imo the best way to interpret those âreal people donât do xâ writing advice posts is âmost people donât do x, so if a character does x, it should be a distinguishing trait.â human behavior is infinitely varied; for any x, there are real people who do x. we canât make absolute statements. we can, however, make probabilistic ones.
for example, most people donât address each other by name in the middle of a casual conversation. if all your characters do that, your dialogue will sound stilted and unnatural. but if just one character does that, then it tells us something about that character.
