How do you write a character who’s smarter, wittier, more cunning than you?
Let’s go over some tips together then practice writing a character together who’s smarter than us!
During the last stream, a subscriber requested that we go over how to write a character who’s smarter than you.
Watch a shortened version of the stream here or scroll down for what we did.
How to Write a Character Who is Smarter Than You
- When you write a story, at some point you’re going to have to write a character who is smarter than you, the author
- Maybe they’re smarter because they have knowledge in a field that you don’t, or maybe because they speak more cleverly, or maybe because they can plan galaxy-brain schemes
- Let’s go over some tips for all three of those, to see how we can write characters who are smarter than we are!
Tip #0: Don’t TELL us they’re smart, SHOW us
- If you just tell the reader that a character has 200 IQ, or is the smartest kid in school or whatever, they’re not going to care
- Instead, SHOW the character being smart
- Have the 200 IQ person solve a problem at work in an unexpected way, or have the smart kid deal with bullies in a smooth way that doesn’t even feel smart but is
- Don’t be tempted by simple ways of showing off intelligence either, like a debate or a smart-sounding speech, that has the chance of coming off as pretentious/unlikeable
#1. A character who has KNOWLEDGE you don’t
- Andy Weir, the author of The Martian, is a computer programmer who wrote about a biologist left behind alone on Mars who survives by growing potatoes
- How did he write someone so smart? Here’s what he said:
“I got a lot of input from those early readers. Especially on the chemistry, which is my weakest discipline. Chemists would say, ‘Oh hey, yeah, you were almost right. Here’s what you said happens in the book, but here’s what would actually happen. And you could fix it by saying this.’
“It was really helpful. I had electrical engineers emailing me. I had a reactor tech on a US nuclear submarine, just telling me how this stuff works. It was amazing. Because I didn’t have any contacts in aerospace at the time. I didn’t know anyone in NASA. All my research was just Google.”
- He hits the nail on the head there: to write a character who has knowledge that you don’t, you have to do research
- Google is a great place to start, but actually talking with people who have experience that you don’t is even better
- Sometimes your research/interviews will give you cool ideas you didn’t even have before, like Andy Weir said:
“A good example is when [the main character is] farming the potatoes. …there’s just no way a manned mission would have enough water to do this. So I got stuck on that.
“Now, I could just hand wave. If I just didn’t mention it at all, I would have got away with it. But it bothered me that this wouldn’t really work. I needed to come up with a way for him to generate hundreds of litres of water. And that led to what I think is one of the best sub-plots of the book, where you have this whole complicated process of making water – and he blows himself up.”
#2. A character who speaks more CLEVERLY than you
- Maybe you don’t just want your character to act smart, you want them to sound smart too
- Let’s take a look at some smart-sounding characters from The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss: Kvothe and Elodin
- Here’s a conversation between adult Kvothe and his pupil Bast
Bast: “Today, master, I learned why great lovers have better eyesight than great scholars.”
Kvothe: “And why is that, Bast?”
Bast: “All the rich books are found inside where the light is bad. But lovely girls tend to be out in the sunshine and therefore much easier to study without risk of injuring one’s eyes.”
Kvothe: “But an exceptionally clever student could take a book outside, thus bettering himself without fear of lessening his much-loved faculty of sight.”
- Kvothe could have easily just dismissed Bast, or sighed and immediately asked him if that was an excuse for not doing his required reading for the day
- But instead we get a quippy comeback, one that is playful, wise, and uses a slightly fancy structure
- Here’s a conversation between teenager Kvothe and a teacher at his university, Elodin, the master of naming magic:
“Master Elodin,” I said, pelting up to him. “I was hoping I could talk to you.”
“A sad little hope,” he said without breaking stride or looking in my direction. “You should aim higher. A young man ought to be afire with high ambitions.”
“I hope to study naming then,” I said, falling into step beside him.
“Too high,” he said matter-of-factly. “Try again. Somewhere in between.”
- Then, when Elodin finally rejects Kvothe:
“You lack the requisite spine and testicular fortitude to study under me.”
- Elodin doesn’t just say things straight, he takes Kvothe on a journey with his words, riding a line between insulting and silly
- He could’ve easily just said no, but instead he plays with Kvothe like a toy, showing off his superiority in a cool way
How can you write like this yourself? Easy. You have the benefit of time.
- Have you ever thought of the perfect comeback a day after the fact? That’s exactly what writing is, doing that a thousand times. – You can write [insert comeback here], write more of the story, then come back when you know exactly what it needs to be
- And even if you can’t come up with something, that’s what other readers are for, to give suggestions for clever speech
#3. A character who plans more CUNNINGLY than you
- Maybe your character doesn’t just know things and sound smart, but their mind itself works in incredible ways
- One good example of this is the character Amy from Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
- In the book, Amy spends over a year planning her own fake murder to punish her husband Nick for cheating on her
- She creates tons of fake diaries full of entries about their failing relationship, and makes up stories about Nick’s violent tendencies
- She even fabricates a failed pregnancy, buys a shedful of violent pornography under Nick’s name, puts her own blood on a murder weapon, and manipulates Nick into increasing the value of her insurance policy as a motive
- Even when her plan backfires, and she is robbed while living her “new life”after her faked death, she cunningly escapes by setting it up to look like an ex-boyfriend kidnapped her, tortured her, and Nick is innocent, so she can reunite with him
- And even then! When Nick tries to turn her in, because he knows what she’s done, she has one more trump card: impregnating herself with their fertility clinic stores, and threatening to keep the child from him
- As manipulative/evil as Amy’s plan is, it’s incredible, and while reading you’re amazed at her every step of the way
So how do you write someone so cunning? Easy. You just plan it all in reverse, figure out where you want the story to end, and reverse engineer it from there
End: Evil wife manipulates husband into staying silent
How? By threatening to keep their child from him
Setup: Bring up fertility clinic at some point
End: Wife manipulates ex-boyfriend into taking her in
How? He still loves her and hates her husband
Setup: Show interactions between him and wife/husband earlier
End: Husband is arrested for wife’s murder due to evidence
How? Motive, weapon, violent history
Setup: Insurance money increase, blood on weapon in shed, faked diary entries that we read
- When thinking about complex plans in reverse, they go from incredible to almost obvious
- But remember, it won’t seem that way to the reader, who’s reading the story regularly, from beginning to end NOT in reverse, and will react to each step of the plan as it unfolds
After that, chat voted on this prompt for us to practice writing a smart character together: a famous chef cooks the tastiest meal for the king, and will be executed if the king doesn’t like it.
Here’s what we wrote:
Marcellus had one week to appease the king’s taste buds. For ten years he had served as the king’s royal chef, but the last one had been filled with terror. Ever since the king’s wife, Queen Araballea had passed away, he had become more and more of a merciless tyrant. Everything that Marcellus and all the other palace chefs crafted for him ended in roars of hatred.
“Disgusting!” the king howled, swiping the roast peacock to the throne room floor. Its stuffing, crafted by Marcellus for hours, with beer bread, figs, raisins, and apples, lay splayed and uneaten.
“Insulting!” the king cried, flipping the plate of gold-leafed and filigree-carved ostrich egg shells, their sparkling yolks sprinkled with cloves and saffron, now dribbling on the tile floor.
“Repulsive!” the king bellowed, not even taking a single bite of the cinnamon buttermilk cake. Drizzled with almond milk and layered with pear and plum jam, it had been the late queen’s favorite dessert. Marcellus had hoped the scent and memory would quell the king’s temper, but it had ignited him more than before.
“I grow weary of your culinary sins,” the king spoke. “I have far greater concerns than what goes in my mouth, chef. The peasant rebellions. The lazy kingsguard. The Consortium of Crowns with the barbarians both east and west — the only crowns they wear are bird’s nests! I am fatigued as I am famished. Will nothing satisfy?”
“But your grace,” Marcellus said. “I have prepared you the greatest meals our kingdom has to offer.”
The king sneered at him. “Do you mean to claim your king has poor taste? I who have dined with tsars and pharaohs?”
“No, your grace! I apologize for any offence. Please, allow me to repent for the sins I have wrought upon your tongue.”
“If you cannot appease me,” the king snarled, “then you do not deserve your hands to cook with. Or your neck. You have a half-fortnight, chef, or else I will find someone with a good head still on their shoulders.”
Marcellus bowed and left to the kitchens, a plan swirling in his mind. He had already tried everything available to him within the kingdom’s borders — he needed to concoct something to appease a man who had, in his own words, dined with tsars and pharaohs.
He had some purchases to make.
***
Six days rose and set for Marcellus. He was too occupied with his grand meal preparations to cook for the king, leaving it to his apprentices, souring the king’s mood even further with their inexperienced hands.
Finally, the last day. The king was in consultation with the royal, foreign heads from his ally kingdoms — Aljara, Lettio and Fedarr — all gathered in the throne room. Usually such meetings would go undisturbed, each ruler returning to their own caravans afterward to be fed.
But Marcellus was too eager to wait. He burst into the throne room with servants carrying platters, arrayed with fantastic delicacies. The king rose from his throne, incensed with anger at the intrusion.
“Out with you lot!” he shouted. “Bid farewell to your widows, for you shall all be hanged tomorrow!”
“Wait a moment,” the Aljara ruler said, smiling slowly as he sniffed the air. “Is that—”
“Sage rice with walnuts,” Marcellus said as the dish slid onto the table before the ruler. “A favorite dish from your kingdom of Aljara, if I am to presume?”
“God’s breaking balls,” exclaimed the Lettio ruler. “Roasted tomato and—”
“Mozzarella cheese with basil, parsley, oregano and thyme,” Marcellus said, the warm aroma replacing the stale smell of politics. “I learned the recipe from a kind trader from your wonderful kingdom of Lettio.”
“Stars and witches’ brew!” the last ruler from Fedarr said. “This salmon, the smell… is it….?”
“Grilled with truffle oil, your grace,” Marcellus said, bowing with a flourish of his hands that wafted the scent toward all the rulers. “And a squeeze of lime and lemon. As I have heard they serve it in your kingdom of Fedarr.”
Only the king himself still stood, staring with hatred at Marcellus.
“Out,” he said in one heated breath. “Your ears are not permitted in these chambers.”
“Oh, quiet up,” said the Alajara ruler, licking his lips. “You bloviate like a cow and I hunger like an ox! Let’s eat!”
“If it pleases your graces,” Marcellus said, “it would give me no greater pleasure than to hear what you think of each of the meals.”
The three foreign rulers dug into the bowls before them, moaning and groaning with gastral pleasure. Only the king himself remained silent.
“Your grace,” Marcellus said with a bow. “How do you find the Aljaran rice?”
The king took a small bite, his eyes slits as they glared across the table at Marcellus. He wouldn’t dare insult such a favored dish of a foreign ally.
“It suffices,” the king said.
“Suffices?!” the Aljaran king roared. “I know you’re getting up in years and slow of thought, but has your tongue gone soft as well? Have you some disease preventing you from enjoying this incredible rice?”
The king clenched his teeth and spoke like a snake. “I apologize. You are correct. It is very good.”
“And the Lettiosh tomatoes and cheese?” Marcellus asked. “Is it to your liking?”
Again, the king could not say a negative word as he nibbled.
“It is very good,” he said.
“Very good?!” cried the Lettiosh king. “Why, I’ll have to get your chef’s recipe to bring back home. Anything less than magnificent is an insult here!”
“I apologize,” the king said. “You are correct. It is magnificent.”
“And the Fedarri salmon?” Marcellus asked.
Once again, the king did not even blink as he ate a single flake of the fish.
“It is magnificent,” the king said, devoid of emotion.
“Magnificent?” the Fedarri king growled. “This is our national dish, that which was gifted to the First King by God himself. Any kingdom that cannot appreciate His blessing is an enemy of Fedarr!”
“I apologize,” the king said. “You are correct. It is divine.”
Marcellus gave a final bow. “I am so glad to hear that, your grace. Your eating habits this past year made me so worried we would never find anything to satisfy your palate. But now that you are satiated, I ask if your threat of my execution made in hunger is no longer necessary?”
“Execution!” roared the Alajaran king, spitting rice on the table. “I took you for a fool of a king, but you are a fool of a man to execute such a chef. I will take him back with me, to have my meals prepared so exquisitely!”
“No, I take the chef!” the Lettiosh king bellowed. “My own cook’s meals will forever be swill in comparison. And my daughter Briselle is looking for a husband.”
“No!” said the Fedarri king. “I claim the chef. Please, come back with me and become my husband! Groom-queen of the kingdom.”
Marcellus was humbled by all the generous offers. He would need to consider them carefully. But for now, he didn’t want to forget his courtesies.
“My thanks to you, your grace,” he said to his soon-to-be-former king. “For this delectable opportunity.”
If you want to join us and help write a story by trolling in chat, or share your own writing for feedback, then we’d love to have you join us on Twitch.
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Hope to see you next time, friend!
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