There is a trend in editing these days which is much less fun than it sounds: the removal of what are known as Disembodied Body Parts.The idea is that it’s poor style to use the following constructions:
His eyes were on Mary.
His arm went round her waist.
Jane’s head was in her hands.
Apparently, there is a risk that readers will interpret these sentences as:
His eyeballs were on Mary’s lap.
His arm went round her waist, but his body had nothing to do with that and may have been elsewhere.
Jane had been decapitated and her corpse carefully arranged by a psychopath.
I’d have thought, if the reader is in any doubt at all about whether Jane is in a) despair or b) two separate pieces, the book has more problems than I can deal with here.
The construction undeniably lends itself to comically poor writing (‘her eyes…
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38 Caliber Reviews 