Bad writing descision #1: Needless characters

I covered one incident of this in My Troll evolved into a flying monkey but this tenancy keeps popping up: I write needless characters into my plot.

I just did this the other day. In my first chapter I had my protag. hook up with a character who had the following attributes:

1. Was annoying to my protag.


2. Did nothing but babble and quickly is ignored by my protag.


3. Runs home after six or so paragraphs.

After I wrote him I had to ask why? I totally understand the need for expendable characters such as:

1. A redshirt that a monster can much on (just to show the danger).


2. A street beggar that our hero can 1) Spit on or 2) Buy a hot meal. The beggar just revealed a lot of character in our hero.


3. A cog of some sort that moves the story forward. (A Horatio to our Hamlet, maybe.)

But I keep on coming up with characters that don't do anything... I've got to stop wasting time on this.