Friday, November 6, 2009

A while ago, I read a post on Across the Universe wondering whether or not a person could say someone's eyes followed a person without the reader picturing a pair of disembodied eyeballs tailing an individual.

While it could be neither here nor there (and I personally don't picture the disembodied eyes), the idea intrigued me. And today I saw another such thing:

"Her lips smiled." From Un Coeur Simple. Can lips smile without a person causing them to do it? I'm not sure.

Your thoughts?
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3 comments:

  1. Susan R. MillsNovember 6, 2009 at 12:36 PM

    Funny. I have a line that says "My eyes followed the ladder up to a..." Hmm...maybe I should change that. Interesting.

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  2. Davin MalasarnNovember 6, 2009 at 12:41 PM

    Hmmm...I remember the eye post and I had no problem with that. The smile lips is a bit more difficult for me to buy into. The context might make it more okay, but I can see that pulling me out of the fiction potentially.

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  3. Kelsey (Dominique) RidgeNovember 7, 2009 at 9:26 AM

    Susan -- I think you should be okay. People probably won't go to that image.

    Davin -- I can understand why the author did it, though it is something to ponder, certainly. I agree that one could be distracted by it.

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