For Who The Bell Tolls

There are powerful arguments against using “whom” in modern writing. It’s archaic and it tends to stick out like the proverbial sore thumb in most places. But there’s a theory that you have to know how to do things right before you can decide not to. It worked for people like Joyce and Picasso, so it should work for us too.

Whom is the genitive or the ablative or something. I don’t actually know – that’s the sort of thing you learn if you study Latin, and all I can remember is “Caecilius est in horto,” which won’t get us very far. Anyway, we don’t need the proper word for it, just the proper usage.

The Trick (Questions)

Most of the times you could use whom are questions. “To whom did you give the last piece of cake?” for example, or “She was shot by whom?”

The trick to distinguish “who” questions from “whom” questions is to imagine a full answer using he / him*. If the answer uses “he” then the question should have “who”; “him” means you should use “whom”. In the above examples:

“To WHOM did you give the last piece of cake?” = “I gave the last piece of cake to HIM”

“She was shot by WHOM?” = “He was shot by HIM”

By contrast, “WHO shot her?” = “HE shot her.”

Be careful, though. When answering questions, especially when giving a one word answer, we often switch the sentence around. For example, if you were at a police line-up having witnessed a murder and the Detective said “Who shot her?”, you might well point to the perpetrator and say “It was him!” or simply “Him!”. So when using this trick, make the answer a full sentence using the same word order as the question.

Non-Question Uses

Outside questions, you should just be able to do a direct replacement (he for who; him for whom). It will make for a slightly clumsy sentence, but of course you are not going to leave it with he / him, you are just temporarily using the substitution to check your word choice. A bit like we did with Advice and Practice .

“It was Jeremy who shot her” = “It was Jeremy, he shot her”.

“And God, by whom all things were made” = “And God, by him all things were made”.

 

*Footnote: Those who are bothered by gender issues will note I’ve gone masculine here. Yes, that means you will sometimes be using he/him for a female or non-gendered individual. If you prefer, she/her works for this trick, but I like he/him because the letter m reminds us that him is the substitute for whom.

Success or No Success?

Those of you who know me in real life may be concerned that this is becoming an obsession, but I am genuinely intrigued by the success of the British TV show, Deal or No Deal (Note: the US and probably other versions of the show are hideously disappointing by comparison. This is not a post about the value of pretty girls in bikinis prancing about with boxes in their hands).

For those who don’t know, it is a gameshow, in which there are 22 boxes, each with a secret amount of money hidden inside (ranging from 1p to £250,000). The contestant takes a box at random at the start of the show, not knowing how much money it contains. Over a series of rounds, he opens the other boxes three at a time and after each set of three, the Banker (a mysterious man on the end of a telephone) offers to purchase the player’s box for a sum of money determined by the Banker. The contestant can Deal (sell his box for the offered amount) or No Deal (keep playing). At the end of the game, if the contestant has not said Deal, he takes home the amount in his box.

What fascinates me about this, is the success of the show. Most gameshows revolve around a quiz of some sort or a physical challenge which is genuinely diverting to watch. As the viewer, you may enjoy the banter between the hosts (Pointless, Countdown) or between the host and the contestants (Weakest Link) but you watch it to test yourself against the questions or challenges. With DOND, there is “just one question” and although you can try to decide when you would deal, that’s a pretty weak reason to watch the show. But watch it people do. Enough people that it’s been running for 7 years and shows no sign of slowing down.

So why? And what’s this got to do with a Writing blog? Well, to answer the second question first, everything. If an author could keep readers coming back every day for 7 years with a simple list of numbers, wouldn’t we do it? (On the side, obviously, using the money to fund our Art).

Create Lovable Characters

Contestants spend a couple of weeks in the wings before they take The Chair. The audience develops a relationship with them over the weeks; in-jokes and nicknames help to cement this. By the time they take the Chair, contestants already have the TV audience rooting for them to do well.

Similarly, little things are what make readers love your characters. Mr Darcy is not drop-dead gorgeous, but his character is so well-developed by Jane Austen that he has women all over the world swooning by the time he makes a move on Elizabeth Bennett.

And a Hate-able Villain

The Banker is nothing more than a black telephone. He is deliciously cruel to the contestants and the whole audience loves to hate the Banker. He is the enemy, the obstacle the contestant must overcome, the challenge they must beat. This programme could easily have been run with a computer making the offers, but if it had, I don’t think it would have been half as successful.

Focus on the obstacles your characters have to overcome. There may not be a villain we can boo, but there must be something your characters are up against, in order for the readers to really root for them.

Keep Raising the Stakes

At the end of the first round, most players  have at least some of the mega-high boxes and at least some of the very-low ones left available. Although the values available in the game can fall, the emotional value to the player is always kept high, the offers are always a careful balance between the risk of winning less and the chance of winning more, and the longer the game goes on, the higher the probability of taking out the remaining big numbers.

The received wisdom in plotting is to simply keep raising the stakes, making the obstacles bigger, the threats greater and the dangers more … err… dangerous. However, I think even if some of the events in Acts 2 and 3 are lower value, the characters’ reactions to them can make them higher stakes. If you lose your wife and mother in Act One, losing your dog in Act 2 might seem like a lower value obstacle, but what if the dog was the only thing you had left to live for? Value is in the eye of the beholder.

When world-building, don’t get too hung up on set-dressing

The set of DOND is a pretty basic box with a few flashing red lights for the Banker’s calls, a screen in the middle to show the boxes still available, and a big black telephone with an old-fashioned cord. It’s basic, it’s cheap. And no-one gives a damn.

A lot of writers agonise over having their readers smell and taste and hear the world the characters are living in, and description definitely has its place. The Bronte sisters couldn’t have lived without it (they certainly couldn’t have produced stories long enough to be called novels!). But if the story is good and the characters are good, the setting is less crucial. In fact, if you spend too long on setting, readers will get bored and move on.

Focus on Details instead

Although the set is simple, DOND plays on some superstitions and rules that have grown up with the game. For example, if you open the box with the 1p inside, you have to go to the front and share a celebratory kiss with the contestant; boxes 22 and the “newbie” (the latest future-contestant to join the game) are cursed and likely to ruin your game. These weren’t programmed in by the makers of the show, they have evolved over time, but they form part of the show now and add to the richness of the viewing experience.

Instead of a five page description of the world your story is set in, focus on a few crucial details. Make them something the readers can latch onto, make them realistic but also unusual. Then make sure they remain consistent however complicated the rest of the story gets.