Writing Craft
A competent character is often more useful when they make things slightly worse for everyone else in the room.
Not incompetence, exactly. Just the sort of skill that solves one problem and creates three awkward ones. They know the right thing to do, or the efficient thing, or the socially disastrous thing, and now everyone has to react to that. Much more interesting than a character who arrives and tidies the scene in a single neat sweep. Life rarely offers that kind of mercy.
It also gives other people something to push against, which is usually where the scene starts breathing.
Not incompetence, exactly. Just the sort of skill that solves one problem and creates three awkward ones. They know the right thing to do, or the efficient thing, or the socially disastrous thing, and now everyone has to react to that. Much more interesting than a character who arrives and tidies the scene in a single neat sweep. Life rarely offers that kind of mercy.
It also gives other people something to push against, which is usually where the scene starts breathing.
The trouble starts when the room rewards that sort of competence. A character who can fix the boiler, read the room and forge a key is useful right up until everyone begins treating them like a maintenance department with feelings.
In fiction, I like the version where competence has a bill attached. Someone solves the immediate problem, then leaves behind a worse one, usually social, sometimes supernatural. Much more believable than tidy heroics.
In fiction, I like the version where competence has a bill attached. Someone solves the immediate problem, then leaves behind a worse one, usually social, sometimes supernatural. Much more believable than tidy heroics.