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An interesting idea that cropped up in the shower: Is it possible for an author to write about a character who is more intelligent than they are, when said character is in a major role? Failed attempts are numerous.

For example, readers of Eragon will recall a scene in which Eragon challenges a group of travelers in a bar with this brain-teaser. "I could say the sky was green, but that doesn't make it true!" Inexplicably, everyone in the bar (even the people who had no reason to listen) falls silent in awe. Another example comes from a film riffed by Mystery Science Theater 3000 called The Rebel Set. The villain, a "criminal genius" who went by the name Mr. T, impressed our heroes with lines such as, "A great writer once said, 'A rose by another other name would still have thorns.'"

Making a character appear knowledgeable in a field (such as engineering or house cleaning) can be easily accomplished with research and a modest amount of bullshitting, but what about being intelligent in general? How much are writers limited by their own intellect and life experience in, say, the creation of a mentor figure?

But you can't spend hours sitting around trying to acheive brilliance every time your character has to solve a problem or say something meaningful, you'll get frusterated and want to move away from the story. It's happened to me before. Most of the time I think up the perfect line an hour or a couple days after I already wrote down a crappy one, then have to go back and re-write.

Not saying it's a good idea, I'm just saying it could be done. xd

To be honest, I've never really had this problem. My characters have my intelligence or lower.

Actually, I'm just about to run into that problem.

I have a couple of characters who are, literally, super-intelligent rocket scientists. And they like to talk. Thankfully, at the moment they are eight and nine years old and having their heads filled with nonsense by the Gypsy Queen, so I can make up as much crap up as I like without sounding like a moron who didn't do their research.

And then later on they get thrown in an extermination camp where rocket science is worth about as much as a handful of dirt. And most of the time that they're at the university they're avoiding the White Rose group or getting into bar fights.

So hopefully I'll only have to have a few chapters of science-rubbish and not have to go into too much detail about what they're actually doing. Only a few hours research for me!

Normally, I try and avoid creating characters that are smarter than myself. Even when I do have them, I try and keep them out of situations where they would be in the position to show off those smarts, or give them personalities where they would be unlikely to bother being smart and would just do something normal instead.

I don't know.

I simply state that they have remarkable grades at school, and then, like I said, it is mentioned that they're into rocket science and physics later on. The fact that they're smart makes itself perfectly clear without them having to show off - especially when fellow students sit around reading their notes trying to figure out just how they managed to get to a certain conclusion.

One thing you can do is have the character be interested in something you would not mind researching. This does not mean your that character has to have the same interests as you; just have an interest that if you did the research, you would not fall asleep while doing it.

For example, I could never make a decent scientist, because a lot of aspects of science bore me. I would get too frustrated doing the research (and writing science fiction in general). However, I love mythology, folklore, witch hunts, and Medieval torture and its effects. I have a sadistic Evil Overlord who is very good at bringing pain to his victims, both physically and mentally. Here, my torture research comes in handy.

I also have to keep in mind that as an Evil Overlord with the castle, the minions, the armies, a kingdom, and the works, I also have to do research on running a kingdom, and, while keeping him evil, also keep his subjects happy, because happy subjects means the kingdom prospers (taken from the Evil Overlord cliche list: "I will exploit my subjects, but I will never exploit them to desperation or destitution. I am evil, not stupid." wink . He is an excellent strategist, which means I need to know a few good war tactics to show he is a good leader and, to a point, a conquerer, though he is pretty much satisfied with what he has (kingdom-wise, anyway).

I would definitely say that he is more intelligent than I am, but he is definitely not a supergenius. I think for a character who is more intelligent than you to be believable, you need to know the limits of your own intelligence, and sort of stay in the ball park with it, not going too much more beyond it. If you feel you can handle it, take the risk. If not, try talking to someone who is smarter than you and knows more on the subject.

I've never really thought about that. The characters on the novel I'm working on now are all about my age, and of about my intelligence level. They're a little more mature than me, though. I don't know if I could pull off a character smarter than me, at least not yet.

I love that Eragon quote. I should have a rotating sig full of Eragon quotes, but that might be more painful than hilarious. gonk