Ghostwritten has nine distinct characters in nine different stories and nine far-flung countries around the globe, each with its own set of principal characters and side characters.
Okinawa
A brainwashed cult-terrorist member known as The Fellowship.
- Anti-Hero
- Brainwashed: Quasar is basically brainwashed into viewing the world as what he refers to them “unclean”.
Tokyo
Hong Kong
A British money-launderer lived in Hong Kong. Also the minor monologue in Black Swan Green.
- Freak Out: Had one towards the end.
Holy Mountain
Mongolia
A mysterious spirit seeking a human host. Could be the same wandering spirit in Number 9 Dream, TheBoneClocks and CloudAtlas.
Petersburg
London
A drummer and a ghostwriter.
An aging publisher. Also one of the main characters in CloudAtlas.
Clear Island
Mo Muntervary is a physicist studying quantum cognition or quancog. She has returned to Clear Island, her birthplace in the south of Ireland, after being on the run from the American government. She was employed in a research facility in Switzerland when she discovered that her results were being used by the U.S. military to build intelligent weapons. Her resignation for moral reasons is rejected, and an American general calling himself "Mr. Stolz" tries to force her to go and work in Texas. She runs away, and is nearly killed by a taxi in London when she is pushed out of the way by Marco, the ghostwriter. She jumps in the cab that ran her down and asks to go to Gatwick. While she is on the run she finds temporary shelter in Hong Kong with her old friend Huw Llewellyn. When unknown people almost catch her, she has to be on the move again. Part of her journey intersects with the characters in the Mongolia section of the novel. On the run, she develops a revolutionary new theory of quantum cognition, which she writes down in a little black book.
- Nice Girl: Perhaps the nicest from all the female characters in the book.
Night Train
Bat Segundo, a DJ host a late night call-in radio show called Night Train in New York City. Those of the callers to the show, who tend to be eccentric night-owls.
