You mentioned being willing to give writing tips!!! Do you have any tips for writing a character who’s smarter than you (lol)?? And not just like knowing a lot about stuff but like being able to scheme and maneuver tricky situations
First of all, if you want to hear more about this, there's an episode of my favorite writing podcast (hosted by professional authors) that is all about this. Lots of good stuff. Basically any writing problem you can think of, they have an episode about it.
13.43: Characters Who Are Smarter Than You Are | Writing Excuses
As for my personal advice, the secret to writing a smart character isn't actually being really smart, but manipulating the audience to make the things the character does seem really smart.
One way you can do this is by making them smarter in comparison to the other characters. You obviously don't want your other characters to appear like idiots, but if you can give your smart character a little bit of an edge over the rest of them, it will help with the audience's view. Even if you just show the characters believing them to be smarter, the audience will believe it too, as long as you can back it up a little later.
Also, another secret is you, as the author, know more about the plot than the characters. So if you can, so if you can reason a way for your smart character to get the information you already have while the other characters don't that will make them appear smarter. One thing this writing excuses episode talked about that I think is really good is giving the audience the pieces to come up with an answer to a problem, so they feel smart and believe they could have done it. When they feel smart, they associate the character with being smart. Meanwhile, your character is putting the pieces together much faster then they did because you had the information from the start, making them appear much smarter.
Also, you have the luxury of having all the time in the world to research things, while your characters don't. So it doesn't matter if you take several hours to understand how something functions, as long as you frame your smart character as already having the knowledge or understanding it right off the bat.
I think it can work the same for schemes. Establish through the other characters that this is something the smart character is good at, and then put it into action. You have time to reason out how the character would get in or out of somewhere, what precautions they would take, but the character coming up with all that hard stuff quickly is going to look impressive. Of course, this method leaves you with some hard work on your end.
Anyway, sorry, I'm not sure if this was all stuff that was already obvious to you, but hopefully some of it was helpful!
