I know the goal of a chess master—to win. But I do not know the moves he will make. WrongBot may know the goals of his Buffy characters. But he does not know the moves they will make. How do you write a character smarter than yourself, even if you know their goal?
You can write a story about a chessmaster without ever showing your reader the sequence of moves in a chess game. You can even have the story be about a chess game and still do this, as long as the narrative is focused at a higher level of abstraction… if your character is thinking in terms of luring his opponent to move his defense out of optimal alignment, or setting up a three-way interlocking attack on a key piece, or equally evocative-but-ultimately-meaningless constructions.
Alternatively, you can go ahead and show the sequence of moves: look up a few chess matches among chessmasters, and steal them.
To write a character smarter than me, I would probably start by deciding exactly what situations were going to arise, and do a lot of detailed research on optimal strategies and relevant background information on those situations, and then present the character as coming up with those strategies/information in real time without warning—that is, imply that she could just as effectively responded to any situation, without preparation.
And then have them succeed, a lot. And when they do fail, have them recognize failure before the reader does and then adapt their strategy accordingly.
A character who is smarter and more focused than me is much harder to write; at that point I’d fall back to the “high-level chess strategy” approach.
You can write a story about a chessmaster without ever showing your reader the sequence of moves in a chess game.
As a reader, I hate hate hate this strategy, and I always know when it’s being used. This sort of copout is an instant fail in my books, no matter how highly reviewed it is. The Master of Go is fine because the author is fictionalizing a real match, which he actually reported on live. The Player of Games is not, because Banks has not worked out Azad in any real detail.
present the character as coming up with those strategies/information in real time without warning
So, weak superintelligence. That might work—does seem pretty much to cover Eliezer’s approach for Harry & Quirrel in MoR.
I think it depends on what the core of the story is… what it’s a story about.
If it’s a story about chess, then never showing the reader the sequence of moves “feels empty and hollow,” as you say.
If it’s a story about something else for which chess functions as a setting, it won’t necessarily feel that way.
Of course, what I consider a story to be about is in part a result of what I care about. If I really really care about intelligence, then any story involving a supergenius will to a significant extent be about his or her superintelligence, and “not showing the moves” will always feel like a copout.
I know the goal of a chess master—to win. But I do not know the moves he will make. WrongBot may know the goals of his Buffy characters. But he does not know the moves they will make. How do you write a character smarter than yourself, even if you know their goal?
You can write a story about a chessmaster without ever showing your reader the sequence of moves in a chess game. You can even have the story be about a chess game and still do this, as long as the narrative is focused at a higher level of abstraction… if your character is thinking in terms of luring his opponent to move his defense out of optimal alignment, or setting up a three-way interlocking attack on a key piece, or equally evocative-but-ultimately-meaningless constructions.
Alternatively, you can go ahead and show the sequence of moves: look up a few chess matches among chessmasters, and steal them.
To write a character smarter than me, I would probably start by deciding exactly what situations were going to arise, and do a lot of detailed research on optimal strategies and relevant background information on those situations, and then present the character as coming up with those strategies/information in real time without warning—that is, imply that she could just as effectively responded to any situation, without preparation.
And then have them succeed, a lot. And when they do fail, have them recognize failure before the reader does and then adapt their strategy accordingly.
A character who is smarter and more focused than me is much harder to write; at that point I’d fall back to the “high-level chess strategy” approach.
As a reader, I hate hate hate this strategy, and I always know when it’s being used. This sort of copout is an instant fail in my books, no matter how highly reviewed it is. The Master of Go is fine because the author is fictionalizing a real match, which he actually reported on live. The Player of Games is not, because Banks has not worked out Azad in any real detail.
So, weak superintelligence. That might work—does seem pretty much to cover Eliezer’s approach for Harry & Quirrel in MoR.
I don’t know about “hate” but it always feels empty and hollow, every time I read about a fictional supergenius, and that is where MoR came from.
I think it depends on what the core of the story is… what it’s a story about.
If it’s a story about chess, then never showing the reader the sequence of moves “feels empty and hollow,” as you say.
If it’s a story about something else for which chess functions as a setting, it won’t necessarily feel that way.
Of course, what I consider a story to be about is in part a result of what I care about. If I really really care about intelligence, then any story involving a supergenius will to a significant extent be about his or her superintelligence, and “not showing the moves” will always feel like a copout.
You write their universe in such a way that you can account for all the factors therein on your character’s behalf.