How do you write a character who is much more intelligent and rational than you without making them cold-hearted and/or expressionless? Thanks for the attention and keep up the good work!
First of all: Be confident. As the creator of your world, you by default know more than any of your charactersâ and I bet youâre damn intelligent, to boot.Â
Secondly: There are so many kinds of intelligence, and people express it in so many different ways. I think the stereotype we have of A Very Intelligent Person is someone who is cold, aloof, can do calculous in their head, and only speaks in polysyllables. Are there people like that? Sure. But they are not, by any means, the only kind of intelligent person out there. And, to be honest, the people who are callous and donât say any words with less than three syllables are usually faux-intellectuals (who personally drive me nuts! If I hear one more person incorrectly say ârefractionâ instead of âreflectionâ because they want to assert themselves as smarter than the rest of the room Iâm gonna smash a plate!).Â
At this point, I like to direct people towards the theory of multiple intelligences.
I recommend thinking about people in your life that you consider to be very intelligent. What makes you think that about them? Is it a specialized knowledge base they have? Their ability to say things that strike you as particularly wise? How quickly they pick up new ideas? In a narrative, you can make people catch on to things as quickly as you want, you can read things written by wise people or ask people that you admire for their wisdom what their take on certain things would be, and if itâs a specialized knowledge base, you have the internet on your side! Â
         *An Important Point: Donât purposefully dumb the other characters down in order to make the intelligent character seem smarter. Â
âRationalâ can also mean a lot of things. To me, it is closer to logical than emotionlessâ and people can work through their emotions logically!Â
For example, a ârationalâ course of action might be for someone to follow in their motherâs footsteps, go to law school, and join their momâs firm where theyâll be setâ but, if they haaaaate the idea and know that theyâd be miserable, they might decide that making themselves deeply unhappy is not a logical course of action.Â
Or, letâs say that the person in question has a crush on the same person that their best friend does. After considering the situation, they decide that the friendship they have for person A and person Aâs happiness is more valuable to them than their romantic feelings for person B, and decide that the best course of action is to avoid B until their feelings cool down. This is a rational course of action, but it could still hurt like crazy!
Being rational or logical also does not mean that they have to be inconsiderate of other peopleâs feelings. Sure, someone might think that itâs irrational for a friend to be upset in a certain situation. However, if they can empathize with them, they might work through it and figure âwell, even if it did happen years ago, people work through things at different rates, and emotions arenât always linearâ and clearly my friend was deeply affected by X and is still affected by X, and they were having a shit day to begin with, so actually this response is not unreasonableâ. Even if they canât empathize, their friend is still upsetâ and how often have we all done our best to comfort a friend that we canât relate to in that moment but care about very much?
Something that I think is a little funny is the way that people pair up a Trust Your Gut character with a Thatâs Illogical character. I always end up waiting for Logic Buddy to be like âWell, you have been my partner for a long time, and in that time, you have frequently described âgut feelingsâ that described information that you were picking up instinctually but werenât able to articulate beyond âhaving a feelingâ, but panned out in practiceâ therefore, while I can find no reason to be suspicious of this person, I am going to trust your gut as well.â Â
Finallyâ people can have very unusual or offbeat logic. That doesnât make them irrational, necessarily! Acting rationally can just mean that your actions match up to your reasons for acting that way.Â
I hope that this helps you get started, at least a little bit! You got this, buddy.Â
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