Writing my Watson trope
I've been advised to sharpen my sidekick from an "intriguing second tier" character to the delegate for the readers. Is there a tried and tested formula succinctly captured somewhere? I'm looking to avoid text walls, spoon feeding and a back story dump.
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/28311. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
1 answer
Here's the thing about Watson: he is a fully developed character. If you met him at a party, you would say to yourself, isn't that Doctor Watson? This is even more true in the Sherlock TV series (in no small part because Martin Freeman is a much better actor than Benedict Cumberbatch).
I think the formula for character is pretty simple: you have to be interested in them. Ask yourself, if your protagonist was hit by a bus tomorrow, would you still know who the sidekick is? Can you imagine Watson without Holmes, Sanch Panza without Don Quixote? Sam without Frodo? Hermione without Harry? Q without Bond? Jeeves without Wooster.
I think the answer in each case is yes. Not, of course, that it would be the same story, but there would still be a story, a person capable of telling a story about.
Who is your sidekick without your hero?
0 comment threads
0 comment threads