How do family trees and relationships work?
A relationship links two entries: Aldric Thorne parent of Mara Thorne, Kael Varn serves House Thorne, Brother Tolan mentor of Kael. Who Where When uses them in two views: Relationships, a web of everything connected, and Family trees, drawn from parent and spouse links.
Add a relationship
From an entry's page:
- In the Relationships box, choose +.
- Type or pick the Relationship: parent of, spouse of, sibling of, ally of, rival of, enemy of, member of, leads, serves, loves, mentor of, located in, owns or related to. You can also type your own, like "sworn to".
- In To, pick the other entry, or type a new name to create it.
- Use Swap direction if it's the wrong way round.
- Optionally add a Note, From and Until dates, and Readers learn it in.
- Choose Save.
Or open Relationships and choose Add relationship, which lets you pick both ends. Choose Something else… in the list to type your own kind.
Direction matters for one-way relationships. "Aldric parent of Mara" shows on Mara's page as "child of Aldric". Symmetric ones, like spouse of or sibling of, read the same from both sides.
The relationship graph
Relationships draws every link as a web. To make a busy graph readable:
- Toggle entry types (Characters, Places, Factions…) on and off.
- Toggle relationship kinds on and off.
- Use Focus on one entity… and choose Direct connections or Two steps out.
Click a line to see, edit or delete that relationship.
Family trees
Family trees is built from parent of and spouse of relationships. Pick a character in the box at the top to center the tree on them. Dashed lines join spouses, and clicking a person opens their page.
To grow the tree from the tree itself, choose + on a person and pick Add parent, Add child or Add spouse. Choose an existing character, or type a new name to create one. If you have no family links yet, pick a character under Start with a character… and choose Add child.
Relationships on the reader wiki
Relationships show under Connections on the reader wiki, once both entries and the relationship itself are revealed at the reader's reading point. Set Readers learn it in to keep a secret parent hidden until the right book. A relationship to a hidden or draft entry never appears.
Deleting an entry also deletes its relationships. If a relationship ever ends up pointing at an entry that no longer exists, the continuity check lists it as a Missing reference with a Delete relationship button.
Common questions
Do I have to build the family tree separately?
No. The family tree is drawn from parent of and spouse of relationships, wherever you add them. Adding a relative from the tree just creates one of those relationships.
Can a relationship change over time?
Yes. Each relationship has From and Until dates in your world's calendar, and a Readers learn it in chapter for the reader wiki.
Keep your story straight
Who Where When keeps every character, place and date in your books, and tells you when the story contradicts itself.
Start your story bibleMore in Building your bible
- How do entries, facts and sources work?Entries are the people, places and things in your series. Facts record details about them, with dates, a source chapter and a quote.
- How do in-story dates and custom calendars work?Set your world's months and eras in Settings, then type dates like "3 Frostmoon 412" on facts and events. Here's how dates are read and ordered.
- How do events and the timeline work?Add births, battles, journeys and other events with dates, places and participants. They appear on a zoomable timeline with a lane per character.
- How do I add maps and pins?Upload a map image of your world, drop pins on it, and link each pin to a place or other entry in your story bible.
- How does the continuity check work?Who Where When checks your bible on every change for conflicting facts, deaths, births, two places at once, ages and duplicates.
Related
- How to write a character bibleHow to build character profiles you'll actually use: physical details, voice, relationships, and what changes over the story and when.
- How to make a worldbuilding bibleWhat goes in a world bible for fantasy or science fiction, from places and cultures to magic rules, history and maps, and when to stop.