Writing Update: New Project!

Now that my royal intrigue romcom novel is in the developmental editing stage, I’ve started drafting a new story that I’m currently calling Aria of the Void (AotV for short).

Aria of the Void is a high-fantasy royal intrigue novel featuring a resourceful protagonist, an ancient underground civilization, gem technology, sweet romance, and of course… Dragons and other fantastical creatures.

To sum it all up, it’s basically Jane Austen (gone wrong) meets The Hobbit.

My favorite part about writing this story so far is all the worldbuilding that I’ve had to do.

This particular story doesn’t take place in the same universe as The Librarian’s Ruse and the rest of the Adventures in Eldnaire trilogy, so I had to start from scratch.

And to build my story world from scratch, I used the cause & effect method.

What Is The Cause & Effect Method?

The cause and effect method is a logic-based approach to worldbuilding.

For example, because A happens, B will happen. And because B happened, C will happen…and the domino effect continues on from there.

Worldbuilding Non-Negotiables

Since I already had an idea of what my plot would be, I ended up using that as my starting point.

To avoid giving away any spoilers, I’ll use this short description of the story as an example:

Aria lost everything she loved when her fiancé betrayed and left her to die in the depths of an ancient underground city. 

Newly freed and full of spite, she’s determined to take everything back and rebuild her life from the ashes of her father’s gem forge.

When Aria’s quest for revenge leads her straight into the arms of the first prince, she finds a willing ally and unlikely friend. 

But as the pieces of Aria’s plans fall into place, a new revelation forces her to rethink her thirst for vengeance or risk losing everything she loves once again. 

Obviously I left a ton of details out, but here are some observations you can make just from that short description:

1. There needs to be an ancient underground civilization.
2. It needs to be plausible for a character to be stuck in the ancient underground civilization for a long period of time without dying.
3. There need to be gem forges—specifically in the city where my main character lives.
4. There needs to be a royal family/my main character needs to have an identity that would allow her to meet royalty at some point.

The four points I listed would be my non-negotiables for worldbuilding.

To put it plainly, my plot will not work if I don’t include these specific things in my story world.

Filling In The Blanks

Knowing exactly what I had to include helped me shape and add to the rest of my world.

For this article, I’ll focus on points #1 and #3 as an example.

Since there’s an ancient underground city, there has to be a way to get there. Which means the kingdom/country where the story takes place needs to have caves, tunnels, and caverns.

Adding onto that, since there needs to be a gem forge, there should also be gemsmiths. And if there are gemsmiths, then there should be precious metals and stones for them to work with. 

Which means that unless I want to say that the kingdom spends a ton of money importing the materials, it would be more practical for me to assume that the land has plenty of natural resources—including metals and stones.

So, all of that led me to this description:

The Kingdom of Arca is a large country located between two mountain ranges. There are two dormant volcanoes in one of the ranges, and it’s not uncommon for the land to experience earthquakes from time to time.

There are five main mining locations in the kingdom but there are plenty of smaller, privately owned mines, as well as caves and caverns—some of which have never been explored due to the risks.

And as I think more about what my characters’ society needs in order to survive (water, food, shelter, etc.) I can keep adding to the description.

Where there’s mountains there’s precipitation (usually snow the higher you get to the peaks). But as the snow melts, streams form and trickle down the mountainside toward lower elevations. When streams meet, rivers form. When rivers meet, even bigger rivers are formed. 

Having rivers in the Kingdom of Arca solves the water problem. And where there’s water, food can be grown, fished, or hunted. As for shelter, stone would be doable in some places nearer to the mines and quarries, but wood would be far cheaper and less time-consuming to build homes with everywhere else.

So in addition to the mountains and rivers, Arca needs to have forests and fields to provide everything its citizens need.

Micro-Worldbuilding: How They Live 

Smaller details, like which types of trees, plants, and animals thrive in Arca, or what weather it experiences can help me figure out how my characters live.

If it’s abnormally cold in Arca then my characters would rely on layered clothes and furs to keep warm. Or, if there’s a rainy season, then the people would need to build dikes and devise ways to keep their towns and cities from flooding if the rivers overflow. 

I ultimately decided that Arca has cold and snowy winters, but fairly mild weather the rest of the year. And only the lowest parts of the country are prone to flooding.

If there are plants in the area like flax, or flowers that are perfect for colorful dyes, or if people raise sheep for wool, then people might make their own clothing. Or they can hire others (tailors, seamstresses, hatters, milliners, etc.) for the task.

The same goes for anything else people may need.

Trade & Population Growth

Since Arca is a fairly large kingdom with different ecosystems (mountains, meadows, hills, forests, fields, etc.), it would make sense that one part of the country has resources that another part of the country doesn’t. 

Skills and abilities may also vary from town to town or city to city, so the people of Arca might want to travel around to learn from, barter, and trade with each other to get the things that they want or need.

That means there should be roads and ways to transport travelers and goods—whether they use carriages and wagons, or horses and dragons. 

Continental Travel & Foreign Affairs

Since the Kingdom of Arca has plenty of resources, it stands to reason that the neighboring countries would also be interested in trading for or taking what they want.

The people who travel to and from Arca will bring more skills, knowledge, and goods. So, depending on how long it’s been since people started traveling, Arca could either be just starting to learn more about the rest of the continent, or their cities could already be hubs of trade and information due to a long history of exchanging goods, ideas, and traditions with foreign countries.

Note: Since I’m already way over my planned word count for this article, I won’t be discussing how I created a history and timeline for my story world right now, but I may write a full article about it in the future if you’d be interested in that.

Culture

Speaking of exchanging ideas, goods, and traditions…

That’s where the idea of culture comes in. Cultures are built up of different ideas, thought patterns, methods, traditions, and societal values that a group of people share with each other.

Some of the thought patterns and traditions are also shaped by their environment—like, say the people of Arca started building their houses in a certain way because of the earthquakes they would get, but now even if an architect or builder from Arca moves to a different country, they make houses the exact same way they would if they were still in Arca.

When people from different cultures meet, some of their values and ideals may align, but others could be completely different.

When more values and ideals align, it causes good relations between people from those different cultures. Likewise, when they’re mostly unaligned, conflicts will arise.

I haven’t done a ton of worldbuilding for the countries next to Arca since none of them are particularly relevant to the plot, but if they were then I would develop those countries and figure out whether they’d be allies or enemies based on things like whether or not their values and ideals align, or what resources the countries do or don’t have.

Try It For Yourself!

This article ended up being way longer than I meant for it to be, so I’ll have to discuss how I created Arca’s government, history, and timeline in a future article, but I hope you found this behind-the-scenes peek into my worldbuilding process interesting!

If you want to use the cause and effect method for your own worldbuilding, here’s a handy little list of how your fictional society might begin and grow:

• Finding abundant resources in an area (water, fertile land, wood, etc.) leads to people settling down in that area. 
• Having several other people settle down in the same area leads to a community forming. 
• A community of different people will lead to the trading of skills, goods, and ideas, which creates culture. 
• Having a strong culture leads to the expansion and growth of the community. 
• A growing community leads to a lack of resources. 
• A lack of resources leads to people leaving the community to find a place with abundant resources. 
• Traveling in search of a place with abundant resources leads to finding other communities with different cultures. 
• Finding different cultures may lead to foreign relations, trade, or conflict depending on how wildly the values and societal norms of the cultures differ, or if their values clash.

Breaking The Rules

Understanding how societies usually form in the real world helped me a ton when it came to creating fictional societies of my own. 

Even if you want your fantasy world to be unique and different, it’s still helpful to have a solid starting place. 

Know what the rules of reality are before you decide to break them. And if you do break those rules, make sure you broke them intentionally, and that they make sense in the context of your story’s world.

But that being said, have fun with this!

Before You Go…

Have you used the cause & effect method to worldbuild? Would you be interesting in learning more about The Kingdom of Arca and my current drafting project?

Let me know down in the comments!

Read my last article here.