Something I think about a lot in my writing is the concept of intelligence, especially when it comes to my characters. I fancy myself a decently smart dude. I have some diplomas, a love and curiosity for science, and I try to always be learning or absorbing something, but I do not want to be limited by my intelligence when it comes to my characters. In other words, I want to write characters smarter than me, but is that possible?
Time is the balance on that. With enough time, knowledge, and hindsight, you could probably plan the perfect Normandy invasion. With the resources on hand, there must have existed some plan, some training, some idea, or some combination thereof that would have resulted in a more rapid victory with less cost of life. It’s possible a few people have even run these scenarios since. That’s a little like writing an intelligent character. As writers, we have the time to figure out everything from a witty comeback to turning the tide in a war and the creative license to back it up.
The gray area also helps. Every story has gray area whether you want it to or not. If it didn’t it would be a slog to read. When you start a story, the reader doesn’t know every character’s back story and meaning for existence, and by the end, they likely won’t know much more either. Maybe they will know a lot about one or a handful of characters, but some details will never be known.
The truth is the writer doesn’t know this either. They may know the highlights and for some short-lived characters, what you see might be all they ever thought of, but those instances where the writer does know more than the reader that’s the gray area. This gray area can add unique motivations and give a story texture and can keep a character interesting. What’s better, knowing that your main is going to kill this Rick guy the second he sees him, or just that he knows who Rick is and he’s looking for him? Of course, as he’s looking for him, the writer can drop subtle clues that will demonstrate intelligence after the fact. It’s the Ocean’s Eleven strategy. When the reader is kept in the dark about a plan, it can make the plan seem far more intelligent when they finally see all the pieces come together at the height of the narrative.
And then you have shit that even the author doesn’t know, but they don’t need to. A character might be smart because they know how to engage the fission ports on an interstellar warp reactor, but since that’s not a real thing we don’t know how smart that is. The author has control here and by the time the character is ready to prove his worth—if the writer is worth his or her salt—there have already been a few scenes that would establish the intelligence of such an act. If not directly, then at the very least indirectly.
Why try to write more intelligent characters at all? You don’t have to. But I’d rather not have something that I don’t think I can write. If there’s a tool out there, I want it in my repertoire.
Quote of the Moment:
“Why is it that when one man builds a wall, the next man immediately needs to know what’s on the other side?”
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones
Current Reads:
Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo
The Demon of Unrest by Erik Larson