Characters mentioned in this book would appear in subsequent Mitchell novels, making Ghostwritten the initial entry in what would later become a heavily interconnected universe of stories.
- Neal Brose, the Hong Kong-based lawyer from that story, is a minor character in Black Swan Green.
- The book publisher Timothy Cavendish (from the London story) has a much larger role in Cloud Atlas. His brother Denholme (the head of the law firm in the Hong Kong section) is also featured.
- Luisa Rey, a journalist who phones into the Night Train show near the end of the book, is also a primary character in Cloud Atlas and a secondary character in Utopia Avenue.
- Suhbataar, the KGB agent from the Mongolia and St Petersburg stories, reappears as an arms dealer in Mitchell's next novel, number9dream.
- Dwight Silverwind, a spiritualist author mentioned several times in Ghostwritten, makes an appearance in The Bone Clocks.
- Radio DJ Bat Segundo plays the titular band's first single in Utopia Avenue.
- The noncorporeal entity who narrates the Mongolia section shares many similarities to the Horologists in The Bone Clocks, including the ability to hide out undetected in another's mind and to reincarnate into a newly born child if killed.
- The same being makes an appearance in Utopia Avenue, known there as the Mongolian.
- Mo Muntervary of Clear Island reappears several decades later in the final section of The Bone Clocks, which is also set in rural southern Ireland.
- It's implied throughout both novels she's a descendant of Con Twomey (the false name of Fiacre Muntervary), a character in The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet.
