"Every character s the hero of his own story. While you don’t want to delve into the backstory of ever random bartender and postman who strays through your tale, you do want those characters who have multiple lines or appear in more than one scene to be textured individuals.
It’s worth spending a few minutes thinking about these characters so that when they appeaer you can draw them vividly and deeply with a few quick, but authoritative, authorial strokes."