Every character is the hero of their own story. Brilliant!

Every character is the hero of their own story.  These have been life changing words for me as a writer.  Sure I’d heard them before, but when I really listened to them and thought about them, it made my writing so much more clear and crisp than it was before.  Keeping this in mind makes it easy to spot when a character is just walking into a scene with no other purpose than to give a piece of information and leave.  Even that character is the hero of his own story, and if as a writer I have no idea what that story is, then he probably isn’t necessary.  Understanding each characters motivations, makes the dialogue more rich and the story telling flow so much easier.  In some ways keeping this in mind makes editing easier because it is done as I go rather than having to go back and find unnecessary characters, but in other ways it makes the need for editing increase because now I’m starting to tell their stories too.  I have no doubt that my writing is better for it though, and I have a feeling now that I've thought about some of the side characters stories more, they will likely be popping up in their own stories now.