: Re: 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

@Goswami879

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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.

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