The Danger of Cat's Paw Characters

The phrase cat's paw, according to Merriam-Webster, refers to an old fable where a monkey uses a cat's paw to get chestnuts out of a fire without putting himself at risk. More colloquially, though, the phrase refers to a person who is used (often without their knowledge, or duplicitously) as a tool by another person.

Nicely done... and all according to my plan.

While characters being used as cat's paws within a story is fairly common place, I'm using the term "cat's paw character" differently in this circumstance. When I say it, I'm referring to a character that you, as the author, are using as a kind of sleight of hand to disguise the actions of another character who is usually seen as the real protagonist of the story. Typically the cat's paw character acts as the point of view character, or as the narrator, allowing you to keep your story's real protagonist mysterious and in the shadows, while still giving your audience tantalizing glimpses of their skills, powers, and prowess without ruining the mystery too much.

It's a tried-and-true storytelling method, but you need to be careful that your cat's paw character is still an actual character that people like, and want to follow since they're stuck with that character for the duration of the story.

The Good Doctor, and Setting an Example

It's elementary, really.

One of the most famous examples for what I would dub a cat's paw character is everyone's favorite medical narrator Dr. John Watson. We read the stories (or listen to the radio shows, or watch the movies) to see what Sherlock Holmes is doing, but Watson is our chronicler. He's the one whose perspective we follow, and it is because we see things from his perspective that the mystery of the story can be drawn out. If we were seeing things from Sherlock's perspective, the whole sordid affair would be explained within the first three paragraphs, and then it would all be over but the shouting.

The thing that Conan Doyle does that a lot of authors forget to do, however, is he makes Watson a character. He has his own life, his own timeline, and his own, unique way of speaking and looking at things. Over the course of the cases we come to learn just as much about Watson as we do about Sherlock.

Cat's paw characters are particularly useful for drawing out the drama of a story, and for allowing a mysterious character to keep their methods to themselves without giving the audience spoilers. Whether it's Holmes with his unique investigations, or Nero Wolfe sending Archie Goodwin out to confirm his theories, they have all the answers between their ears... but if they just told us what was happening then there wouldn't be a story worth reading. Or, at the very least, it would give the game away too soon to maintain audience interest.

A cat's paw can be a very useful thing for making sure your audience gets exactly as much information as you want them to have, and from a particular perspective. However, if you're going to seat your audience in another character's POV, remember to make sure they still have a comfortable and enjoyable seat. Otherwise they might not actually reach the end of the story you're trying to tell.

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That's all for this week's Craft of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my short story collection The Rejects!

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