Your locations need to be more than scenery and atmosphere.
They need to apply pressure. Hide information. Force choices. Shape behavior. Detonate when characters push the wrong boundaries.
This doc helps you build locations that create challenges for your characters, not just backdrops.
The questions are layered. What the location shows on the surface. What it’s hiding. The rules that aren’t posted. Who controls it. The secrets buried within. Contradictions that make it dangerous when characters make assumptions.
Use at different phases. Early on? Keeps you from scribbling interchangeable coffee shops and generic warehouses. Mid-draft? It’s diagnostic. If your location isn’t generating conflict, if it’s just a container for dialogue, these Q’s show you why. Late game? Helps manage mystery. What does the audience grok immediately? What’s revealed under pressure? What remains unexplained?
Works for anything. Screenplays, pilots, novels, games, shared universes. The more rules, secrets, and territorial conflicts you can pack into a location, the more story it will generate when characters need something it doesn’t want to give-up.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD PDF: LOCATION DEV WORKSHEET