: How to handle characters who are more educated than the author? This is inspired by a few things that have been breaking my immersion when reading Worm. The main protagonist is a teen, and

Vote Up Vote Down

There are two areas that show different speech patterns - casual speech and professional speech.

In casual speech, difference between educated and non-educated people may be nonexistent. Speech patterns here would rather follow social groups - i.e. average teenagers would speak somewhat differently from graduate students and, again, differently from middle age professors. You can try to emulate "professor's speech". Professors are usually good public (and private) speakers, capable of explaining complex subjects in layman terms. It would be a misconception, however, to think that educated people often use "smart" words in casual conversation.

In professional speech, thing are becoming different. Not only many special words are being used, the very structure of sentences may become different. In order to successfully depict how doctors, lawyers, physicists etc. discuss professional matters between themselves, one has to do some research.

I also would like to mention that this problem ("more educated than the author") is separate from a similar "more smart than the author" problem.

(0)

Vote Up Vote Down

Teachers and professors often pick up the lingo of their students; part of being a good teacher is being able to understand their speech and slang. Not only to communicate with them, but to pick up on things they shouldn't be saying.

I will also note that every generation, beginning around puberty to late college years, seems to invent some new slangs, specifically for the sociological function of creating distance between themselves and the older generation; by having, effectively, their own language only they understand. But kids seldom switch modes when adults are around and will use their 'code' in circumstances where the adults can deduce what it means. So an adult constantly around many kids, if they are paying attention, will pick up on the lingo, and may themselves slip into usage of it, sometimes as a joke with their peers, sometimes talking to kids, etc.

But in formal settings, I would not expect this; "regardless" is a substitute for "anyways", and most professors I know might say "anyway" in a formal setting (a meeting to discuss curriculum, perhaps) but never "anyways".

(0)

Vote Up Vote Down

Some thoughts, in no particular order:

1. Educated people may speak in a more casual way than their education enables (but uneducated people are unlikely to be able to speak coherently in a more educated tone)

It is more jarring for an uneducated bum to talk like a research scientist than for a research scientist to mumble, cuss, talk like a valley girl, etc. I know you're including specifically formal situations, but it bears pointing out.

2. What you don't say often communicates more than what you do say

You yourself pointed out that it was an included word that struck you as out of place.

I once wrote a story where I wanted a character to distinctly feel foreign; I made a rule that she couldn't use any words coined after 1600 (or post-1600 definitions of older words), unless it was the name for a specific object that another character introduced her to (like "car"). Of course, I also have experience reading poetry, and books across several genres, written in 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, and grammar played a role - but vocabulary made a huge difference.

(I was surprised to find that most of the words I ended up using were NOT fancy or archaic-sounding. On the contrary, many old-fashioned-sounding words are artifacts of the 18th and 19th centuries.)

3. A well-educated person speaks more simply and directly

Plain speaking, without sub-culture-specific flourishes, just comes off as more concise and mature. Sadly, loading dialogue with unnecessarily complicated grammar or "look, I can use a thesaurus - badly" words WILL impress many an untrained ear. However, even to such an untrained ear, a straightforward, concise statement is preferable if your goal is to communicate information, and not just tag a character as "smart." And an author can show a character is smart by actually having the character say smart things!

Writing concisely can be difficult, though.

4. A widely read author has a deeper well to draw from

As hinted in point 1, if you yourself are educated - particularly from a wide variety of disciplines and levels of rigor - you will be more able to write like an educated person would speak. That is, an educated tone can't really be faked.

(0)