That's such a useful set of tips! I do have one question specific to this story though. This story is very detail oriented, How do I communicate important details or thoughts to show his intelligence without fully giving the ideas away to the reader to keep them on the edge of their seat?
That's called creating excellent prose, efficient sentence structuring, and delivering tactful diction, my friend. Whether you can check all the boxes depends on your writing quality. However, I will give you tips through examples.
How do I communicate important details or thoughts to show his intelligence without entirely giving the ideas away? Look at these two examples from two of my stories.
Excerpt #1:
I dodged a right hook and jumped back. Sweat and blood clouded my left eye, and my right eye partly swelled. But my opponent was slow, which was good for me.
Dozens of autonomous droned cameras shadowed the dazzling lights above the arena. Electric fencing and swaying, chained weapons caged the hexagon we stood in.
My heart throbbed throughout my entire body. Each thump made my vision blurry, but I shook my head. I couldn’t pass out now. If I did, this bastard would surely kill me.
My opponent was a regular at the fight club. He was a rotund, middle-aged man with a bit of muscle and was a staggering six-foot-five. His sun-beaten skin glistened with sweat, but the way it fell to the floor in globs made it seem more like dense oil.
He threw his weight into a wide haymaker aimed at my liver. I pivoted to the right and bounced back with a smirk.
“You’re slow as fuck, fatass. Lose some weight, then maybe this would be a challenge.” I said with a taunting sneer.
He went in for another haymaker, but I ducked and plowed my fist into his stomach, making him gag. He held onto his stomach and stumbled back.
The first fight shows the protagonist using taunts to provoke his opponent, also making a realization mid-fight about his size and speed. Can this be considered intelligent behavior? Sure. Despite the desperate situation the MC is in, he fully grasps his strengths and weaknesses. He may not be as strong as his opponent, but he knows how to get into their head.
Essential details such as the electric fencing make it so he has no escape, but the weapons provide options. If you make your reader aware of their MC's predicament, they can judge the outcome, keeping them guessing.
For this excerpt, I worked around the
details angle. Now, let's try a more
intelligent protagonist.
Excerpt #2:
The knight looks down at her fist with a grin, now standing atop of the mound. "It's been a while since someone has taken one of my punches. Lady Raga has outdone herself this time, giving dark essence to a mortal realm."
She bends her knees and jumps several meters into the air, slamming down a few feet behind Maxim's back and making him turn around with a jolt.
. . .
Maxim growls under his breath. The muscles in his legs and arms tighten as he cracks his neck to the side. His jacket and jeans then rip off his body, exposing his athletic-muscular build and growing muscle definition.
Calina chuckles while perching a hand onto her hip. "Ah, I see. You want to see yourself as stronger, so you change your physique. Very interesting."
She then leans back, eluding Maxim's foot as it whisks past her face in a nimble assault. A subsonic boom makes my ears ring as the water beneath their feet explodes from the impact.
"But, is someone truly strong if they think so low of themselves that they take it out on the people that love them most?"
Maxim's kick stops mid-form, then slams down, not before Calina spirals into the air and lands on both her feet behind him. He grips his fists at his side, lowering his head with his back still turned.
. . .
Calina nods her head with a smile, both deceitful and cunning. "I think I know you better than you know yourself. Let me take a guess. You're someone who likes taking the easy way out of situations. Going about life passively without making a single decision of your own."
Maxim turns around with a glare. He lifts his foot, then explodes into a sprint, making the water dart at his backside.
"But then, your way of life feels threatened by someone who puts in more work than you. It makes you feel vulnerable, insecure, your life choices made to seem otiose."
Maxim pivots on his foot with a sideward spin, colliding his foot into Calina's forearm as she blocks the side of her face. She offers him a shrew grin. Maxim's nose flares with dilated eyes, a furious expression in comparison.
He continues in a barrage of kicks and punches. My eyes barely registered most of them except for the few that Calina caught and threw to the side between her near-miss dodges. She then sighs and grabs another of Maxim's kicks by his ankle. He tries to snatch it back, but she tightens her grip with a nod.
Though this second excerpt is from the third perspective, we can obviously see that Calina has the upper hand. This is mainly due to her confident responses and fighting technique—however, that's not directly given away to the reader, they can only perceive that through the writing. And rather than fight with desperation, she fights with cunning and discipline.
I hope these two examples helped, but to summarize, it depends on the setting and the character. It also depends on your creativity as a writer. Don't write complicated scenes, especially in tense or fast-paced scenes, and expect your readers to be delighted with all the juicy details. Like a used car salesman, work them up for the big reveal.
Revise. Revise. Revise. There's always a better way to word something. Even for these two scenes, I see things I could've done better (despite them being relatively old compared to my newer work).
Hope this helps. Take the advice that suits you best, as I'm sure there are better explanations on the internet somewhere.
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