But even for "ordinary" short stories, you still need to keep it brief. After all most competition entries ask for 1500 to 2000 words. That doesn't give you a lot of room for manoeuvre.
As for novels, where there is more room to play with, so to speak, keeping to the point and only putting in what must be in the book must be your governing factors as to what goes in there! The whole point of a story is to show what happened and then... stop.
As for characters, it pays for them not to ramble when speaking to other characters, unless, of course, you have set that character up to ramble a bit. I could see that characteristic trying the patience of the others but of course that may be the whole point.