Sherlock Holmes
My wife grew up reading Sherlock Holmes and is a militant purist. That means the recent Sherlock Holmes movies starring Robert Downey, Jr. and Jude Law are anathema in my home. For this reason, I am keeping this analysis in the "Book" category and I am using my wife's copy of "The Complete Sherlock Holmes" as a reference, primarily looking at "A Scandal in Bohemia" and "A Case of Identity." Holmes teaches us two lessons in mind, body, and spirit characters. First, the body character isn't always self-absorbed and concerned with "wine, women, and song." The body character can be concerned with "the body." Doctors (Bones in Star Trek), coroners (Davis in Tru Calling), or nurses can also be body characters. The second lesson Holmes teaches us is that a mind, body, or spirit character may not necessarily be a "character." While this is much more difficult for a writer to pull off, it is possible,...