Page 771 – The Burden of Being Genre Savvy
That’s right, kiddies! Layla’s so smart, she can not only spot the problems with her plan, AND not only incorporate those very problems into the fabric of the plan itself, but she can actually become disappointed when the most obvious outcome occurs, rather than any of the wacky contingencies she’d planned for! THAT’S how smart Layla is, buster!
However, I am not that smart. I can merely see problems coming, and then let them happen. Remember how I said there might not be a new Voting Incentive today? Yup, that’s a thing that happened. See, it eventually got tot the point last week where I had to choose between finishing this page early or getting enough sleep to drive nine hours to AWA. Obviously, this page didn’t get done early, which means I’m running behind on Far Out There AND the big Conventional Wisdom update. Hopefully the usual schedule will be restored by Friday. Cross them fingers!
EDIT: Oops, I forgot to self-nitpick. I made the pool closer to its original appearance this time, but magically transported Stilez & Tax to the wrong side of the room in the process. Whoopsie!
(Historical Notes: Again, I love this subtle little display of how clever Layla actually is. The problem with trying to write smart characters is always that they can only be as smart as the person writing them, which doesn’t bode well for me. But spotting cliched storytelling in media? THAT I can do.)
The way many writers make their “clever” characters showcase how “clever” they are can be said to be basically doing this every 5 minutes, and using easily-predicable (or just plain stupid) supporting/enemy characters easily falling into their traps or predictions. It’s MUCH more palatable when used sparingly, especially since it doesn’t come off as the character’s “cleverness” simply being Plot Armour covering their behind.
The classic cheat is, of course, for the writer to already know the “clever” thing the character needs to figure out, and write backwards from the reveal to fill the story with enough red herrings that the character looks smart for seeing through them. But not only does that require a delicate balance of hints and distractions to make the reveal still seem plausible without being obvious, but it just requires the writer to have all that crap planned out WAY before the story even starts. And me, I’m bad about changing details partway through or just forgetting to drop hints where I’m supposed to. That’s why I like shorter instances like this one.