Had a 3 p.m. Zoom with a junior editor whose résumé reads like a well-paced novella, but in the room their character never turned — no stakes, no pivot. How do you weigh potential when the page looks strong but the person you meet is all setup and no second act?
I run a five-minute “complication pass”: hand them a paragraph from your latest piece and ask for “the moment it nearly breaks” and what they’d cut vs. fight for; if they can’t find stakes live, I park the résumé, though I’ll offer a same-day written follow-up for the Zoom-flat — worth trying?