How to make criminals more smart in my story?

Put yourself in their place, would you make those mistakes?

Best answer

If you do that, you are going to turn your novel into science fiction as a criminal being smart is just impossible.

Make you're criminals more abstracted personallities. Clashing internal rifts

Cormega

Without knowing what type of crimes they are committing or planning to commit, it would essentially be impossible to offer any advice. Are these people embezzling millions of dollars from a corporation? Are they robbing convenience stores? Holding up banks? Are they cleaning out the vault of a casino? Are they plotting an intricate heist to steal the Crown Jewels or a priceless work of art? It's not just fingerprints or CCTV that can ruin a crook's day. There are paper trails, secret informants, duplicitous fences, double-crosses, there are far, far too many ways that any given crime could go wrong to try to outline them here. It's your story. They're your characters. It's your responsibility to make them as adept or as inept at what they do to suit the tale you want to tell.

And the comparative form of "smart" is "smarter", not "more smart."

Become the criminal, learn how to commit the crime and how to cover up the evidence. Do that right and your sleuth will never solve the mystery, just know what flaw to leave.

Pattern your criminals after Bill and Hillary Clinton.

When I wrote "A Walk Among The Tombstones" in answerbag, I started with having 3 different things all completely written out for it. I just filled it all in between from there. It does not need to be a write the ending first thing, but that is a good rule to follow, as that is what I did when I wrote "Pitch Perfect" also in AB there.

It is a matter of full disclosure per instance you may have, where you might want to leave some parts off of it for revelation later, for adding mystery to it.

Any more, I would just completely write out the story, and go back to it to structure it as a mystery, where your original writing will guide you for it.

POOR HUMANS COPYRIGHT EVERYTHING. That way, when you work gets stolen from you, you have the Federal Government Stamp on it for date, and what is inside the envelope. A poor humans copyright is to put the return address on it to, but mail something to yourself, and never open it once you get it, as that would violate the time and day stamp on it.

Good luck, I hope it helps.

Have them NOT speak like you would be a start to make them "more smart" (the word is "smarter").