Day 14

For the past two days we’ve played with protagonists and antagonists/villains. But these are not the only characters who appear in a story.

The Prompt

Write a story that includes a sidekick

Tips

• secondary characters play a vital rule in a short story: they highlight characteristics of the main character
• You must resist the temptation to give a secondary character/sidekick their own interesting story in this short story. This is not a novel.
• I use the word “sidekick” in the title for this post for a reason. A sidekick is an almost cartoonish, two-dimensional character. Of course this character does have a life of their own. You’re just not telling that story in this story.
• The entire purpose of a sidekick is to ask the difficult questions, to let the protagonist show off, and perhaps to be rescued.
• Think of Dr. Watson and Sherlock Holmes, or any of the assistants in the 80s episodes of Doctor Who. Their main functions are to show Sherlock Holmes and The Doctor as the geniuses they are. The sidkicks mostly slow down the brilliant characters’ pace so the reader/viewer can keep up.
• Sidekicks introduce complications (think of all those twisted ankles and all the times a sidekick blunders into a trap and has to be rescued).
• Sidekicks ask the difficult questions questions (such as “why don’t we just got back in the TARDIS and fly away?”).
• They can also point out your characters flaws something that the modern Doctor Who’s assistants do very nicely.
• Write a story in which you give your sidekick who can show off the protagonists best features, draw attention to their flaws, and perhaps even cause complications in the story.

Leave a comment to let us know how you got on today. What kind of sidekick did you write? Or, if you’re using your own prompts, how’s the challenge going? What are you writing? What’s going well?