World Building

Worlds are not built from rules. They grow from one true seed.

The kingdom of Neven did not reveal itself through a political system. The reveal began with a child collecting dog poo for a leather tanner.
A single physical thread followed:

A forest tree with a hole at its base. A hole large enough to hide two frightened children while they observed their surroundings, trying to make sense of them.

Everything else, the river, the language, its history, grew outward from those honest things.
I think a lot of worldbuilding gets this backwards.

Writers sometimes draft the empire before they find the soil. The map arrives before the trees have signed up to the terms and conditions.
Kids feel that gap immediately. They can tell when a world is a sketch, and when it is a place.
My approach is to follow my child dog poo collector. Trust the first true detail.
Let the children in the story decide the course. Let them dictate the reasons.
Layer by layer, the world maps itself, and the story finds room to breathe inside it.
For the young readers I write for, that difference is everything. They are not looking for dynastic rules and processes.
They are looking for somewhere real enough to get lost in and to wonder at.