I am 37 times an idiot! I have spent five days writing backstories for each of the characters, working out details of their personalities and preferences. As I slogged along, though, I just didn’t feel right about it, and the work went slowly. I was frustrated.
Then I realized that the solution was simple: merely specify what the player must or must not do with each character. The old operational definition of reality. I dumped my twenty page character descriptions and replaced it with a one-page list of actions. How could I have been so stupid as not to see that?