law questions find the rule your protagonist will break.

Who rules

44. Who holds power on paper, and who holds it in practice?
45. How does someone come to rule: birth, election, conquest, wealth, magic or a god's choice?
46. How does power pass on, and what happens when the rule is unclear?
47. Who advises the ruler, and whose interests do they really serve?
48. Which group is always one bad year away from revolt?
49. How do ordinary people show loyalty, and how do they show contempt without being arrested?
50. What does the ruler fear most?
51. Who collects taxes, and what happens to people who can't pay?
52. How far does the ruler's reach go: the capital, the provinces, the villages near the border?
53. Which neighboring power is an ally in public and a rival in private?
54. Who can vote, petition or speak in council, and who can't?
55. Where do rebels meet, and who pays for their weapons?
56. What would a coup look like here, and who would lead it?

Law and crime

57. Who makes the laws, who enforces them and who judges?
58. What is the worst crime, and what is its punishment?
59. What is illegal for some people and legal for others?
60. Can the rich buy their way out of punishment, and how openly?
61. Who watches the people who keep order?
62. What happens to a thief caught for the first time, and for the third?
63. Where do criminals sell stolen goods, find work or disappear?
64. What counts as evidence in court: witnesses, oaths, ordeals, documents or magic?
65. Which law will your protagonist have to break, and what will it cost?
66. Which crime do ordinary people quietly approve of?

Questions about the economy

Money is where invented worlds often stop making sense. If you can say what bread costs and who can't afford it, much of the rest follows. Questions 78, 83 and 87 are color unless someone has to buy, sell or steal in the scene.

67. What is money here, and who mints or issues it?
68. What does a day's food cost, and what does a laborer earn in a day?
69. What is the main export, and who gets rich from it?
70. Which import could the country not do without for a year?
71. Who owns the land, and who works it?
72. How do people borrow money, and what happens to those who can't pay it back?
73. Which trade is respected, which is despised, and which is quietly the most profitable?
74. What do guilds, unions or merchant houses control?
75. What is smuggled, by whom, and past whom?
76. How do goods move: by river, road, caravan, ship or something stranger?
77. Who is poor, and where do they live?
78. What do the rich spend money on to show that they're rich?
79. How is wealth inherited, and who gets left out?
80. What happens to a family when its main earner dies or is injured?
81. What does a forbidden thing cost on the black market?
82. Are there slaves, serfs, indentured workers or people held in debt, and who profits from them?
83. What does a market day look like, and what is sold there?
84. Which resource is running out, and who has noticed?
85. How does magic or technology change who can do which work?
86. Who keeps the accounts, and who can read them?
87. What is the biggest fortune ever lost, and how was it lost?
88. If your protagonist needed money by tomorrow, what would they sell?

Questions about religion and belief

Belief shapes what characters will and won't do. You don't have to decide whether the gods are real, but you do have to decide what people think they want. Questions 99, 103, 104 and 110 only matter when a character has to pray, fake a prayer or argue doctrine on the page.

89. What do people believe happens after death?
90. How many gods, spirits or forces are there, and do any of them intervene?
91. Who may speak for the divine, and who decided that?
92. What do people swear by when they're angry?
93. Which rituals mark birth, coming of age, marriage and death?
94. What is sacred and must never be touched, eaten or said aloud?
95. How do believers treat unbelievers and people of other faiths?
96. What does the temple own, and what does it want?
97. Which prophecy is quoted most often, and how is it misread?
98. Which sin do preachers warn against most, and what does that say about their congregations?
99. How do people pray: alone or together, aloud or in silence, with offerings or without?
100. Which holy day stops all work, and what happens on it?
101. Is there a heresy, and what is done to heretics?
102. What do people do when a prayer goes unanswered?
103. Which superstitions survive among people who say they don't believe?
104. Where do the stories of the gods contradict each other, and how do priests explain it?
105. What does religion say about magic or technology?
106. Who in your story has lost their faith, and what took its place?
107. How is the calendar tied to the religious year?
108. Do the gods exist in your world as a matter of fact, and does anyone know for sure?
109. What is done with the bodies of the dead, and who does it?
110. What do children learn about the gods before they can read?

Questions about magic or technology

The rule your world breaks needs a source, a cost and a limit before it needs anything else. Use the magic questions, the technology questions or both. Questions 116 and 123 are for description; answer them when a scene shows the power in use.

If your world has magic

111. Who can use magic: anyone, the trained, the born or the chosen?
112. Where does the power come from, and can it run out?
113. What does it cost the user every time?
114. What can't magic do, however strong the user?
115. How long does it take to learn, and who teaches it?
116. What does magic look, sound or smell like when it's used?
117. What happens when a spell goes wrong?
118. Who regulates magic, and who breaks the rules?
119. How has magic changed medicine, war, farming and travel?
120. What do ordinary people use magic for on an ordinary day?
121. Which magic is forbidden, and why was it banned?

If your world runs on technology

122. What is the most advanced machine an ordinary person uses every day?
123. Which of our inventions would astonish people here, and which of theirs would astonish us?
124. How fast can news, people and goods travel?
125. Who owns the important technology, and who maintains it?
126. What has technology made obsolete, and what happened to the people who did that work?
127. How does it fail, and what was the worst failure on record?
128. What does it cost to run, in fuel, labor or something stranger?
129. Who is left out of its benefits?
130. Which weapons does it make possible?
131. What invention is everyone waiting for, and who is afraid of it?
132. Which rule of your magic or technology must the reader learn before the climax, and in which chapter will they learn it?

Questions about daily life

Readers believe a world through its small things: what's for supper, who sleeps where, how people say hello. Most of these are color, so answer them as scenes ask. The family and status questions, 139 to 146, are the exception: they decide who may marry, inherit or speak first, and that changes what a character can do.

Home and food

133. What does an ordinary family eat on an ordinary day, and on a feast day?
134. What do houses look like for the poor, the comfortable and the rich?
135. Where do people wash, and how often?
136. How do people light their homes after dark?
137. What do people drink, and who makes it?
138. What does a typical working day look like, from waking to sleep?

Family and status

139. Who lives under one roof: a couple, three generations or a whole clan?
140. How are marriages made, and can they end?
141. Who raises the children, and how?
142. What marks someone's rank at a glance: clothing, tattoos, jewelry, posture?
143. How do people greet each other, and how do they greet someone above them?
144. Which gesture means yes, which means no, and which could start a knife fight?
145. How are the old cared for, and how are they regarded?
146. What roles are assigned by sex or gender, if any, and who breaks them?

Pleasures and customs

147. What do people do for fun after work?
148. What games do children play, and what do the games teach them?
149. Which music, stories or performances draw a crowd?
150. What do people bet on?
151. What counts as beautiful in a face, a house or a voice?
152. Who is famous, and for what?
153. How do people tell the time of day?
154. What does it mean to be a good host, and a good guest?
155. What counts as cowardly, and what counts as brave?
156. How do people mourn in public, and how do they mourn in private?

Questions about language and names

Names reach the reader on page one, so settle each culture's sounds early. A full grammar can wait indefinitely, and questions 167, 169, 170 and 174 are color for when a line of dialogue or a description needs one. The guide to writing a fantasy novel covers naming languages and maps in more depth.

157. How many languages are spoken, and which one is used for trade, law and prayer?
158. Which language marks a speaker as educated, and which marks them as foreign?
159. What do the place names mean, and do the locals still know?
160. How are children named: after ancestors, events, gods or virtues?
161. Do people have surnames, clan names, titles or nicknames, and when is each one used?
162. What sounds make a name feel as if it belongs to each culture?
163. Who can read and write, and who decides who learns?
164. What do people write on, and what does it cost?
165. Which words are taboo, and what happens to someone who says one?
166. What do people call outsiders, politely and otherwise?
167. Which sayings come from the landscape or the trades, such as a sailor's proverb or a miner's curse?
168. How do accents differ between regions or classes, and who mocks whom?
169. Which untranslatable word captures something central to the culture?
170. How are numbers, dates and distances said?
171. Which old language survives only in ritual or law?
172. Does any group speak a secret language or use a code?
173. How do new words come in: through trade, conquest or new technology?
174. What is carved on gravestones?
175. How will the reader learn to pronounce the names that matter?

Questions about conflict and war

The last group turns the world into a story. Not every conflict is a war: the feud between two families, or between a guild and the poor, can carry a whole book.

176. Who are the enemies everyone knows about, and who are the hidden ones?
177. Who does the fighting: a standing army, militias, mercenaries, knights or conscripts?
178. Who pays for war, and who profits from it?
179. Which weapons rule the battlefield, and what is coming to replace them?
180. How are prisoners treated?
181. What do soldiers fear more than death?
182. How does news of a battle reach home, and how long does it take?
183. What happens to veterans, the wounded and widows?
184. Who refuses to fight, and what is done to them?
185. Which tactic is considered dishonorable, and who uses it anyway?
186. Which fortress, pass or bridge has changed hands most often?
187. How do sieges end here: starvation, betrayal, negotiation or magic?
188. Which conflict is fought not between armies but inside families, guilds or faiths?
189. What would make two enemies work together?
190. How do spies work, and who are they?
191. How do wars end: by treaty, surrender, marriage or exhaustion?
192. What are the rules of a duel, a feud or a vendetta?
193. Which group is being blamed for the current trouble, and is it fair?
194. What is the smallest dispute that could start a war?
195. Who wins if nobody wins the war?
196. Which side does your protagonist start on, and what would make them switch?
197. What is the conflict your story is really about, and which answer on this page makes it worse?

One river, eight answers

Here are eight questions from the list answered for an invented fantasy city on a river delta. One geographic fact, that the river moves, does most of the work, and each answer is a sentence or two.

One physical fact put the ford in the Council's hands and real power in the pilots', made willow planting the best-paid work in the city, turned moving a marker into a capital crime, set the working day by the tide and put the dead in the levees. Nearly every answer puts pressure on somebody, and none runs past two sentences, so each one leads straight to a scene. The last is already a first chapter: two families, one sandbar and a law with no rule for a tie. That's the test for any answer on this page. If it doesn't make trouble for someone, it can wait.

How to use worldbuilding questions

A list this long is a menu, not a form. These steps keep the answers working for the story instead of replacing it.

1. Start from the one big difference

   Write down the one or two ways your world departs from ours that the plot depends on: the dead can be questioned for one night, a river changes course every thirty years, a colony ship has forgotten it is a ship. Then pick the questions that difference touches first.

2. Answer for the first act only

   Answer for the places, people and powers your opening chapters visit. A question your first act never touches can stay blank, and a blank only means the story hasn't asked yet. Keep each answer to a sentence or two, as the Tarrow answers are. If one runs to a page, stop and write the scene where it matters instead.

3. Answer in a character's voice

   “The river took the outer islands because the island families stopped paying the river priests” is more useful than a neutral fact, because it's what someone believes. Write the true answer beside it if it's different. The gap is a plot.

4. Follow each answer to a consequence

   For every answer, ask what it changes and who it hurts. If the dead can be questioned for one night, who gets to ask, what families hide before sunset, and what a murderer does to keep the body from being found in time. Stop when you reach a person in trouble.

5. Log what reaches the page

   Once a fact appears in a chapter, record it with the chapter number in a story bible, so chapter 30 agrees with chapter 3. Spell invented names the same way every time, as a copy editor's style sheet would. For a series, the series bible tracks what carries over from one book to the next.

   If the chapters and the world notes are in one Strokes project, ask the Strokes Assistant to review it. It tells you what's inconsistent, such as a ford that charges a toll in chapter 3 and is free in chapter 12.

Worlds built on one question

Two older novels show how far a single question can go. Both are in the US public domain, so you can read them free.

In Butler's Erewhon, a judge says this to a man on trial for consumption, then sentences him to hard labor for life. Falling ill is a crime there, while a man who has embezzled is treated at home by one of “a class of men trained in soul-craft, whom they call straighteners.” Butler answered question 58 upside down, and the satire is in the consequences.

Bellamy's narrator falls asleep in 1887 and wakes in the year 2000, and a Boston doctor explains the new economy to him piece by piece. It's an answer to question 67 followed all the way down, to where people shop and what they carry. The newcomer who has to have everything explained is also an old way to deliver worldbuilding without an info dump, because the reader is as lost as he is.

Mistakes these questions catch

• One climate, one culture, one language. A whole continent with the same weather, food and beliefs. Questions 3, 157 and 168 break it up.
• An economy nobody could live in. A city of a hundred thousand with no farms, no imports and no one hauling water. Questions 2, 68 and 70 catch it.
• Magic without a bill. If nothing is paid for a spell, the plot has no way to say no. Questions 113 and 114 are the ones to answer first.
• History as wallpaper. Dynasties and wars that nobody in the present cares about. Questions 25, 34 and 41 tie the past to someone's grudge.
• Our world with new names. Medieval Europe with the labels changed. A familiar trope is fine, as long as questions like 94, 98 and 155 show where this world thinks differently.
• Names that blur together. Five main characters whose names start with the same letter, or a name no reader can say. Questions 162 and 175 help.
• All the answers in chapter one. The questions are for you. The reader gets each answer when a character needs it, as the guide to writing setting shows for places.

If you'd rather start from a premise than a map, the fantasy story ideas and science fiction writing prompts each come with a world half-built, and these questions will finish it.