Can you write smart characters even if you arent one?

[Tatsuo]

Sometimes I feel its hard to think what a smart person would do in dire situations that is need to be solved quickly or would say to fix certain problems.

 

[Glitched]

It's perfectly possible to write a smart character. One of the biggest differences you have to your advantage is time. Characters often think in the heat of a moment, and a smart person may reach a more efficient conclusion then his less intelligent counterparts in the same amount of time(within the story). However, as an author, you have unlimited time to connect the dots and think of the most optimal solution. Think of how people can study to get an A the same way the naturally smart kid can get an A without studying. You have time to your advantage, so use it to make determine and choices that are smart, even if you feel like you aren't really that intelligent.

 

[TheIcMan]

I would also like to know lmfao. How do you do it without significantly dumbing down other characters to make whoever you want feel smart. Like how the hell does that mf write Kingdom with insanely high iq characters.

I think it’s all dependent on setup and information. Solutions should be offered to problems that don’t exist yet. It’s all groundwork to come up with a satisfying conclusion.

However I am not smart so take what I said with a grain of salt

 

[CharlesEBrown]

The problem is not writing a smart character - it is convincing the READER that the character is as smart as you claim. And, IME, it is much easier to create a convincing smart character (because he or she has knowledge most others do not, as they can directly access the author's brain) than a convincing dumb character as a writer.

Heck, I have one character who keeps outthinking me (have only got three chapters of his story written so far. He is a VERY unreliable narrator, casually withholding information from EVERYONE, including the reader and his author)...

 

[3guanoff]

As for a smart character, you might occasionally show the reader why or how the character acquired that knowledge. "Might" being key here. Ever watched that BBC Sherlock series? It proves that your explanations do not need to make sense. People want to believe that someone who knows more than them is smarter than them, and, that it is only natural not to understand smart people's reasoning...

The problem is not writing a smart character - it is convincing the READER that the character is as smart as you claim. And, IME, it is much easier to create a convincing smart character (because he or she has knowledge most others do not, as they can directly access the author's brain) than a convincing dumb character as a writer.

Heck, I have one character who keeps outthinking me (have only got three chapters of his story written so far. He is a VERY unreliable narrator, casually withholding information from EVERYONE, including the reader and his author)...

I disagree with convincingly creating dumb characters being difficult. To create a dumb character, create a character who acts before he thinks. You can have other characters question his actions and him act as any such man would: dumbfounded.

 

[Tatsuo]

Noted

 

[Puji-Maki]

Short answer, Yes. Long answer, Yeeeesssssssss.

 

[Tatsuo]

What do you guys think a smart person speaks like?
Wondering because anime tend to show smart people as speaking cooly with long verbose words about whatnot also with glasses.

 

[yinjenxie]

Depends because some smart people are arrogant in their tone, soft in their reprimands, or the silent type whose indifferent looks give you that uncomfortable vibe.

What do you guys think a smart person speaks like?
Wondering because anime tend to show smart people as speaking cooly with long verbose words about whatnot also with glasses.

The reason for coolness is possibly because it is more entertaining to the audience, like stuff is about to go down when this character pushes up their glasses, or when their glasses glint (I'm looking at you Detective Conan).

What's important is their background: Lived in poverty? Surrounded by richness? Spoiled brat? and how their smartness is shaped by their life experiences, or vice versa.

 

[Tatsuo]

Your insight to me is valuable.
Thank you

 

[beast_regards]

I would like to point out that Sherlock Holmes (original, Doyle's books) aren't written from the perspective of the smart character (i.e. Sherlock Holmes himself), but from the perspective of his assistant, Dr. Watson. Dr. Watson himself is not stupid per se, he is a medical doctor, thus educated gentleman (and thus intellectual) for the standards of the era, but he is not the one who solves the conflict (i.e. murder case) and mindset of Sherlock doesn't need to be explained. That's the premise. He (Sherlock Holmes) is the genius here.

What most web novels tend to do is to write a character that is precognitive rather than intelligent, and authors (and their audience) merely call them smart.

In other words (web novel mechanic)

MC John knows which numbers win the lottery.

He uses the lottery money to buy a ticket to New York.

In New York, he travels to the Empire State Building and jumps from the top of it exactly at 2:21:31 PM, because he knows that exactly at the 13th floor his falling body would collide with the meteor that gives them first ever occurrence of the superpower in the world.

This is how web novels present "smart" even though it is precognition with perfect execution, which itself is a superpower.

 

[Deleted member 84247]

I wouldn't say a character is smart first of all. As soon as you do that, readers will put them under a magnifying glass. Everything they do will become scrutinized. It's better to have the reader reach the conclusion that the character is smart through actions.

 

[Zagaroth]

In my experience, there are a few tricks to writing a smart character, for at least some values of 'smart', as 'smart' covers a lot of different traits that are often independent.

Well-educated: They will tend to use slang less and precise language more. They will not use larger words to show off (unless insecure), but they will use them to be more exact about their meaning. They will also tend to be either very knowledgeable about a field of study, or broadly knowledgable about many subjects, but few of them in depth.

Good at [Thing]: Depends on how extreme you want it to be, but the most common one would probably be math. How you would demonstrate this would probably depend on the story. If you have a lot of travel involved, and the group has traveled from A to B, and from B to C, but never directly between A and C, the math person could easily calculate an estimate between A and C (geometry/Pythagorean's theorem), noting "this does not account for terrain, so consider it a minimum distance/time."

Another story might find the math person figuring out the volume of a container with barely enough information ("hey, could you stand next to the tank a moment? Thanks... okay, that tank has about [value] gallons of (precious/dangerous liquid) in it.") Really, anything that might have you googling "how do I find out [value]?" and using your calculator app could do here. The character who is extremely good at math has memorized the formulas because they use them a lot, and can do them in their head, including long division.

Oh, long division in their head might be really useful.
Character A: Alright, so we have this much food and this many soldiers, so, um...
Character B: "X weeks and Y days of rations, rounded down, given a ration of [size] per day, probably less after accounting for spoilage. We can stretch it more if we use [smaller size], giving us X2 weeks and Y2 days, but spoilage will be even more of an issue so well-preserved food should be eaten last."

Bookwyrm Bookworm: Similar to well-educated, but even more widely spread and with spottier knowledge. So they'll know one or two very specific things about a random culture, and won't remember anything else they've read about that culture. Replace "culture" with any other subject as needed.

Fast Thinker: This one can be trickier to write, but is hypothetically really easy to demonstrate. You have some fast-paced event happen (such as combat or natural disaster) that has a lot of moving parts, and show the character first easily keeping track of the chaos and then passing on information/suggestions/orders to efficiently organize their group and maximize their effectiveness.

Combinations: This is where you run into the potential for ridiculous abilities of thinking, but if you have something like a very old Dungeon Core, I would expect them to be able to effectively drop into 'bullet time' mode where they are able to react to a lot of things all at once while calculating trajectories of arrows, analyzing the estimated power of a mage based on the effects of a well-known spell they cast, pulling up obscure information to use in the current situation, etc.

 

[BearlyAlive]

First of all, smart characters aren't the "by rejecting to go according to my plan, you have acted as I wanted as according to contingency #46209 and thereby did exactly what I wanted" n-dimensional chess-champion omniscient masterminds animes like Derp Noted or Code Brainrot want you to believe.

Normally "smart" characters are either those who know more about certain fields or efficiently use what they have to reach what they want. Giving a normal character a stick would just lead to them trying to whack whatever problem, a smart character might use the stick to reach even more sticks, use it as a fishing rod, use it to dowse, since they read about it, or something else. They also are more likely to have more than a few contingencies, if they ever need them.

 

[Bartun]

There is a difference between intelligence and experience. A character might be smart and still make stupid-ass decisions if they don't have the experience.

 

[RepresentingDesire]

If you that you can fall into a fallacy where every smart person just knows stuff or gets the conclude out of nowhere.

Zagaroth has explained everything already pretty well.
But knowing how rational or its three parts function (deduction, abduction, induction) will be helpful writing smart characters, even if the specific words aren't used.

 

[JayMark]

I genie so i no had tis problam.

 

[Selfmaiden]

I love this question, because every time I write a smart character I get this imposter-syndrome-kind-of feeling. But saying to you, since you are not me: It is perfectly possible since you as the author do have way more time and control over your story. Like: You can think of a good conclusion for a problem for days - you may even research knowledge you do not possess if needed - and then just act as if it was just casually thrown in by the more intelligent character. :-)

 

[Tegeli]

Just assume the audience isn't all that smart either. Unfortunately I can't employ this easy tip because my readers are all highly intelligent individuals with immaculate taste.

 

[Hans.Trondheim]

You write a smart character, then post on RR.

Bam! It becomes a dumb character (along with you), instantly. Thank the smart reader who applies Earth science and physics to every fantasy world that is written, as well as his skewed highly-intelligent view of everyone else around him.