The Editor’s Notebook:
Character
Character is revealed not only through action, but through relationship: who a character loves, resists, fears, misunderstands, remembers, or cannot escape.
These essays examine protagonists, antagonists, supporting characters, and the forces that shape them—looking beyond individual character arcs to the relational structures beneath them. They explore how character functions within narrative, how internal and external pressures alter behavior, and how the people who occupy—or sometimes never enter—a story can reveal truths its central characters cannot see for themselves.
What Supporting Characters Reveal About Your Protagonist
Supporting characters do more than advance plot or assist a protagonist’s arc. They can expose contradictions, embody alternate choices, challenge a protagonist’s self-perception, and reveal truths the central character cannot yet recognize. This essay examines the relational architecture of character and what supporting characters can reveal about the protagonist at the center of a story.