Super intelligent characters -- like Sherlock Holmes

The long history of Sherlock Holmes testifies to how much audiences love smart characters. Of course, we naturally assume that the authors are equally intelligent. While that certainly can be the case, it doesn't have to be. Authors shouldn't limit themselves because they aren't super geniuses. What matters is keeping the story ahead of where the audience is at. There are lots of techniques to do this, such as preventing audiences from learning critical facts, completely leaving out information, and basically giving the audience no hope whatsoever of guessing the truth. These are bad ideas.

Many times it helps to put together a "map" of the story ahead of time. This can take form as an outline, bullet points, or even simple 3x5 cards. The importance is so the author knows ahead of time what's going on and all the relevant information. This way, it's only natural for the "smart" character to be ahead of the audience. Many of the little inferences made by Sherlock Holmes seem rather crazy on retrospection. In the "Sherlock" BBC television show, the first time Sherlock meets Watson, there's a series of deductions made about Watson's phone--deductions that fall apart with a little bit of thought. Despite these things, the scene works perfectly and Sherlock comes off as a brusque, but very astute observer who's intelligence can be trusted. That's a great way to show super intelligent characters.

Peter Falk as detective Columbo

Another method I particularly enjoy is watching characters behave in a bumbling sort of way, but who are actually far more intelligent and observant than they appear. "Columbo" is the prime example of this, as this detective purposely behaves like an oaf so the suspects are put into a false sense of ease. The joy of this method, is the audience has all the same evidence the detective has (even further, as the audience watches the murders happen onscreen, with all preparations intact). Yet, the audience still lags behind the super intelligent hero because we haven't made all the connections necessary to reveal the truth.

Don't let creating super intelligence get in the way of simple storytelling. So long as the author knows what's going on, and gives little hints again and again, the audience will happily go right along with believing in the intelligence of the hero and won't even try finding faults in the logic of events ... at least, not until the story is over and they are trying to figure out how they missed it all.

- M