For Hillel Lichtman's question about secondary or minor characters in Tanakh, please see the article by Uri Simon, "Minor Characters in Biblical Narrative," Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 46 (1990), pp. 11-19 - [journals.sagepub.com].
He also may wish to see Shimon Bar-Efrat's, Narrative Art in the Bible (Sheffield Academic Press: 1989), pp. 86-92.