From a book I am reading:
"Tall and thin, with jet-black hair combed dramatically away from his face, she found herself momentarily distracted by his cheekbones and lips as she approached him."
This sentence doesn't work unless the he/she is one person, which is not possible. In other words, misplaced modifier. Who has jet-black hair? The man, not "she."
Who wants to rewrite it? Feel free to make it two sentences if you can't cram everything in there. Let's call the players Louise and Harry.
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6 comments:
As Louise approached Harry, she found herself momentarily distracted by his jet-black hair combed dramatically away from his face, his tall cheekbones and thin lips accenuating the picture.
Jeffrey Morris
Harry was tall and thin with jet-black hair combed dramatically away from his face. Louise found herself momentarily distracted by his cheekbones and lips as she approached him.
Ouch! Even knowing (from the title) that there was a gender issue, when I came to the word ‘she’ it hurt. :-)
My attempt (just changing the subject of the sentence to match the intro phrase): Tall and thin, with jet-black hair combed dramatically away from his face, he distracted her momentarily with his cheekbones and lips as she approached him.
Still not satisfactory, but then again, I don’t have much experience in that obvious genre, though I’m certain the author has an idea of how to fix it…once it has been pointed out.
Jeffrey/Anonymous, pretty good.
ChildsPlay, great!
Westley, I think the "he distracted her" part is a little odd, but it's better than the original! This is one sentence where I think passive voice ("was distracted by") works better than active.
As Louise approached the tall, thin gentleman, whose jet-black hair was combed dramatically away from his face, she was momentarily distracted by his cheekbones and lips.
Sounds good, Anon.
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