Charley concentrated hard on trimming the stems, and Miles sat mesmerised as she transformed the humble bouquet into something you might buy at a florists.

for some reason i don't feel comfortable using the 'you' because it is almost as if the author is adressing the reader - but then i wonder if i am worrying too much.

What do you think? It's just an informal way of saying 'one', so maybe it is all right?

Any comments appreciated.

Casey

I thought that bit was in Miles's POV, not authorial voice as such? Isn't it him being mesmerised and thinking it looks like something from a florist (whether he says it in his head as 'you' or one'? But hard to say without more context...

Rosy

<Added>

Inadvertent smiley there, sorry. If it's in his POV, he'd be quite likely to phrase it internally as 'you' not 'one', wouldn't he? (Unless he's a really posh guy. Name like Miles....?!)

I see why you're worried, but I think it's all fine. I read it as Miles's thought, and he'd certainly think 'you' in this colloquial context.

It may be one of those things that your instict dictated quite naturally, and it just looks odder the more you try to think about it!

If you're worried you could try something like

something a florist might have done

something that could have come from a florist

Emma

<Added>

Crossed with Rosy, and obviously agreeing with her.

First impressions: I read it as 'one', rather than 'you'.

- NaomiM

Thanks guys, think i'll leave it as is.

Interesting point, that it reads as in Miles POV...

*handful of hair tumbles to the floor*

Casey

<Added>

It's supposed to be written from Charley's POV, so obviously i haven't mastered POV as much as i thought - i wonder if it matters.

Gawd, sorry to bother you all with my hair-splitting, ignore me:)

Don't worry, Casey!!! Really.

That's why I said it was hard to tell out of context. If the rest of the para is all Charley (and it sounds like her POV at the start of the sentence when she is concetrating hard), then we'd read it as her seeing him looking mesmerised, and the bit about the florist as being in her thoughts - her comparing the bouquet to one from a florist. But in isolation, because you told us he was mesmerised by her transforming it, it felt like he was the one comparing it to a professional bouquet ('he sat mesmerised as she...' sounds like we are watching her with his eyes).

If you are really bothered, you could make it 'Miles appeared mesmerised as she...' But almost certainly there's no need, because if the wider context make it clear we are in Charley's POV, then that's how it will read.

Relax!

R xx

Thanks, Rosy!

*On sunlounger, cocktail in hand*

Casey x

I don't know the piece, but I think we read it as Miles's PoV because of 'mesmerised', which it's hard to read as Charley's description of him. Also, is it in character for Charley to think of the bouquet so flatteringly? You could get away with either, but both together pull us into Miles's head

It's a perfectly good sentence, by the way, but I was thinking back to your thread about sentence structure, here, having two subject-verb-object structures in one sentence, if you're looking for places to vary it, here's one, possibly, specially if you're already tinkering to settle the PoV issue.

Not because they're an improvement, but just playing around and sticking to what you've said but in C's PoV:

Charley concentrated hard on trimming the stems, seeming to mesmerise Miles by the way she transformed the humble bouquet into something you might buy at a florists.

Her fingers trimming the stems so carefully seemed to mesmerise Miles as he sat there and watched his humble bouquet transformed into...

He was gazing at her as she snipped each stem and placed it in the vase, until she had something a florist would have been proud of.

He was watching/He watched her trim each stem, apparently mesmerised by her own concentration as his humble bouquet was transformed into...

Snip by snip, stem by stem she transformed his humble bouquet into something that a florist might make, and he watched, mesmerised.

Emma

<Added>

Crossed with Rosy, and I agree, in a solidly Charley PoV context it might be fine.

Punctuation a bit off in some of my examples. I'm not really here, you see, I'm revising Chapter Six.

<Added>

If you look at the straightforward sentence, then pick a different element to start it with, the rest usually falls into place fairly naturally, though not necessarily prettily. Sometimes what it ends with is actually more important. Here's one that's only just occurred to me and keeps the two-part feel of the original:

Concentrating, Charley trimmed the stems and set them one by one in the vase: only when she looked up, pleased at how professional the result was, did she see that Miles was gazing at her, mesmerised.

Shit Emma, how do you do that ????? I'm thinking I might start a thread on every sentence in my book, hoping you'll work some magic...


*Eve, who's not really her either but revising (shredding) chapters 1 to 31 but losing faith rapidly and trying to find ways to procrastinate on WW*

Her fingers trimming the stems so carefully seemed to mesmerise Miles as he sat there and watched his humble bouquet transformed into...

Hmm, i really like that one, Emma, thanks very much for that.

LOL Eve!! Yes, I've benefited more than once from the old Darwin magic.

Casey

I'm not here either, about to start revising chap 10...

You're welcome, Casey. My 'Added' bit in my last post was really a rather feeble answer (tho' the best I can easily produce) to Eve's question.

Emma

Okay just one more thing that i've been meaning to ask:

..at the florists

why isn't it 'at the florist's'

is there a rule about this? I went to the bakers/greengrocers - or is it baker's??

I've called a dept, store in my book Harrisons - mind you, there is Harrods and Debenhams...

Casey

I think it can be either, depending on whether your're thinking of it as the shop belonging to a florist (the florist's) the shop belonging to several florists (the florists' or that these days it's really the shop itself that's called that (the florists), since you don't have the option as you do with a baker/bakery. I notice that like Harrods and Debenhams Sainsburys have finally given up defending their 's, although it's still, really, the shop belonging to Mr (or in this case Lord) Sainsbury.

Emma

Hmm, interesting about Sainsburys.

Thanks.

Casey

I think florists should have an apostrophe somewhere, either florist's (if one florist) or florists' (if several, or perhaps a chain).

In this case, when it's generic and not referring to a particular florist's/florists' shop, I would use the latter.

Deb