I thought it was important for
us all to play to our strengths, and so many of the Virgin
books were (rightly) quite experimental. So I wanted to be the
traditionalist, and when the Missing Adventures started up it
seemed a good idea to concentrate on those.
I was weaned on Tom Baker's Doctor, and I loved the stories
with Romana and K9. I always prefer the Doctor to have a
brainy assistant who can look after herself. When there's an
incompetent or a child in that role who goes stumbling over
their heels into traps I think one starts to lose patience
(what I'd call the Tara King syndrome).
You need respect for your heroes. It's nice to have three
of them, as well, because then you can split them up into
various different combinations. In a regular series, in books
or films and TV, you know people will want to keep their eyes
on your regulars, so I tried my darndest to keep them central
all the way.
Also, it means you have to make the guest characters as
vivid and large as possible, just to make them compete.
