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Q&A The polymath's dilemma...?

The main character of a YA story I am working on is fast becoming a polymath, i.e. someone with a broad base of skills and interests across unrelated areas of endeavor. I really like how this char...

4 answers  ·  posted 14y ago by HedgeMage‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T00:58:06Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/807
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar HedgeMage‭ · 2019-12-08T00:58:06Z (almost 5 years ago)
The main character of a YA story I am working on is fast becoming a [polymath](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymath), i.e. someone with a broad base of skills and interests across unrelated areas of endeavor. I really like how this character is developing; I feel that the experience of having to pick up so many things in his first year living in a new environment sets the stage for adaptations he'll have to make later.

My problem is that, as a pretty extreme polymath myself, I don't know how to gauge whether he is becoming "too much" of one -- to the point that readers who aren't polymaths would find him unrealistic or hard to identify with.

His early development will have effects that ripple through the rest of the story, so I'm not sure that finishing this part (it heading toward the 200 page mark) then rewriting the whole thing if he strikes a few well-chosen reviewers the wrong way, is how I should proceed.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2010-12-12T17:21:13Z (almost 14 years ago)
Original score: 13