Adding small moments of existence to your writing
What I’m talking about is proof of life outside your characters in your world. Not in the sense of ‘talking to the cashier at the checkout’, but things like:
- Graffiti etched into a desk your character sits in during an exam
- Realising that someone has come along and arranged the cans on the shelf so the labels say something stupid
- Dirty vans that have ‘wash me’ written in the dried mud
- A coin that has been stuck into a piece of gum on a handrail
Little things that show the world still goes on despite whatever is happening to the characters.
This helps make the world a world, not just a setting. There are other people with other lives doing stupid, funny, dangerous, things that in no way impact the protagonist. You don’t have to dwell on them, they can only be mentioned briefly in passing during the set up of a scene, but it will help create life within the background of the story and give the characters a chance to briefly think about something other than themselves/their situation.