The Hypercompetent

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, comand a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."— Robert Heinlein
We like competent characters. As readers, we enjoy watching them come up with clever or forceful ways to solve their problems. As writers, we rely on them to take action and drive the plot.

Because these characters are so much fun, it's tempting to move them from the zone of 'competent' into 'hypercompetent'. I'm not talking about characters who are experts in their chosen field, but about characters who are an expert in absolutely everything, usually before the age of thirty. In and of itself, the trope is not bad. It can be effective in certain genres, most notably those which run on exaggeration and wish fulfillment. Also, it's instructive to note that a character with an endearing personality and numerous well-developed shortcomings, or a character who is a mass of fascinating personality flaws, can get away with a lot of hypercompetence in otherwise more mundane genres simply because their faults give them a level of realism and allow the reader to actually identify with them.

In more realistic settings, however, there needs to be a cap on characters who are the masters of absolutely everything. First of all, there is a difference between a character who is reasonably good at a number of things-- many such people exist, after all-- and a character who has taken all of those skills to a world-class-expert level. There just isn't enough time in the day for a character to put in their 10,000 hours of practice in biochemistry, aeronautical engineering, dog training, classical piano, five languages, and three martial arts. This goes triple if the character is under 25, or Ceiling Cat forbid, under the age of 18.

Unless you're in one of the more over the top genres, it's best to constrain your character to glowing expertise in only one or two areas, and to accomplishment in only a few more. Then make sure there is a plausible and well-considered reason the character has that skill set, particularly if it is not an obvious extension of their established background. For example, if a character is known to have grown up on a remote Colorado ranch, a through understanding of cattle husbandry comes as no surprise; if they're revealed to have an encyclopedic knowledge of 18th-century Chinese literature, the reader will want an explanation, most preferably a succinct and believable one.