Transcription
Foreign. [Music] Students. Professor JP here to teach you all about writing smart characters. From mad scientists, absent-minded professors, super geniuses, to even all-knowing robots, TWA is going to teach you everything you need to know to make sure your characters are the sharpest tools in the shed.
Actually, I'm not really a professor. I only have a Bachelor of Arts, but that won't stop me from helping all aspiring writers in the ways of writing intelligent characters. Smart characters cover a wide range of archetypes, so I will be touching on a few of them. But this chapter is more focused on how to convey the intelligence of a character. And since I'm the smartest person on the planet and the most humble, I can think of no one better to help writers make a character sound smart.
"I'm smart. I'm smart." That's what I'm saying. See? Because I'm so smart, obviously, that means I can help other people write smart characters too. Man, I'm glad I explained it to everyone, otherwise how would they know?
Now, some writers may worry that they lack the smart to write smart characters. But storytelling isn't about raw intellect. Rather, the whole thing is basically a magic show. What you are selling doesn't exist, except in the minds of the audience. A magician doesn't actually conjure a rabbit out of a hat from nothing. Rather, they make the audience believe that the rabbit came from magic. So it is with the character's intelligence. A writer does not need the character to really be a super genius, no more than a writer needs to convince the audience that the wizard is casting magic that one could find in reality, or convince the audience that the cyborg is using real-life cybernetics.
What the writer must do instead is draw the audience into the story so that their eyes are immersed in the story, rather than the sleight of hand the writer uses behind the scenes. In summary, the character doesn't have to actually be smart, but rather the writer must sell the idea that the character is smart to the audience. Got all that? Good. Throw it all away, because we're going to cheat and take shortcuts.
The shortest of the cuts is to just have all the other characters insist that the character is smart. Having everyone yammer on and on about how smart a character is will work, even when the story never does a single thing to show how the character is smart. If that's not enough, then have the smart character themselves go on and on about how brilliant they are. I mean, I've never personally met a single person who brags endlessly about their intelligence and it turned out that they actually are intelligent, especially since nine times out of ten, the only impressive thing they have in terms of size is their own ego. Ditto for anyone who brags about their IQ or their GPA, especially when using it to disparage other people. What's the word for people who brag about their intelligence to put other people down? Losers? No, that can't be right. Geniuses? That's it. Even if genius has as many quotation marks as possible crammed around it.
All of this endless telling about how smart a character is won't backfire in the long run when the audience turns against the character for being a smug jerk with a bloated ego, rather than the charming eccentric professor I was going for.
Another way to make sure the character at least sounds smart is for them to use big words. This opticates the author's proclivity towards prevaricating the audience in regards to the true intellectual acumen of the character. Using this many ten-word sentences will put me in debt, but the merit of such an action shall be in excess of my investment. If it can flummox the audience's normal cognition in regards to my character's analytical ability, this will allow me to self-actualize the character's potential while creating lateral gains in elementary fields. Irregardless of how ostentatious such an act may appear, I'm sure such an excessive use of vocabulary shall make me look jejune. I don't know what jejune means, but I'm sure it will make me look smart too. Why, this even exempts me from looking up what any of these words mean. Surely it can't be that the people who usually talk like this are pretentious weirdos who are obsessed with the trappings of intelligence rather than actually being intelligent. Besides, intelligent people talk above everyone else rather than communicate intelligently. It's not like people get frustrated that no one understands them.
In fact, why not just have them rely on technobabble? Technobabble, for those who have never set through an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, is when the characters speak in nonsensical technical jargon in order to give the appearance of technical competence, even if the words don't actually mean anything. For example, the chief engineer yelling that they need to reverse the polarity on the flux capacitor in order to save the Starship from exploding. Technobabble is at its best when a smart character uses it to resolve the plot, rather than actually coming up with something clever while under pressure. Yes, even the most immersed audience will see right through this, and it may indeed jar them out of the story. But it's not like the audience can call the writers on it. Just be ready for when one of those superfans corners the writer at a convention and starts asking what those words actually mean.
So, I've made sure the audience has been told that the character is smart, and I've made them sound smart with big words and technobabble. Now, a writer can stop there if they want. But what if they want to expand the role of the smart character? Well, the writer can turn the character into the story's main source of exposition. Why stop at the character who comes across as a smug pseudo-intellectual when I can also make them boring as well? The character character knows a lot, so they are an easy excuse to dump info onto the audience's lap. It's not like one way to sell a character is smart is for them to be really good at explaining complex things to everyone else. The ability to accurately and successfully convey information and teach others is, in fact, a sign of intelligence. But I'm not willing to cut down my precious exposition into something palatable and in character because I suffer through writing all those world-building notes. So by Cthulhu, they are going into the story somewhere. And by somewhere, I mean into the math of the resident smart character.
Could Professor Exposition be unwilling to dispense his knowledge without compensation, forcing the characters to trick him into spilling the info? What if the normally cool-headed professor freaks out while explaining the problem? The drive home? The sudden shift in narrative stakes? Could he be really impatient and explain it all in the most insulting way possible to comedic effect, as well as highlight his eccentricities? Well, don't worry, all those character traits vanish the moment he starts explaining and explaining and explaining. In fact, now he never shuts up.
Now, if a writer wishes to dig deeper into writing a smart character, then they could also give the smart character a scientific discipline. Modern scientific knowledge is so vast now that it's nearly impossible to know everything about everything. Because even if a character is smart enough to know everything, there's still only a finite amount of time to learn everything. Barring aliens with advanced cognition or advanced artificial intelligence, us non-cyborg humans will have to settle for focusing on a specialization.
Now, if writing a character with a focus on, say, theoretical physics, then it is totally possible to look up a huge amount of knowledge on the subject, thanks to humanity having pooled its collective knowledge on the internet. Even if most of it is kind of garbage, it still shouldn't be too difficult to find a layman's guide somewhere. In fact, it's possible to gain a pretty solid, if a bit general, understanding of most subjects with less than a year of research, depending on the subject. However, anything beyond that often requires a much larger investment in time to know the ins and outs of a subject enough to appear authentic to those who actually work in the field. In that case, the best resources to contact someone who actually works in that field. Experts are useful writing resources, especially people in academia, because they very often don't mind sharing their knowledge, provided an acquiring writer isn't rude about asking and doesn't take up too much of their time. If you get rejected, don't worry, you'll find someone who won't shut up about it eventually. Some may even be willing to read excerpts of your writing and give feedback. All of this will add a level of authenticity that will sell the idea of this being a smart character that knows their stuff much better.
But something tells me a quick breeze through on a Wiki article will put me at a much higher level than these trained professionals. Besides, this requires that I actually talk to another human being, and I'm not breaking my five-year-long hermit streak for that.
Now, what about evil smart people like mad scientists? Let's see. Fake German accent? Check. Mad cackling? Check. Probably a Nazi? Yeah, almost for sure a Nazi. Probably even an old-school one, and not one of those wannabe Nazi cover bands that plagued the internet and occasional protest. Mad scientists are great because they produce so many cool monsters for the main characters to fight. In fact, unlike real-life mad scientists, they are stunningly effective at building things. I mean, yes, we did have a few real-life people who made amazing things while being nuttier than a peanut farm, but a good chunk of real-life mad scientists kind of sucked at the science part. Usually, they just made a mess. However, they were really good at the veneer of science, and that they kept a lot of paperwork, data points, and documentation that was often used in their war crime trials. Mostly, they just mutilated people for no real reason other than curiosity and being on a power trip. The vast majority of real mad science has largely been useless, and the value of the stuff that isn't completely useless is hotly debated. But the important thing isn't that madness seldom creates accurate science, but rather that only the truly mad would pursue science. This is because often all the smart people in the story are evil. After all, the central moral to most science fiction is that all the technological advancement we've had up until now is fine, but don't go any further. Could this be balanced somewhat by having good scientists in the story? Only if they are worthless, and the stupid characters are the only ones that save the day. Besides, we all know that super geniuses are worthless, especially in comic books. They will invent world-changing wonders that will then just never be seen again. In fact, they use their vast intellect and arsenal of technological marvels to fight crime. And it's not like the evil geniuses are much better, since they use their supreme brilliance to rob banks rather than just patent their inventions and buy the bank.
But see, it has to be like this, because otherwise I'll have to do a bunch of world-building, and not the fun kind of world-building where I just plop down entire super-powered nations into the middle of things and then just ignore how that would upend everything about geopolitics. No, I would have to actually think critically about how this would change the lives of everyday people. I'll just ignore that, along with all the story possibilities that it would present. Besides, not sharing or caring about their own inventions is something that a super-smart person would totally do, because smart people are weird. To be fair, this particular stereotype comes from somewhere, as almost every engineer I've personally worked with seemed to live in some alternate reality. That means that a writer is free to make the smart character eccentric. Why is the character so odd and absent-minded? Because the writer said so. Normally, this is because they are so wrapped up in their work that they tend to ignore everything else, which is fine, even if a bit of a stock motivation for a character trait. That also makes it fine to be their only character trait.
What about a smart character who's very knowledgeable but lacks practical experience? This could be a source of conflict, but might make my pet character look bad, so that's a no-go. Instead, the smart character will pull solutions to problems from nowhere, with no legwork from the character or the writer. Does their solution have a real scientific basis? Was the solution foreshadowed earlier in the story? Is the solution something both elegant and simple, while not being completely obvious? Nope. Instead, my character will technobabble away all the story's narrative tension. The grand climax shall end in a boring info dump. After all, the character is smart. Have I mentioned that they are smart? Because they know a lot of random information, since it has the trappings of smartness. No need to explore different kinds of intelligence, like interpersonal intelligence or intrapersonal intelligence. Why bother with that when they can scroll random numbers on a whiteboard? I'm sure the audience will buy that this character is very smart, even as the villain is three steps ahead of them the entire story, and they spent all of their time reacting rather than anticipating the villain's moves. You know, even when the villain keeps doing the same thing over and over again. But hey, basic pattern recognition is hard, and why would a smart person have that ability?
Yet, the most important thing about writing smart characters is that they be a smart character, and not a smart character. Smart characters are most useful for their utility in moving the plot forward, not for actually having their own motives and traits. I should know, because of how smart I am. You can tell because I use lots of big words, even though I don't pronounce them right half the time and only have the fuzziest inkling as to what they mean. Now, if you will excuse me, I have to go back to everyone how jejune I am. Ah, it's good to be back. Shame about the company, though. I'm here to make sure you don't screw up, and then everything goes all according to plan. You know, I'm starting to think that you're just saying that to make yourself feel better when things go wrong. I would never do something. Um, I mean, that's what I want you to think. Well, it doesn't matter. Once we shift the Federation to war footing, it's basically over. Oh, sweet babies, Daddy's gonna take you out for a spin real soon.
Foreign. Good news. The Senate has reviewed the situation, and for once, we all agree. Really? First time for everything. Well, I don't care, as long as we get conscription rolling. Conscription during an election year? You're right. No, actually, we're calling to let you know that we are surrendering to Greed. What? The Senate sold out? Well, there's a shocker. Yes, it turns out Greed can do the whole defense thing at a fraction of the cost. So you might want to spiff up that resume a bit, because, well, you're kind of out of a job now. All right, now I know you might be worried about us, but fear not. The Senate is going to fix the spending deficit by selling the Federation's weapon stockpiles to Greed. That way, we can keep the hot tub wing of the Senate open. Oh, and Greed told us to play you this. Hello, General. You're firing. And this video is sponsored by Audible. Here we go again. Did you enjoy your long track back home, General? Why, you could have listened to an audiobook to pass the time on the trip here. I mean, the Federation will still have fallen right into my hands, regardless, but at least you would have listened to a great book on the way. If you were an Audible member, you could download or stream one title a month from a massive catalog of amazing works from every genre, including Audible Originals and podcasts. I've actually been going through a bit of a hard sci-fi binge recently, with works like Hyperion. The Expanse kind of sold me on the genre. Hard sci-fi? You're just like one of those draft-dodging college physics professors. I mean, really, who needs physics and chemistry? It needs rockets and explosives. Give me some good military science fiction, like Caiaphas Kane, Hero of the Imperium. Kind of weird that Caiaphas's books are filled with his imposter syndrome. Clearly, someone is trying to slander him. Oh, my dear General, how you missed the contrast of Kane's grand exploits with this insecure internal monologue. But I suppose the ridiculous caricature like yourself wouldn't be privy to the details of his characterization. Caricature? Don't worry about that. Instead, why not become a new Audible member for 30 days? Visit Audible.com/terrible writing advice or text terrible writing advice to 500 500. Link is in the description below. Well, either that, or you could waste your time trying to salvage the unsalvageable Federation. Whichever you prefer. Ah, typical bleeding-heart sellout. There's only one thing to do now, and I'm going to run for Federation President.