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I did this once in a novel-length story. After the first two appearences my wife said that she has a strange feeling with the side character, but couldn't tell why. In the end she was like 'I knew ...
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#3: Attribution notice added
by
System
·
2019-12-08T12:54:09Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/47834 License name: CC BY-SA 4.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
#2: Initial revision
by
Viktor Katzy
·
2019-12-08T12:54:09Z (almost 5 years ago)
I did this once in a novel-length story. After the first two appearences my wife said that she has a strange feeling with the side character, but couldn't tell why. In the end she was like 'I knew it!'. What did I do? I made the side character appear 'just in time', when noone else was around or 'hide' from others for whatever reason. She did always know what was the right thing to say, what the protagonist needed the most in that exact moment, being 'the one she adores'. So you can make the audience question the existence if nobody else ever talks about this character despite she is somehow always there. You can make her a bit too insightful, give her a bit too much influence on the protagonist, in short: make her feel **slightly** off without breaking the suspension of disbelief. Just make her totally normal for the protagonist.
#1: Imported from external source
by
System
·
2019-09-05T08:34:27Z (about 5 years ago)
Original score: 64