Building Characters and Worlds đ
The Misfits & Daydreamers Primer Series, part 2





Iâm headed home from North Texas Teen Book Festival, and ah!! It was such a wonderful time. Thank you to all who came to see me! I had an absolutely blast meeting uber fans and new readers alike. đ
(Side note: I was genuinely surprised and delighted by how many of you had the entire Luminaries series with you and were devoted fans?! Iâll admit, I completely forgot about that series, since I was so focused on TE3 and Witchlight last year. So THANK YOU for loving my dear Winnie Wednesday!!)
Also: Iâll be at the Tucson Festival of Books next weekend! So come see me there!
Also, also: donât miss the latest Great Critique Partner Meetup, if youâre looking for a critique partner, beta reader, or general writing cheerleader. This is a great place to find someone, and Iâve met multiple people over the years who got their writing friendship start in the M&D comments section.
Now onward to building characters and worlds!
The Misfits & Daydreamers Primer Series
In case you missed it, a few weeks ago, I started an organized primer series that hits on all the many topics Iâve taught and explored over the years on this Substack. This is a planned 7-part series, and the topics are:
Following the âRightâ Story â Shared Feb. 16, 2026.
Building Characters & Worlds â We are HERE!
The Craft of Sentences & Scenes
Revisions & Editing
Finding Your Unique Process
When Things Get Hard
Publishing: the Honest Truth
This week, weâre diving #2: the people the world that actually make a story into a story.
Note: this is separate from my much more robust Susan Dennard Writing Academy! If you want truly deep dives on all these topics spanning back to the early aughts of my writing advice, then the Academy is the place to explore.
2. Building Characters and Worlds
As many of you know, my approach to character development and worldbuilding is fully intuitive. (If you saw me just this weekend at NTTBF, I talked about my âpantsingâ approach a lot!)
But itâs not as if I dive into a book with no idea whatâs coming. Instead, I always know my character and their world.
No, I donât fill out character questionnaires, and my worldbuilding is less âcreate a detailed wikiâ1 and more âletâs draw a map and build a new magic!â2 But I did use the word system, and system means I have a methodology, messy and fluid as it may be.
On top of that, there are many âlessonsâ Iâve learned over my seventeens years (!) of writing that I apply while drafting for characters and worlds.
So letâs get started, shall we?
Before I Draft
What I Need to Know Before I Draft: This is the post that lays out why character and world are so critical to me. Without them, I simply have no story! There is literally nothing for me to write until I hear my characterâs voice and see the world around them.
How I Create Characters: It begins with a lot of questions. Not a personality quiz so much as an interrogation of the feelings I want to come out of a story. Both feelings for the characters and feelings for the reader.
Character Arcs & Growth
Audio: Crafting Character Arcs Over a Series: This audio (with transcript!) post is about how I handle character growth across many books. This is relevant whether youâre writing a duology or a sprawling multi-POV epic. (Ask me how I know! đ )
When Character and Voice Go Wrong This happens so often for me. And frankly, itâs terrifying every time because I always convince myself youâll never figure it out and let everyone down! WOE! But I always do figure it out, and I call it my Circling Process: how I orbit around a character until I find my way back inside their feelings and can proceed onward.
Writing Romance Intuitively: Each of my romantic pairings in my books is distinctâbut how? It comes back to ye olde character voice, magical cookies, and earned payoffs. đŠââ¤ď¸âđâđ¨
Setting & Worldbuilding
How I Build Worlds: From logistics to maps, if youâre new to worldbuilding and intimidated by it, this is a good place to start! Worldbuilding is often one of the most fun parts of the brainstorming process for me. (To the point that I will absolutely use it to procrastinate, lol. Donât do that.)
Audio: An Intro on How I Build Worlds: We think of worldbuilding as only applying to fantasy or sci-fi, but thatâs not true. Historical, contemporaryâthose tales also exist in worlds, and so they require worldbuilding too! This post is a deep dive into how I tackle it.
How to Level Up Your Settings, Part 1: As huge gamer (you all know that), video games are probably the number one source of inspiration for my writing and worlds.3 So I like to also use game developmentâs approach to âenvironmental storytellingâ for fleshing out settings in each scene.
How to Level Up Your Settings, Part 2: This is how I use character as the key element that takes a setting from âinteresting enoughâ to âdownright fascinating.â
I realize there are probably more character + world posts here on Substack, but a lot of my posts straddle the 7 topic lines listed aboveâso I had to pick which bucket I felt was a better fit.
There are also so many more craft-focused posts on the Susan Dennard Writing Academy. Even just on the free resources page! So head there if you want more!
That said, if there are any posts from my Substack archives you think should be on this list about character and voice, PLEASE SHARE!!! I will add them. đĽ°
Also, stay tuned for the upcoming part 3: Constructing Scenes & Sentences. And thanks for reading Part 2 in the Misfits & Daydreamers Primer Series!
đ - Sooz
Oh my god, I WISH I were this organized!! It would make my life so much easier when writing sequels!
And spread it over six different notebooks and apps so that when I do want any information, I canât find it! See footnote #1 about how I wish I werenât like this!
Iâm pretty sure Arkane Studiosâ Prey has inspired more elements across my books than any other game in existence.


Your maps are beautiful! Do you use software or draw them by hand?
I love the maps! It makes me so excited to read whatâs coming next!!