Worldbuilding Checklist: 60 Questions to Build a World That Holds Together

Worldbuilding Checklist: 60 Questions to Build a World That Holds Together

A world falls apart when the details don't agree with each other. The river flows uphill in chapter nine. The empire is rich but nobody knows where the money comes from. A good worldbuilding checklist catches those gaps before readers do.

Below are 60 worldbuilding questions in eight groups. They are the same questions built into the free World Building board in Skrib, where each group is a note you can answer right on the board.

You don't need to answer all 60. Answer the ones your story touches, and mark the one that matters most in each group.

World basics

1. What genre is this world?
2. What era is it, and how far along is it right now?
3. Is it grounded or larger than life?
4. How close is it to our world?
5. What is the one thing this world has that ours doesn't?
6. If a reader remembered one thing about it, what should it be?

Geography

1. What kind of place is it: city, region, wilderness?
2. What natural feature dominates it?
3. What splits it into parts, and who lives on each side?
4. What are the seasons like, and which is hardest?
5. What does the weather force people to do or go without?
6. Where does the water come from, and where does it go?
7. What is the hardest ground to cross or live on?
8. What marks the edge of this place?
9. What ground is contested, and by whom?
10. What will the land never let anyone forget?

Do it in Skrib: answer straight into the note. The questions stay as headings, so your world reads like a guide you can come back to.

History

1. What one event shaped this world into what it is now?
2. How long ago did it happen?
3. Who was there, and who tells the story now?
4. What did the world do differently after?
5. What did it bury, rename or refuse to talk about?
6. Who still pays for it, and who got away clean?
7. What trace of it can a character still see or touch?

People

1. What peoples or groups share this world?
2. Where did each come from?
3. What sets them apart on sight?
4. What does each group value most?
5. What is each known for?
6. Which group does your protagonist belong to?

Power and politics

1. Who is in charge, and how did they get there?
2. What is the law, and what happens if you break it?
3. How do people earn a living?
4. Who is angry, and what would make them act?
5. Who is shut out, and how?
6. What keeps the people at the top there?
7. What would it take to change that?

Culture

1. What do people believe?
2. How do they mark birth, marriage and death?
3. What do they eat, wear, sing and fear?
4. What is polite, and what is an insult?
5. What does this culture punish that ours forgives?
6. What do children learn first?

Magic or technology

1. What can it do?
2. What can it never do?
3. What does it cost the user, every time?
4. Who has access, and who doesn't?
5. How has it changed daily life?
6. What happens when it goes wrong?
7. What does your hero not know about it yet?

Your story in this world

1. Who is the story about?
2. What do they want, and what do they need?
3. What stands in their way?
4. How do they come into the story?
5. What is the inciting incident that breaks the order of things?
6. Which part of the world will the story damage?
7. What rule of the world will the climax test?
8. What would your character never do, and what would force them?
9. What does the reader need to know by chapter three?
10. What can stay off the page?
11. What is the world like after the story ends?

Do it in Skrib: keep the world board next to your plot and draft in one project. When chapter nine needs the river, the answer is one click away.

FAQ

Do I need to answer every worldbuilding question? No. Answer what the story uses. Worldbuilding that never reaches the page is optional.

What order should I build a world in? Start with world basics and your story questions, then geography and history. Magic and politics grow out of those.

For a step-by-step method, read how to build a world.

Build your world in Skrib

Copy the World Building board and every question above is already on it, grouped into notes with space for your answers. It is free to start.

Copy the World Building board

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