/lit/ - Literature

>>21026053

>>11407575
>>11407578
Yeah but that's the problem isn't it? It's easy to make someone look knowledgeable, since you can look up just about anything. But it's not easy to write someone who actually knows how to use their knowledge properly unless you know it yourself.

For example, you could write a lawyer who knows every law there is, because you can just look up any law that's relevant to your story. But it's hard to know how a lawyer would use their knowledge of those laws and the legal system unless you're content with just bullshitting something up, which isn't as convincing. You can fake knowledge, but you can't fake intelligence and experience. Unless your intention is to write on the level of the average TV show and assume nobody gives a fuck about accuracy.

I've thought about working backwards. Essentially giving the character the "meta knowledge" they need and then working backwards to explain how they'd even know that (almost Sherlock Holmes style), but again that just comes down to faking knowledge, not necessarily intelligence.

I'm just interested in how other people approach this problem. It's easy to pretend to be dumb, but pretending to be smart often makes you look even dumber to someone who's actually smarter.