Your Series Title Here

Credits:

Optionally list your name, document contributor & artist's names, and date the most recent version.

Summary:

Your short summary, hook, or elevator pitch that succinctly sums up the story.

Synopsis:

A longer and more detailed overview of your series, to taste.

Genre & Tone:

These help establish the overall feeling of your story, and the expectations of your audience. Tone may also impact your intended audience (ie. target age) and the themes explored within your world.

Entries:

The pieces that make up a multi-part story, eg. a trilogy of novels and which order they occur in.

Entry 1's Name
- Summarise of this entry of the series here.

The World

(Click here for guidelines.)

This is a good place to whack a world map. If you don't have a map, you might like to brainstorm with an online map generation tool such as Azgaar's or Donjon.
(Astronomy) For sci-fi settings, you might want a table to document a whole galaxy with space travel. For ground-bound settings, writing about the local stars and moons is much shorter!

Location:

The encompassing location or setting, such as major continents, planets, or the overarching world map/universe.

Physics:

Any major universal laws that differ significantly to reality, such as weaker gravity.

Climate:

As well as average weather and seasons, what are/where are common natural disasters or major weather-based impediments to travel or outdoor activities?

Astronomy:

Nearby stars, satellites (moons), planets, and constellations.

Places

(Click here for guidelines.)

Figure out the plot-relevant locations first and foremost; for other locations, more specificity can come later.
People often divide regions by landmarks, such as a mountain range or river.
An individual country/nation/empire/whatever can have various provinces or states.
Large cities are usually near fresh water.
You may want to designate the naming of cities/towns/villages (or custom terms for your setting) based on population. See Settlement Hierarchy.
Some examples of landmarks: Manmade - schools, historical ruins, holy sites, castles or fortresses. Natural - waterfalls, rock formations, mountains, valleys, glaciers, meaningful trees.
Keep in mind where roads and bridges between settlements might go.

Landmark	Location	Description	Relevance
[Name the place.]	[Where is it?]	[What is it?]	[What its purpose in your story or history is.]
Cool Rock	Sunbaked City	A giant magic rock that's always freezing cold.	Kay revolutionises the culinary world by using this to make ice cream in chapter 3.

Primary Location:

Primary regions of your world, like continents/countries or large islands.

Secondary Location:

Smaller locations like cities or large natural landmarks (eg. a desert, river, or forest)

Tertiary Location:

Even smaller landmarks, often of historical, cultural, religious, or other significance, like a main character's home.

Cultures

(Click here for guidelines.)

The following list applies to an individual culture in a particular region. Copy and paste per "culture".
When writing cultural sections, remember people aren't monotone. For example, some people will adhere to tradition and history, and some will doubt it. Everyone has an opinion!
Consider the expectations placed on people's life goals. When do they get responsibilities? Are they expected to finish education and start work at a certain age?
(Ideology) In some settings, deities aren't real; in others, they may benefit from a profile in the character section.
(Home) People usually spread out and move from place to place, so you'll probably want multiple locations associated with a particular culture.
(Class) In settings with magic, class is often influenced by ability in the magical arts.
(Family) The nuclear family is but one example — standard family units vary a lot by culture. Some raise kids more communally, some families "adopt" non-related members, and in non-human settings the size and shape of family might be unrecognisable, or non-existent!
For non-humans, you can also list how they reproduce (eg. more/less than 2 parents, vampire siring, multiple child "litters", or even cloning).

Ideology:

Religions, gods, morals, laws, general beliefs.

Mythology:

Common fairy tales, stories, or folklore figures (eg. Santa Claus).

Home:

What place(s) did this culture come from? How did places influence them, and vice versa?

Class:

As well as classes of wealth, your people could be separated by education, physical characteristics, ancestry/nobility, disability, or age.

Family:

The average size and shape of a family unit, whether they marry, (for non-humans) how they reproduce.

Education:

There may be schools and universities, or maybe education in your setting isn't so standard and getting a teacher or mentor is pure luck. It might be part of family life, or connected to religion.

Professions:

As well as standard professions, what kind of professions are specific to your setting, and which professions are held in especially high or low regard?

Politics:

What kind of government (eg. capitalism vs. socialism)? What are the laws? How are they enforced?

Architecture:

Cultural style is one aspect, but also consider the materials used in construction, and specific standard decorations, often related to either the climate or to religious beliefs.

Ethnicity:

The physical appearance typical of someone associated with this culture and/or region. This can be like the minor differences of human ethnicities, or major physical characteristics of different fantasy or alien races.

Links

Characters:

(link to a character)

Groups:

You may not want to create a group for every single government, army, company, and so on right away, and just list things like general imports and exports. But if you do, you can link to those groups here.

Language:

(link to a language section)

Everyday Life

(Click here for guidelines.)

You may want to create additional subheadings if everyday life differs significantly between geographic areas or cultures.

Technology:

How do people talk? What are their transportation and logistics like? What kind of things do they have to make their lives easier; washing machines, computers, vehicles, etc.?

Medicine:

A simple infection can kill in a low-tech setting, but advanced medical tech might replace limbs. Your setting could have unique illnesses or disabilities not present in real life. Also, consider whether there are unethical medical practices, and how people feel about them.

Plants:

Plants are an integral part of survival & industry(food, clothes, wood, medicine, magic, etc.) and might also be aesthetically important in your setting design.

Animals:

As well as wildlife, consider common pets & livestock, how they're utilised and treated.

Economy:

Currency, imports/exports, scarce/plentiful resources, black market, worker's rights or slavery. What kind of resources or professions are especially valuable? Who owns and moves resources?

Infrastructure:

Roads, housing, plumbing, power, rail, and so on.

Systems:

Mail, news, power, general commerce, emergency services (like a fire department), hospitals, markets, etc.

Travel:

Standard ways of travelling, such as horseback, driving a car, or flying a FTL spaceship. Keep in mind who creates/maintains vehicles, and what kind of fuel is used.

Leisure:

What do people do for fun? What sports, games, arts, and entertainment are there?

Clothing:

As well as style and fashion, technology and function can have a significant effect. For example, effective cold-weather gear, armour, or wearing colours as camouflage. Also consider uniforms, ceremonial, and festive clothes.

Food:

As well as standard sustenance from plants or meat, you might have unusual creatures who scavenge, photosynthesise, or subsist on some other means like magical energy.

Magic

(Click here for guidelines.)

If your magic system is split by subcategory (eg. Restoration vs. Destruction), try copying these headings per-category.

Use:

What does the practice look like, is it channelled through an object (wand, staff, etc.), spoken or written words, hand gestures, or just thoughts?

Practitioners:

Who can use magic? Are they born with the ability, or do they train it? Are they granted power by a being or artefact?

Limits & Dangers:

What is the cost of using magic, and how much can someone use at once? What risks are there if they exceed the limits?

Origin:

Where did the magic in the setting come from? It could be a universal/physical law, or tied to mythology, but even then, research and breakthroughs in the study of magic are important to note, such as the first person to discover or use a certain type of magic.

Cultural impact:

How are practitioners of magic regarded in your setting, and how does magic impact the setting and culture?

Groups

(Click here for guidelines.)

Copy this template per-organisation.

Type:

A summary. Is it a school, a company, a religion, an organised crime family, a government organisation, etc.?

Origin:

When did the group form, and why? What event(s) precipitated it?

Values:

What is the philosophy, and the core beliefs of the group?

History/Impact:

What effects has this group had on the world and populace at large?

Headquarters:

As well as the region it's located in, the style of HQ: big and obvious public building, or secret underground base?

Members:

An idea of how many total members there are, or what kind of people join the organisation.

Key members:

Leaders or figures integral to the running of the organisation, as well as the original founder(s).

Industry:

Whatever the group actually does, whether it's manufacturing goods, beaurocratic practice, religion, etc.

Products:

Mostly relevant for companies/corporations. For educational or research, you can also list it as "Specialisations" for areas of study.

Resources:

What this organisation is able to bring in to address a crisis, whether it's personnel and weapons in an army, or a religious group providing money & temporary housing for a natural disaster.

Subsidiaries:

Some groups are part of a larger group.

Allies:

Unlikely allies are fun (corruption!). Or maybe it's just neighboring country governments, or schools with an exchange program. Also encompasses business deals between companies.

Rivals:

Other similar organisations this one clashes or competes with.

Characters

(Click here for guidelines.)

Copy this template per-character.
For advice on character arcs, check this out.

[Character Name] [Character Image]

Full Name:

May also include a title, or nicknames & aliases they use regularly.

Pronouns:

Sexuality:

Age:

Also include a birthdate if you're into that. For historical characters, you might want to include their date of death.

Physique:

Height, weight, build, ethnicity, etc.

Other notable physical attributes that help distinguish them can also go here, such as notable markings (scars, tattoos, birthmarks).

Personality

Summary:

There's a lot of ways to fill out a personality section, so do whatever you like. A common personality archetype like MBTI might be helpful for you, or a list of character tropes.

Core traits:

The character's deepest wants, needs, and internal conflicts.

Social class:

This depends on your setting, whether it's a level of wealth or some other kind of caste system.

Education:

Formal education like a degree, or general knowledge level if your setting doesn't have that.

Background:

Anything else worth mentioning in the character's history, such as major life-changing events, the first time they met other characters,

Character Arc:

How does your character progress through the story? Do they grow and change, for better or worse? Do they stay relatively the same? (You can include multiple arcs, or major/minor arcs.)

Affiliations & Relationships

Making a new field for each group or character, describe the importance of them to this character.

Character Name

Affiliation:

If the character is a part of an organisation, or made a personal enemy out of this organisation.

Relationship:

Whether they're friends, family, enemies, or in a romantic relationship, detail how they met, their dynamic(how they act around eachother) and their thoughts towards this person.

Appearances

For multi-part series, you can use this section to keep track of what your character was doing during each part of the story.
You may also want to include how major/important their part was. (Eg. a PoV character, a minor/side character)

Languages

(Click here for guidelines.)

It's optional to get really in-depth with your fantasy language, so this goes out to the real language fans out there. Mwah. I'm not a linguist, so feel free to suggest additions for this section.
For the basics, try come up with a name and some general facts like whether it's spoken, written, signed, whistled, telepathic...
Shortcuts to make it feel like a language without actually writing an entire language: invent some common sayings(eg. greetings) or idioms, famous quotes, the general sound(very relevant for character naming), & the appearance and direction of lettering.

Grammar:

Sentence Structure:

What order are your subjects, verbs, and objects?

Noun Phrase:

Noun adjective order. This can get very complicated.

Plurals:

Whether it's a simple suffix, changing a letter, or repeating the word...

Conjugation:

Personal/group pronouns, and tense (past/present/future).

Negation:

Idioms:

Not only per language, idioms vary between specific regions. These can be a fun way to inject flavour into your setting. Common slang for things specific to the setting as well.

Polite/formal terms:

Informal and formal language varies a lot!

Phonetics:

Alphabet Symbol	Sound
[Alphabet symbol]	[You might like IPA]

Common Phrases:

Phrase	Pronunciation	Definition
[The phrase in your language]	[You might like IPA]	[What this phrase means]

Dictionary:

Word	Pronunciation	Type	Definition
[The word in your language]	[You might like IPA]	[Noun, Verb, Adjective...]	[What this word means]

History

(Click here for guidelines.)

Knowledge of real-life history, like the rise and fall of great empires, is beneficial research for building your own histories.
Some examples of major historical events: wars & battles, major political leader/regime changes, revolutions or protests, deaths of significant figures, natural disasters & plagues, discovery of a new place, invention of a new technology, reigns of a noble dynasty/royal family

Artefacts:

Historic objects that survive to this day, whether it's like Dōjigiri, an ancient crown still used by a royal family line, or the Rosetta Stone, and whether it has modern day relevance.

Emblems:

Symbols, logos, flags, and other markings that carry meaning in society (whether it's a symbol of good luck like a four-leaf clover, or a frightening design used in wartime)

Monuments:

These can make great landmarks of current or historical societies in your world that inform the audience what kind of society they were/are, eg. the Roman colosseum, or carry meanings relating to past and present cultures, eg. the statue of liberty.

Traditions:

As well as common things like standard greetings, national songs/anthems and oaths, or the rules of hospitality, this also encompasses special events like holidays or coming-of-age ceremonies. Holidays often evolve from celebrating a historical event, such as the end of a war.

Timeline

(Click here for guidelines.)

Knowledge of real-life history, like the rise and fall of great empires, is beneficial research for building your own histories.
Some examples of major historical events: wars & battles, major political leader/regime changes, revolutions or protests, deaths of significant figures, natural disasters & plagues, discovery of a new place, invention of a new technology, reigns of a noble dynasty/royal family...
Major vs. minor events is somewhat to taste. You may want to define them as something major spanning several years and minor shorter amounts of time, rank them by story relevance, or create a new set of criteria for your world entirely, such as a numbered classification system.

Origins:

Separate from individual cultural beliefs, this is where you write the cold hard scientific(or unscientific) facts about where it all began. Other than from you writing in this template (:.

Calendar:

Your setting may have its own calendar with different length of years, number of months & days. The people will also probably have specific ways to refer to the ages/eras for a group of years.

Timeline:

If you prefer, you can replace "Year" with your own ordering or dating system.

Year	Event	Description
[When the event occurred]	[Name of the event]	[Short summary of what happened in this event]

Major Events:

You may want to detail historical events here, since not everything fits neatly into a table.

Minor Events:

Plot

(Click here for guidelines.)

You may prefer a flowchart format to a table format.
Arc rows after the first may be left blank if all scenes are listed in order.
Note potential conflicts between characters and groups as you're writing them.
You may want a reminder of the emotions & tone you're aiming for in each scene.

Arc	Scene	Description
[The story arc the scene takes place in]	[Scene number/name]	[Short summary of what happens in this scene]
Jay's Revenge	The Stirring (Scene 2)	Jay has stolen Kay's icecream recipe and begins the process of mass-producing it.

Appendices

This is a miscellaneous section for anything that didn't fit into other categories, or personal notes for your creative process.

If you have suggestions of important headings or subheadings to add to the template, feel free to contact me.