Juho Pohjalainen's Blog: Pankarp - Posts Tagged "intelligence"
The temptation of being clever
One of the biggest challenges I consistently face in writing is solid and consistent characterization, especially when it comes to their intelligence. It's hard to portray the less smart characters, because not only do I have trouble deciding what they might figure out and what they might not, but I also always instinctively want to show them do smart stuff because it reflects on me as an author. If my characters do smart stuff, then it just shows that I can write smart stuff. If my characters are dumbasses, then I look like one too.
I think I've gotten better at it as time passes, though. One way is to make the truth of things glaringly obvious to the reader, even if it can take a while for the characters to figure it out. They tend to be under a lot of pressure, after all, often unaware of all the facts, and are therefore susceptible to taking their time - sometimes with fatal consequences. Besides, I tend to feel good about myself whenever I'm reading stuff and figure these things out well before the characters, so maybe my own readers will feel the same.
The real problem is snark. Pithy lines, scathing insults, and sarcasm - the sort to make the reader laugh, and/or have them think the character is really clever, and by extension, the author is. They're a lot harder to be left unsaid in a way that still makes them obvious, easily break the mood of a tense scene, and all too often there's no one around to be smart: the characters are all too preoccupied, scared, dim, or just not giving a damn about funny lines. And yet whenever I miss an opportunity for such, I feel like I also miss an opportunity to affirm my own intelligence. I want to show everyone how witty I can be.
In fact, I sometimes have this nagging suspicion that this sort of a thing is, at least subconsciously, a big motivator in a lot of smartasses of literary fiction: a vehicle for the author to show off their mental muscle a little. I wonder how many others have given it any conscious thought - and then what they would think of it, whether it's true at all, or whether I'm overthinking again. Certainly a bit of smart commentary can enrich a good story, so it's not all bad.
The Straggler's Mask was somewhat lacking of such wit, on account of Peal being too timid and Ivar too dim to give any good lines, though they had a few minor characters picking up the slack. The Vagrant's Wings might do better: it has more smartasses, and the main character especially has trouble knowing when to shut up.
I think I've gotten better at it as time passes, though. One way is to make the truth of things glaringly obvious to the reader, even if it can take a while for the characters to figure it out. They tend to be under a lot of pressure, after all, often unaware of all the facts, and are therefore susceptible to taking their time - sometimes with fatal consequences. Besides, I tend to feel good about myself whenever I'm reading stuff and figure these things out well before the characters, so maybe my own readers will feel the same.
The real problem is snark. Pithy lines, scathing insults, and sarcasm - the sort to make the reader laugh, and/or have them think the character is really clever, and by extension, the author is. They're a lot harder to be left unsaid in a way that still makes them obvious, easily break the mood of a tense scene, and all too often there's no one around to be smart: the characters are all too preoccupied, scared, dim, or just not giving a damn about funny lines. And yet whenever I miss an opportunity for such, I feel like I also miss an opportunity to affirm my own intelligence. I want to show everyone how witty I can be.
In fact, I sometimes have this nagging suspicion that this sort of a thing is, at least subconsciously, a big motivator in a lot of smartasses of literary fiction: a vehicle for the author to show off their mental muscle a little. I wonder how many others have given it any conscious thought - and then what they would think of it, whether it's true at all, or whether I'm overthinking again. Certainly a bit of smart commentary can enrich a good story, so it's not all bad.
The Straggler's Mask was somewhat lacking of such wit, on account of Peal being too timid and Ivar too dim to give any good lines, though they had a few minor characters picking up the slack. The Vagrant's Wings might do better: it has more smartasses, and the main character especially has trouble knowing when to shut up.
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