The stories that stick with me are ones where the characters feel like real people, with lives before the story begins … and lives that continue after the final page.
These characters don’t feel like mere fictional devices, present merely
within the story. They feel like people who have a rich and interesting backstory, and who I can imagine living happy lives – or enjoying new adventures – after the story takes place.
In fact, some readers even feel a sense of characters staying with them in their day-to-day lives, imagining how they might narrate or respond to the world – the Guardian has a fascinating article based on a study about this.
If you want your readers to have a sense of your characters existing outside the bounds of your story, how can
you accomplish that?
Assuming that you’ve already done the work of creating interesting, three-dimensional characters, you can flesh their lives out further with backstory and with the sense of the “ever
after” beyond the end of your story.
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