In keeping with the theme of sharpening my writing skills, I picked up Secrets of Story which holds a 4.49 rating on goodreads. I enjoyed the book. It's packed with a lot of information and probably deserves another read through to feel familiar with it. My key takeaways are thus:
"To nail your characters you have to use a hammer. If you use a hammer on your characters they become flat"
Let your characters surprise you and they will surprise the audience as well.
The more you can show, the less you need to tell.
I've read that last piece of advice in other places and have seen it stated even more emphatically; Never tell what you can show.