Here's a question for English pedants (like me!).
"(He) turned towards Elinor with what he hoped a winning smile..."
"(He) turned towards Elinor with what he hoped was a winning smile..."
This is Napoleonic period military fiction. I wrote the first: editor thinks the second. Bearing in mind modern readers' sensibilities, what do you think - 'not was' (active but needs more effort) or 'was' (passive but easy to read)?
Hi Mary - you can't delete once you've posted, as far as I know. It's one peculiarity of this site (like having to click 'More' to see posts dropped off the page edge).
This editor sent me a list of suggested alterations for consideration. One proposal read fine but wouldn't have worked contextually, so editors aren't always right :)
I posted a response to Jonathan Hopkins, couldn't find it on the page, thought I mustn't have pressed "send" and so sent it again. Now you've got my comment twice with slight variations. My apologies,
(I'm afraid I don't know how to delete a post - can anyone tell me?)
Version 2 sounds better to me. In fact when I first read your question I automatically added a "was" to version 1 - we see what we expect to see, not always what is there!
If you have an editor surely part of his remit is to make these sort of amendments.
I'm baffled by your third point. There's no question of "active" vs "passive" as far as I can see.