Dr. Watson - Character Creation

Character Creation

In Conan Doyle's early rough plot outlines, Sherlock Holmes' sidekick was named was "Ormond Sacker" before Conan Doyle finally settled on "John Watson". Many of the great fictional detectives have their Watson: Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot, for example, is accompanied by Captain Arthur Hastings; Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe had Archie Goodwin. J. R. R. Tolkien used the Hobbits in his works in a similar way, using characters such as Bilbo Baggins and Sam Gamgee to filter the intricate and mysterious aspects of his novels through to the audience.

In the words of William L. De Andrea,

"Watson also serves the important function of catalyst for Holmes's mental processes. From the writer's point of view, Doyle knew the importance of having someone to whom the detective can make enigmatic remarks, a consciousness that's privy to facts in the case without being in on the conclusions drawn from them until the proper time. Any character who performs these functions in a mystery story has come to be known as a 'Watson'."

In 1929, English crime writer and critic Ronald Knox stated as one of his rules for fledgling writers of detective fiction that,

"The stupid friend of the detective, the Watson, must not conceal from the reader any thoughts which pass through his mind; his intelligence must be slightly, but very slightly, below that of the average reader."