This may be why I spend a lot of time staring bleakly at my characters and thinking, "I am not smart enough to write a plot for these people."
On the other hand, cheating helps: with some of my very Clever characters, I used to spend a lot of time between chapters talking with the spouse about what their options were, and what the results might be, and how other people would respond, and what they could do to prevent that being a problem... Which meant that when two hours of discussion turned into a five-minute decision and plan creation on the part of the Clever Character, they looked very clever indeed, and I still had some plot.
(This also had the side-effect of one of my characters in a Secret Supernatural War setting constantly calling the mortal authorities on his enemies, who would suddenly have to explain their suspicious behavior and heavy weaponry to unfriendly people with guns without blowing their cover, while he walked out another door, whistling. It wasn't always the most exciting way the plot could go, but by the third time he did it, it was such a standard tactic it could be handled off-screen between chapters to explain why he was moving on to the next problem.)
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2010-11-10 05:15 pm (UTC)On the other hand, cheating helps: with some of my very Clever characters, I used to spend a lot of time between chapters talking with the spouse about what their options were, and what the results might be, and how other people would respond, and what they could do to prevent that being a problem... Which meant that when two hours of discussion turned into a five-minute decision and plan creation on the part of the Clever Character, they looked very clever indeed, and I still had some plot.
(This also had the side-effect of one of my characters in a Secret Supernatural War setting constantly calling the mortal authorities on his enemies, who would suddenly have to explain their suspicious behavior and heavy weaponry to unfriendly people with guns without blowing their cover, while he walked out another door, whistling. It wasn't always the most exciting way the plot could go, but by the third time he did it, it was such a standard tactic it could be handled off-screen between chapters to explain why he was moving on to the next problem.)