Norbit and the Storywalker: What happens to a character when the story ends?

"What happens to a character when the story ends?
They knew... They knew that letters are runes, and that words are spells, and that stories are the most powerful spells of all... Spells that create entire worlds. Even universes. They also knew that a half-finished story creates a half-finished world. Every half-written novel and forgotten work that gets left behind, they all create a small, broken reality. They knew this. But they are gone now..."

Norbit isn't having a good day. He thought starting a fire at his job interview was bad enough. Coming home to find one has started itself in his home seemed almost unbelievable, or at least unfair. So when a drunk lunatic starts following him around - raving nonsense about bad stories - Norbit wonders how much worse his day can get. He probably shouldn't have. Because not all nonsense is wrong, and nothing makes a bad day worse like finding out that someone is to blame for it.