High IQ character, low IQ writer.

Smart characters are difficult for me to write well.

How do you write about someone who probably has better ideas than one can have?

Tips?

Time helps. Their intelligence can be shown by making smart decisions quickly, while you, as a writer, have all the time you need to figure out what these "split-second" flashes of brilliance actually are.

I remember a thing from the writers of Malcolm In The Middle: they'd spend weeks coming up with a clever solution to a problem, and then have Malcolm come up with it in two seconds.

Ah, this question.

Here, this thread might be of assistance.

Thats all very good, but how do you show that the solution is SMART as well as fast.

A smart decision takes many variables and possible outcomes into account, weighs them against what's desired, and takes advantage of these variables to avoid what is undesirable and hit desirable or workable variables. That, again, is where you, the author, have an advantage over your characters- you have all the time in the world to go over a situation with a fine-toothed comb. They have a few minutes, or seconds.

Again this is a question of speed. And giving a normal person all the time in the world won't help him come up with trully ground breaking idea if its just not in him. Examples of Newton, Einstein, Gates show they are far from normal.

A bigger problem may be what happens when the character also has time.

For example: a genius military maverik could probably conduct an entire war in ways I can't even imagine due to lack of experience, training and intelligence, if he had the time.

How do you portray such brilliance?

Can't depend on using time pressure all the time. Genius can anticipate them at least some of the time.

If your story is on a fictional world that's before our time, you can have the genius in question steal from real-world geniuses. The first military leader to independently come up with the teachings of Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, or Shaka will have a devastating advantage, even if a lot of what they figured out is taken for granted in our modern era.

Also, you can sometimes just plain abstract. Often, the reader doesn't need to know how a battle was won, simply that it was. Sort of an Uncanny Valley thing, really: bad detail will be nitpicked, but if there's a simple lack of detail, the educated reader will simply assume the details are good.

I think this is just a general problem writers have to deal with. Like Plato criticised, artists only ever create imperfect facsimiles of reality, and frequently attempt to imitate things well beyond their very limited experience. Basically, we get as far as we can with careful research and thought, and then totally fake it the rest of the way.

So, if you want to portray genius, and many works do, distract from the bits of genius you can't portray and focus on the bits you can. Having everyone behave as if the character is a genius, showing solutions to problems without going into the details of exactly how the solution works, and handwaving away problems with plans and deductions and pretending they don't exist are some typical ways.

Of course, if you do it wrong you risk falling into some very cringey and well-worn tropes like Narm and Informed Ability.

edited 5th Nov '12 10:12:56 AM by Kesteven

You also have the advantage that you can control the world, as well as go back and forward and edit the character's future.

Yes I also encounter same problem lately, which some people on this forum should know. Anyway, in addition to time you have the ability to work backwards from the answer. The characters don't know the answer from the get go but you do and it might be easier to figure out how the solution is so and so. Not much but I hope that helped.

And make sure that if something obvious is about to happen or the identity of hidden villain (traitor) can easily be guessed by the reader, make sure the "genius" works it out first!

i.e. drop the hint then have the character instantly act on it and explain why to his "Watson" afterwards.

I read one extremely badly written story in which the hero was supposed to be a super genius detective, greater than Sherlock Holmes. The clues were laid out to us readers as the detective discovered them - and I knew who the killer was ages before this "genius" detective figured it out.

My thought at the time was "this is what happens when an idiot tries to write a genius".

As the author, knowing in advance who the killer was and what clues were around, he had the perfect opportunity to make the detective appear godlike in his intelligence, piecing it together on the slimmest of clues and then maybe have him looking for some concrete, trial-winning, evidence to back up his theory after the reader knows the detective has a prime suspect - needn't name the suspect, just make it clear to the reader the genius has got his sights locked on.

Instead, the author had the "genius" utterly in the dark beyond the point where, for the average user (I'm no genius, let alone "super-genius"), there was all but a trail of bloody footprints leading to the killer's door.

edited 5th Nov '12 3:15:55 PM by Wolf1066

There's always research. That also involves consulting people who do know (so if you're stumped about military strategies like in your example, then ask a couple of military geeks or something).