This week in the MFA program, we had a great discussion about creating and using secondary characters in a novel. While I did have interesting side characters in my two previous novels, The Stone Harvest and Deadlined, I can see how I could have used them to better contrast or highlight the protagonist. I hope this new information helps you build a fuller world around your main character. New writers tend to pour all their energy into the protagonist, treating everyone else as background noise. That's a missed opportunity. Secondary characters have real jobs to do, and when you build them with intention, they make your whole story feel richer. Give them a reason to exist. Every secondary character should do something for your story: reveal key details, motivate the protagonist, contrast with them, or help establish your setting. If a character doesn't serve one of those purposes in a given scene, ask yourself whether they need to be there at all. Build them out, even if readers never see them. It helps to develop a mini character bible for each important secondary character: backstory, personality, maybe even an arc of their own, even if most of it never makes it onto the page. Characters who feel real to you as the writer tend to feel real to the reader too, even in small doses. Let them live in the gray. One-dimensional secondary characters (the purely helpful friend, the purely evil rival) are easy to write and easy to forget. Give your supporting cast virtues and flaws, the same complexity you'd give your protagonist. That contradiction is what makes them memorable. Don't overcrowd your story. A large cast of secondary characters can overwhelm readers fast. Keep the cast manageable, make sure each character is distinct, and if two characters serve similar functions, consider combining them into one stronger character. One tool worth knowing: the foil. A foil is a specific kind of secondary character built to highlight another character's traits through contrast, not necessarily through conflict. Foils aren't villains. They can be best friends, rivals, or simple side characters whose differences sharpen the protagonist's strengths and flaws. For instance, pair a stubborn, controlling protagonist with a flexible, collaborative foil, and both characters become clearer by comparison. The differences should be distinct enough to notice, but not so extreme that they feel like a gimmick.

In my MFA program, I'm about to enter a phase where I'll be submitting a lot of my work for peer and instructor review. The prospect has me a bit nervous. My ego and selfishness sometimes make me resistant to changing my "vision" for a piece. But I recently came across some advice from a published novelist (one of my professors) about working with her editor, and one detail stuck with me. When he offered a note he felt strongly about, he'd sometimes add: if you follow this advice, it might ruin the book. That sounds strange for an editor to say, but it was his way of drawing a line: this is worth considering, but it's not a command. You're still the author. That distinction matters more than it sounds. New writers tend to get this wrong in two ways. The first is rejecting every note that doesn't match your original vision; treat feedback as noise, and you never grow past the instincts you started with. The second is worse: taking every single note at face value and rewriting your story into something that pleases everyone except you. Writers who do that often end up with technically competent work they don't recognize as their own. The better path is closer to an idea borrowed from improv comedy: "Yes, and." You don't accept a note wholesale, and you don't dismiss it outright either. You look for what's actually underneath it. In the example I read, the editor suggested adding a new major male character to a story with an all-female cast. The writer didn't do that, but the concern behind the note (wanting a stronger connective thread between the two leads) turned into one of the best changes in the book. The literal suggestion got discarded. The instinct behind it didn't. That's the mindset I want us to bring into our feedback threads here. When someone tells you your opening scene confused them, or your dialogue felt stiff, your first job isn't to defend the page; it's to sit with the note and ask what's really underneath it. Sometimes the answer is "nothing, this reader just isn't my audience." Often, though, there's a kernel worth keeping even when the specific fix doesn't feel right.

New writers often think of the antagonist as an obstacle; something the hero has to get past. That's true, but it undersells the job. A well-built antagonist doesn't just block your protagonist's path; they shape who your protagonist becomes. Start with a motivation the reader can follow — even if they don't agree with it. The biggest difference between a flat antagonist and a compelling one is understandable motivation. Your antagonist doesn't need to be right. They don't even need to be likable. But readers need to see the internal logic- the why- from inside this character's head; their actions make sense. A villain who's simply "evil" with no reasoning behind it reads as a plot device, not a person. Give them a moral code of their own. The strongest antagonists aren't operating outside of morality. They're operating under a different one. They genuinely believe what they're doing is justified, or even serves some greater good. That conviction is what makes them dangerous instead of cartoonish. Pair that with real internal conflict, a moment of hesitation, doubt, or discomfort with their own choices, and you get a character who feels human rather than a checklist of villainous traits. Build them like a full character, not a function. Give your antagonist the same texture you'd give your protagonist: quirks, passions, a fully realized personality, maybe even some charm. A rich backstory helps too, but resist the urge to dump it all at once. Reveal it gradually, so the reader's understanding deepens as the story goes on. Make sure they're worthy of your protagonist. Think about pairings like Batman and the Joker, or Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty. What makes those work isn't just that the villain is smart or strong; it's that they're evenly matched with the hero. When the antagonist can truly beat your protagonist, every scene between them carries real tension. A weak antagonist makes your protagonist look strong by default, which is a hollow kind of victory. A worthy one forces your protagonist to actually grow.