One of my favorite quotes popped up today -

Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people.

— Eleanor Roosevelt

Given that, it amazes me that much of writing advice is to create great characters. Maybe that is the difference between fact and fiction writing but I don't see why that should matter. If you want to read and write soap operas that's fine but I want my space operas.

Bottlenecks:
http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/blog/2014/03/27/fiction-writing-bottleneck/

Like the weather:
http://blog.janicehardy.com/2014/03/what-changes-in-your-scenes.html

You talk too much:
http://jessicadall.com/2012/01/24/too-much-dialogue/

Characters:
http://www.writingexcuses.com/2014/03/30/writing-excuses-9-13-three-prong-character-development/