How to Cut the Info-Dumps

Info-dumping is one of the biggest stumbling blocks in a first draft--especially if you're a pantser, and you're working out all the characters and settings as you go. Even if you've made careful, thorough character sketches ahead of time, you'll still discover new things about your characters as you write them. The same goes for your story world. If you're doing a good job of integrating your setting into your plot, you will find yourself exploring all manner of back alleys and sordid histories.

This is all part of the process, but some times the resulting text isn't terribly gripping for the reader, or is simply isn't necessary. Nobody enjoys reading long-winded blocks of characterization or exposition. Imagine if you met someone at a party and they immediately wrapped their arms around you and started whispering in your ear about their emotional problems. Or if you moved to a new apartment complex, and one of your neighbors cornered you and started spilling the last year's worth of gossip. It would be super awkward in real life, so why should it be acceptable in fiction?

Part of the problem is that info-dumps bring your story to a screeching halt so you can deliver a lecture (Like this quote? Click here to tweet it!). Nobody wants to pause a chase scene to consider some novel fact about the fruit stand the bad guy just crashed through. We want to get on with the show.

Furthermore, info-dumps are actually counter-productive. If you force feed your reader hulking blocks of information, they'll probably wind up tuning you out. Even if they don't, no reader is going to remember everything, so by the time a piece of backstory becomes relevant, they may have forgotten it.

The solution is to mete out your characterization and exposition in moderation. Give your readers only what they need, when they need it. In real life, we don't read a person's biography the day we meet them. We don't memorize maps and history books before we move to a new city. We just dive in head first and learn as we go. Make it the same way for your readers, and your book will start to feel real.

Characterization and exposition are yet another show and tell issue. Whenever possible, find a way to show us things about a character. Don't tell us the character is a lazy slob, show him tripping over a pile of dirty clothes while eating a slice of pizza that's been sitting out all night. Not only will the message come across clearer, but you will involve us in the story by inviting us to draw our own conclusions about this guy.

We're all guilty of overdoing things in first drafts. So how do you deal with it in editing?

First off, when you cut out long passages of characterization and exposition, don't simply delete them. They might contain insights you can use later. Keep all the parts you cut in a separate document. If you use character and setting sheets like mine, copy characterization into the relevant character sheet, and exposition into the relevant setting sheet. Long info-dumps aren't welcome in a story, but they make great notes that you can use to inform your decisions moving forward.

Look for any long, unbroken paragraphs. Anywhere you spend a lot of time in the narrative voice, you might be info-dumping. In general, I try to start a new paragraph every time there would be a camera cut if my story were a movie. Any time I see a long paragraph in my own work, chances are there's some info-dumping going on.

That won't always be the case, but it's a good rule of thumb to look for excessive characterization and exposition in passages of narrative. Dialogue and internal monologue will convey information about your characters, but they do so unobtrusively. In fact, dialogue and internal monologue are the best ways to get your characters across, so you don't really want to cut it unless it's just too much at once.

...and if you're going to show people doing things, why
not show them doing AWESOME things?

With settings, you should always try to show people doing things. Don't tell us about an environment, find some way for a character to interact with it. Don't give us a history lesson, make someone need information about a place's history. Make that information mean something in the present.

There are no hard and fast rules on how to write characterization and exposition, or on how to cut them out when they're clogging up your story. The result you're going for is characters and settings that come to life without you ever conspicuously throwing the "on" switch. You don't want readers to know about your characters, you want them to feel their emotions. You don't need readers to pass a quiz on your setting's history, you want them to feel like they've lived there. So just toss your readers into the fray and let them sort it out. They can handle it in their real lives. Assume they're intelligent enough to handle it in your story.

The Ten Commanments of Fiction Writing, Part Ten

As a student of the art of fiction, there are several axioms and pieces of advice that I come across again and again; "show, don't tell", "write what you know", "don't trick the reader", etc. These aren't items from a single book, they're everywhere. Some of them surely originate with specific authors, but as ideas they've taken on a life of their own, becoming more than something one person said.

In this series, I will try to gather all those admonitions, encouragements, and adages into a single, definitive list; the Ten Commandments of Fiction Writing. Hopefully this will be as fun and educational for you as it is for me.

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Commandment Ten: Thou shalt write what thou knowest, and know all thou mayest.

I think I might have gotten the "Olde English" wrong in the title. Wanna fight about it?

ANYWAY...

This last commandment is one you're sick of hearing: write what you know. It means you should share your experiences in your stories. It means you should create characters you understand. It also means that if you're a middle-class white guy like me, you don't try to write from the point of view of a poor black single mother during the civil rights movement. Wittgenstein put it best; "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent."

But there's another side to this old adage, and it's this: as a writer, it is your business to learn and experience everything you possibly can.

Direct experience is best. Every experience available to the human mind has its own secrets. People don't always talk about all the emotional subtleties, and as a writer you can make the experience more real for your readers by exposing them. But sometimes direct experience isn't a wise option. You shouldn't try heroin so you can write about being a junkie. You shouldn't murder someone so you can capture the mind of a killer more accurately.

In those cases, the best resource we have is other stories. Books, movies, and quality TV shows have a lot to share, and they have one additional advantage that direct experience doesn't: they're already structured into stories. Art imitates life, but it is not equal to life. Life is messy. Stories, in order to be comprehensible, should be much more orderly. So it behooves the writer to experience as many stories as he or she can.

But as long as you're living, you might as well try to have some life experiences too. They don't necessarily have to be the big, earth-shaking ones. Every day doesn't need to be a passion play. But the world is subtle and complex, despite its humdrum appearance. There is poetry all around you; from regional dialects, to the unique flavor of a particular coffee, to the unexpected struggles of your fellow humans.

If you've taken my advice about taking notes, you know what I'm talking about. Writers should be keen observers of everything around them, particularly human nature. Watch the people who come through your life. Listen to the way they talk. Study their body language. See the face they present to the world, and try to guess what's behind it.

Never turn down an opportunity to learn about something. Be curious about the things you don't see in your everyday life; from the secret pain of a depressed person, to the daily routine of your local garbage man.

Even the most menial things like the floors you walk on contain hundreds of things you never think about. You never know what might spark an idea. Open yourself to the physical world around you. Pay close attention to all five of your senses, and always be on the lookout for details that aren't obvious. 

I remember the exact moment I started doing this myself. I was in a subway station in LA. Other than the years I spent there, I've never lived anywhere with a subway system. I had been on the NY subway when I was younger, but my senses weren't as keen then. This particular day in LA, I happened to notice the rush of air that proceeds the arrival of a train. You can feel it even before you hear the squeal of the train's brakes. This detail isn't particularly life-changing, but it gave me pause. It makes perfect sense why it happens; the air is being displaced by the train just as water is displaced when you slip into the bathtub. But I had never heard anyone mention it before. And its exactly those kind of details that make a setting real.

Details like that exist for all the five senses, and they cover the entire spectrum of human interaction. If you tune in to them, they will begin to populate your writing even without deliberate effort. The mere act of observing them plants them in your subconscious, and they begin to naturally emerge in your work.

Being open to the world around you is one of the most important habits a writer can develop. If we're to write what we know without writing exclusively about ourselves, we'd better know everything we can. (Like this quote? Click here to tweet it!)

The Ten Commandments of Fiction Writing, Part Seven

As a student of the art of fiction, there are several axioms and pieces of advice that I come across again and again; "show, don't tell", "write what you know", "don't trick the reader", etc. These aren't items from a single book, they're everywhere. Some of them surely originate with specific authors, but as ideas they've taken on a life of their own, becoming more than something one person said.

In this series, I will try to gather all those admonitions, encouragements, and adages into a single, definitive list; the Ten Commandments of Fiction Writing. Hopefully this will be as fun and educational for you as it is for me.

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Commandment Seven: Thou shalt know thy characters and settings as thyself

We've all been told to write what we know (and if you keep reading this series, you'll be told again), but that axiom works in reverse too: know what you write.

Part of my problem with pantsing is that when you begin with a blank page, you begin with flat, undeveloped characters (Like this quote? Click here to tweet it!). You might put them into a dramatic situation, but you don't really know how they'll act, and without some kind of plan for character development, you're bound to miss a few opportunities. They might surprise you, which is good, but chances are they won't start surprising you right off the bat.

Characters are the core of your story, and they are the part that readers are most likely to remember. When I read Foxfire as a lonely teenage boy, I fell in love with Maddy and Legs. I missed them when the book ended. I missed them so badly that I actually wasted the time to see the god-awful 1996 adaptation. I don't know if Joyce Carol Oates is a plotter or a pantser, but she damn sure spent some time on the characters in Foxfire. They felt more alive and real than a lot of actual people I've met.

The issue is the same for settings. If you create a setting on the fly, chances are it's going to be pretty drab on the first pass. If you describe anything, it'll probably be the most obvious stuff, and that isn't what brings settings to life. Readers are savvy enough to fill in the obvious details on their own. The key is to provide the details that aren't obvious, and just enough of them to get the reader's imagination going. To do that, you have to get your imagination going.

Settings aren't always the most important element of a story, but they can be powerful if you develop them well. Anyone who's read Lord of the Rings probably wanted to live in Middle Earth, orcs and all. I remember reading those books and vividly imagining all the food, drink, and pipe-weed the characters consumed--heck, I'd be lying if I said it wasn't part of the reason I'm a pipe smoker to this day. Little details like that made the world so real that a part of me never left. Tolkien definitely overdid it when it came to exposition, there's no question, but his setting became part of his reader's lives forever.

While I strongly advise restraint when it comes to including details about characters and settings, it never hurts to generate those details. The only way you can know too much about your characters and setting is if taking notes becomes an addiction, and keeps you from actually writing. And as a borderline OCD case, I can see where that would happen. But when you're plotting, it's worthwhile to research or create as much detail as you can. You never know when you'll see an opportunity for intrigue. It's the Pantry Method again; gather all the information you can, and only show readers the really interesting bits. The rest will be there if you need it, and if you don't so what?

For me, a well-defined task is essential. That's why I took the time to build templates to help me in this process. I've tried to ask myself every possible question, and when I'm plotting a story, I answer as many as I can. If that sounds helpful to you, Check out my Plotting Resources page, where you can download all of my plotting templates.

Even if you're not a plotter, you need to find a way to get into your characters and explore your settings. Without them, your book is a synopsis at best.

The Ten Commandments of Fiction Writing, Part Five

As a student of the art of fiction, there are several axioms and pieces of advice that I come across again and again; "show, don't tell", "write what you know", "don't trick the reader", etc. These aren't items from a single book, they're everywhere. Some of them surely originate with specific authors, but as ideas they've taken on a life of their own, becoming more than something one person said.

In this series, I will try to gather all those admonitions, encouragements, and adages into a single, definitive list; the Ten Commandments of Fiction Writing. Hopefully this will be as fun and educational for you as it is for me.

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Commandment Five: Thou shalt not bear false witness unto the reader

This one is bound to stir up some controversy, but I'm pretty convinced of this rule. In short, you should never mislead the reader.

The operative word there is "you". You, the author, have a responsibility to the reader. Whether you want them to or not, they assume whatever you say is true, within the context of the story. Assuming you've written it clearly, they imagine things just the way you say them. If you then pull a switch on them, you break that trust. For the remainder of your story (and possibly your career) readers will be eyeing every word with suspicion, and that knocks them out of the story. Instead of focusing on your plot and characters, they're focused on figuring out what sort of tricks you're playing.

One of the most cited examples of this mistake is the technique of beginning with a false awakening. On one hand, false awakenings are a real part of human experience, so writing about them is justified in that sense. But on the other hand, they break a story's momentum right at the beginning. It's not fair to open on a dramatic situation, get readers into it, and suddenly tell them it's not real. (That said, I have been guilty of the false awakening beginning. But I had a reason: my story centered on a character who suffered from nightmares, which in turn fueled his chronic hypnophobia. Without a glimpse of his nightmares, I felt the hypnophobia would have been less believable.)

Similarly, the "twist-for-twist's-sake" ending (employed most famously in the works of M. Night Shyamalan) is almost always a poor choice. In most situations, a gigantic twist at the end of a story simply negates everything that came before it. It signifies that everything we've just read or watched didn't really matter. Who wouldn't feel betrayed by that?

If you're writing a mystery, misdirection can be good. In fact, some degree of it is expected. Mystery as a genre challenges the reader to figure out the truth before the protagonist does. But really, that's not the type of misleading I'm talking about here. In a mystery, a clue is presented as possibly true. The detective eyes every piece of information with suspicion, and so does the reader. And more importantly, the detective and the reader are aware of the same things. The detective does not hide anything from the reader.

What I'm against is unreliable narrators--unless they are a character in their own right. Let me explain. (If you've read my articles about Narrative Mood and Point of View, you might be able to guess where I'm going with this.)

If your narrator is going to lie to the reader, they have to have a motive. If the narrator is simply you, the author, then your only possible motive is to seem clever to the reader. True, readers do like surprises, but not when they arise out of an effort to be cute. It's the literary equivalent of a pun. Readers get it, but it makes them groan internally.

Readers expect a disembodied, non-character narrator to be impartial. Whether that narrator is omniscient or not, they exist merely to recount events as they happen. When they disregard that task, their reason for existing is called into question, and the fourth wall breaks down.

However, if your narrator is a character in their own right, they might have any number of motives to lie. As a character--even if they're not directly involved in the story--they are behind the fourth wall, and thus their disingenuous narration does not break the fictive dream.

As with so many of these commandments, this boils down to avoiding any practice which makes the reader aware of you instead of the story. The joy of reading fiction is that you become immersed in another world, and anything that threatens that threatens the joy of reading.

So don't lie to your readers. By all means, have your characters lie to them, but don't do it yourself. (Like this quote? Click here to tweet it!)

The Ten Commandments of Fiction Writing, Part Three

As a student of the art of fiction, there are several axioms and pieces of advice that I come across again and again; "show, don't tell", "write what you know", "don't trick the reader", etc. These aren't items from a single book, they're everywhere. Some of them surely originate with specific authors, but as ideas they've taken on a life of their own, becoming more than something one person said.

In this series, I will try to gather all those admonitions, encouragements, and adages into a single, definitive list; the Ten Commandments of Fiction Writing. Hopefully this will be as fun and educational for you as it is for me.

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Commandment Three: Thou shalt not intrude upon the story

Author intrusion is one of the most common and irritating mistakes made by writers. And it's not limited to amateurs, or even to writing; if you've ever watched a movie and been annoyed by an incessant voice over explaining every little nuance of what's going on, you've been a victim of author (filmmaker?) intrusion.

Dave King and Renni Browne deal with this issue in Self-Editing, when they give the editor's maxim R.U.E - "Resist the Urge to Explain!" When an author intrudes on her story to explain something, she commits three crimes: a) she underestimates her own ability to show what's going on, b) she assumes her readers aren't attentive or intelligent enough to get what's going, and c) she assumes that the readers need or want to know every little nuance of what's going on. Let's look at each crime in turn.

First, if you're over-explaining because you lack confidence, either you aren't a very good writer, and you should take some time to hone your craft, or what you're writing is too complex. If you're falling all over yourself trying to explain it, maybe you should pull back and look at what that event's job is in your story. Can that job be done by a simpler event? If several things are happening at once, can you find a way to spread them out so you can write them more simply? Don't go beyond what's absolutely necessary unless you have a very good reason. And if you must, it's worth taking the time to break scenes down into their essential parts, and figure out the most direct way of putting them across.

If you're over-explaining because you're afraid readers can't figure it out on their own, complexity may still be an issue. But it might just be that you're not giving the average reader enough credit. Remember, readers are smart. Reading makes you smart. Writing down to your audience is a sure way to alienate them. To paraphrase Browne and King, resisting the urge to explain pays readers the compliment of assuming they're intelligent.

If you're over-explaining because you assume the reader wants all this information, I've got some news for you: they don't. By and large, readers (and movie audiences) prefer to have just what they need to understand what's going on. Deeper understanding usually comes only with repeated readings, which is a sign of commitment to a particular story. You can't expect everyone who picks up your book to commit to it in this way. Not everyone is going to turn into a fanboy of your work. By force-feeding the reader more detail than they want or need, you force them to become a fanboy just to understand the basics. It's like asking someone to marry you on a first date. (Like this quote? Click here to tweet it!)

Over-explanation is just one form that author intrusion takes. Purple prose, tangential narrative, excessive description, and ham-handed characterization and exposition can all be forms of author intrusion. In fact, anything that distracts from the story in order to serve the author's whims is intrusion. Any time you get in the way of your story, you are unwelcome.

So don't write fancier than you have to, just write clearly. Don't take detours just to show us some neat idea you cooked up; make the idea matter, or don't include it. When describing things, provide just enough detail to get the reader's imagination going, then get out of the way (my Inverse Coco Chanel Principle will help you achieve this). Don't dump mounds of backstory on your readers, let them get to know your characters and settings gradually, they way they do with real people and places. It isn't just easier to read, it makes your world seem more realistic. And for God's sake, don't base a character on yourself and then expend huge amounts of time on that character, it makes you look desperate.

That's what it all comes down to: author intrusion makes you look desperate. Which is understandable, to some degree. We write because we want to be known. If we didn't want attention, we wouldn't write. But overdoing it will drive readers away just like overdoing it in social situations drives potential friends away. Remember that you are part of everything in your story, and everything in your story is part of you (Like this quote? Click here to tweet it!). There's no need to put on a silly costume and dance for your readers. If they are reading your book, they are reading you.

Let them!

A Writer's Look at Star Wars: The Force Awakens

If you're breathing at the moment, you've heard the buzz about Star Wars, Episode VII. Matter of fact, you've probably already seen it. If you haven't, you can't really complain about the spoilers that follow. Get off your ass and see the movie.

Consider yourself warned.

In my lifetime, there has never been a movie like this. Every year sees a handful of hotly anticipated movies; some sequels to successful blockbusters, others high-minded Oscar hopefuls, still others adaptations of already well-known works. But if you added up all the anticipation for every movie that's come out since I was born, it wouldn't even come close to the buildup for Episode VII.

And that, in itself, made it possibly the greatest writing challenge I've ever witnessed. The prequels were big news, sure, but once that first one hit theaters, we were all rolling our eyes for the remaining two. Star Wars has been big business since day one, but those movies--even before we knew they sucked--didn't have the kind of energy around them that Episode VII does. It was like "Hey, they're finally making a new Star Wars. Cool!", and that was about as excited as any 'normal' person got.

But after the travesty that was Episodes I-III, the stakes done got raised. On the one hand, you had what was arguably the most beloved and world-changing media franchise of all time, and on the other, you had a flaccid, blatantly commercial prequel trilogy that just took a massive Cleveland steamer on the whole thing. Never has the ache for redemption been so strong.

I got my hopes up when I heard the important players from the original cast were coming back. That was the first sign, to me. If they had made another Star Wars without Harrison Ford, I would have seen it out of a nerdy sense of duty, not genuine desire. But the cast did come back.

The next worry I had was "Who's writing it?". Perhaps it's professional bias, but to me, the writer is more important than the director (ideally, they're the same person, but I knew this project was going to be a team effort). As long as a director is professional, and doesn't get up his own ass with technique-y gimmicks (I.E. Alejandro González Iñárritu), most directing styles are tolerable to me. Even, mood permitting, that of the much-maligned Michael Bay.

When I watch a movie, I can't help seeing right past the veneer of characterization, exposition, setting, etc, right to the narrative structure. I like stories that display symmetry, minimalism, and a clear causality. I like my stories to have everything they need, and nothing they don't. So I was happy when I learned that J.J. Abrams was in charge, along with help from George Lucas's old pal Lawrence Kasdan, and Pixar alum Michael Arndt. That is a satisfying meeting of minds, and I think it produced a winning script.

The Force Awakens has been criticized for being too similar to A New Hope, and I think that's a somewhat valid note. We have a lonely youngster on a desert planet, with tenuous ties to a family they hardly know getting swept up in an interstellar conflict; a Big Bad in black who will do anything to squash the emerging threat to his power; an adorable droid sidekick who needs to get to his master; a somewhat grizzled mentor character who convinces the hero the force is real...I could go on. We even begin the same way: resistance hero gets in a sticky situation and has to hide a crucial piece of information by giving it to a droid, who runs off and fortuitously meets up with our protagonist. And the climax is the same too: A ragtag group of rebels, spurred on by the cruel display of the badguys' power, locate and exploit the one weakness of the weapon that created said display.

I could go on.  For a long while.

It's true that a lot of things will look too familiar to some. But to me, these things are more about narrative symmetry and paying homage than they are about being derivative. Taking notes from Episode IV was a sound strategy to ensure a higher quality story. I would have done the same. In fact, that's all I know how to do: take inspirations, beats, and elements from high-quality source material, mix them up, and add a few new things. I'm a big believer in the old saying that there's nothing new under the sun, but it doesn't bother me, because shuffling familiar elements has a way of producing sound, likable stories, and the forces of chaos ensure just enough new, fresh material to keep things interesting. So I'm glad that Episode VII took more than a few notes from Episode IV. Anyone who has a problem with something reliably good is a masochist.

The visual element was important to me too. One of the biggest problems with Episodes I-III was that all the CGI was so shiny and fresh looking, it broke the fourth wall. All I could see was special effects. I couldn't see the characters at the heart of it. But it would seem that we've finally entered an era where technology has caught up with the goals of the filmmakers that use it. I can still tell what's CGI in Episode VII, but only because I know what's possible and what's not. just to look at it, the seams don't show at all, and that kept me in the movie.

Structurally, the movie is rock solid. Its characters have the vibrant, timeless quality that made the original engaging. Rey is a great hero; I'm a sucker for a tough chick that can hold her own in a fight; something that Star Wars has always been known for (I.E. Leia). Klyo Ren has been lampooned for being too 'emo', but I actually like that about him. I think his volatility makes him more dangerous, and it keeps him from being just a clone of Vader. His voice under the helmet even makes me think of Tom Hardy's Bane, but at a Teen Titans age.

I was sad to see Han go, but again, I probably would have done the same. Someone had to die to lend credibility to Kylo Ren's villainy, and if you're gonna kill somebody in a story, you've got to make it hurt the audience as much as possible. I can't imagine any Star Wars death that would affect fans more.

The most intriguing things about Episode VII were our two new mysteries: the identity of Supreme Leader Snoke, and the identity of Rey's family. Personally, I think Rey's situation is obvious to anyone who was paying attention. She's a Kenobi, through and through. My money is that she's Obi-Wan's granddaughter. They dress the same, they have the same self-possessed confidence, and when I saw Rey climbing around an area of Starkiller Base that was very reminiscent of the first Death Star, it clicked. And it made the end of the movie all the more poignant: once again, we have a calm, wise Kenobi handing a troubled Skywalker his weapon, beckoning him back into the fray.

Snoke bugs me though. Andy Serkis, who portrayed him in the movie, assured us that Snoke is a completely new character, but I find that unlikely. First of all, it strains against believability; that someone hitherto unknown in the Star Wars universe had the motive, means, and opportunity to attempt to rebuild the Galactic Empire seems crazy to me. How does he have the resources? How does he have the connections? Why does he even want to?

It seems more likely to me that either Snoke is someone we already know, or he has a connection to someone we know. Otherwise, the stakes just aren't high enough. Emperor Palpatine was a mighty, thoroughly intimidating villain who held the galaxy in an iron fist for six movies. He was damn hard to defeat; if it wasn't for Anakin Skywalker's last-second conversion, he probably wouldn't have been. It was one of the narrowest victories ever. And Snoke has to top that, otherwise the third trilogy will actually lower the stakes. I just don't think that a total unknown can come onstage and be more evil and manipulative than the Emperor. Palpatine is up there with Satan when it comes to embodiments of evil. He's so evil, he's a metaphor for evil. So Snoke better have some serious chops, or it will subtly ruin the new trilogy for me.

That said, my hopes are high. J.J. Abrams knows how to spin a web of lies and confusion in order to keep the audience guessing. Lawrence Kasdan knows how to honor the movies that came before, and make use of the best elements in them. And Michael Arndt knows story structure, and has a knack for creating bright, engaging, sympathetic characters. As long as those minds are involved--or at least minds of similar quality--the forthcoming movies will be great.

Editing Characters

Good characters make the difference between memorable stories and forgettable ones. If you're like me, you spend hours poring over character sheets, writing journals and scenes, and collecting details to enrich your characters. Character development is an essential part of plotting.

But what about when the first draft is finished?

Like all facets of novel-writing, character development doesn't have clean borders. The process does not stop and start at any given time. I'd be willing to bet J.K. Rowling is still finding out new things about Harry Potter nearly ten years after the last book was penned.

Don't be scared to edit your characters after you've finished your first draft. In fact, you must do this. Because no matter how carefully you plan them, a good character can still surprise you. In editing, your job is to find those surprises, and react to them.

The first thing I look for when editing characters is places where they have deviated from the character sheets I created during the plotting phase. Sometimes this will be something minute like the color of their eyes, other times it will be something gigantic, like their backstory, or an emotional reaction you would not have predicted from the character sheet.

Typically, whatever has "accidentally" flowed out onto the page is preferable, but not always. Sometimes you'll write your character acting one way, only to remember that you had a very good reason for planning him another way.

For example, I might write a scene where my exorcist priest character hears the confession of a colleague. It might have been the natural thing for him to do in the course of the story. But I might look back and recall that my exorcist priest is supposed to have lost his faith, which gives him a character arc to go through. Depending on the timing of the scene, I might want the exorcist to refuse to help his colleague because he's still battling with his lack of faith.

If you're writing a series of books, you might plan certain character flaws that enable the character to remain interesting or active in your sequels, but in the haphazard process of drafting, you might inadvertently cause the character to overcome those flaws, leaving them with no internal demons in the sequels. In that case, you're probably better off revising your current book such that the demons remain.

Spontaneity is one of the joys of writing, but don't necessarily change your character sheets because it seems like less work. Sometimes it's better to revise the draft back to your original plan. Most of the time, however, the organic development that comes from drafting can produce great results. Whatever you do, make sure to balance what's in your draft against what's in your plotting notes, and choose the direction that results in a better story.

Another important thing I do when editing characters is take a step back and see if there are too many. In my post on character roles, I outlined Dramatica's model of the story jobs available to characters. While the model has some flexibility, it's true that it is seldom a good idea to have two characters fulfilling the same role. Even if you're set up with one character for each job, you might still have too many character arcs cluttering up your novel's emotional space. When I finish a novel, one of the first things I look for is the opportunity to combine characters.

Something magical happens when you take two developed characters and mash them into a single person: you create automatic internal conflict. Not only that, you end up with someone fresher and more original than what you had going in.

Say you have a love interest character in a detective story. She's a typical damsel in distress; you've developed her well, and you like her, but she's not exactly jumping off the page. Then say you have a minor antagonist or a contagonist (see this post for more on what a contagonist is) in the form of a nosy cop. What if the girl was the cop? What if the damsel-n-distress routine was just a ruse to get in the detective's good graces?

Changing characters' motivations and roles can be a tricky business, and it can result in a heavy workload. That's why I recommend doing it in the developmental stage, when you'll be making the biggest changes. Think hard about the possibilities, and be willing to put in the extra work. More than any other element, your characters are your story. It's worth a few extra days at the keys to make them the best they can be.