where characters go
I've read essays and interviews with Stephen King where he mentions that of all his books, people cling most stubbornly to the characters from The Stand. He's had people say to him, say, how are Fran and Stu doing? Maybe that's part of why he is using this Dark Tower series to weave all (or most) of the books together, because the characters won't let him alone any more than they let his readers alone. In The Wolves of Calla, one of the main characters is Father Callahan, from Salem's Lot. Now, Salem's Lot isn't one of my favorites of King's books, but I can see why he was a good character to show up in this novel. My guess is that Callahan just announced himself to King as one of the cast, and off they went together.
I have characters who poke at me after I think I'm done with them, and whether or not I go back and listen/tell more of their story has to do with how persistent they are. I'm sure my readers would have very specific ideas about which characters they'd like to see more of (I know they have these ideas, because they write to me all the time on this topic), but the ones they are asking for most usually aren't the ones who hang around in my subconscious. Is this a mild form of schizophrenia, do you think?
My husband did the mathematics behind the three dimensional modeling of the human brain and was part of the research group that first quantified the difference between schizophrenic and non-schizophrenic brains, so he would be the logical person to ask. But somehow I don't think I will ask that particular question; just doesn't seem like a good idea to me. Or to me either.