Topic: he furrowed his brow VS. his brow furrowed

I have quite a few cases like those in the subject line that keep coming up in my writing and I'm curious how others deal with them.


Specifically, for the POV character, I could write:
1. Romano furrowed his brow, or
2. Romano's brow furrowed.

Note, I'm not concerned with the option of rewriting this to use a totally different word (e.g., "He frowned" might work, but that doesn't address what I'm asking about here.)

In the case of furrowed, I'm inclined to use version 1, above, since furrowing one's brow is an action that the POV character usually performs intentionally/voluntarily.

But if it's something very surprising (e.g., an aircraft engine exploding midflight), I might write "Romano's eyebrows shot to his hairline" since it's the result of something startling and involuntary, rather than "Romano shot his eyebrows to his hairline," which suggests to me he did it intentionally and voluntarily.


I think this works equally well for non-POV characters (assume we're still in Romano's POV):
1. "De Rosa widened his eyes" for cases where Romano knows De Rosa is doing it voluntarily (e.g., trying to see better in the dark).
2. "De Rosa's eyes widened" for something startling and involuntary.


I'm curious if other members handle these cases the same way I do here.


Thanks
Dirk

Quote Post 1

Re: he furrowed his brow VS. his brow furrowed

I generally avoid involuntary movements unless it brings out some important characteristic.

So we have Laurie in a suddenly crashing air plane...

True, her eyebrows shoot up. I mean she's as surprised as I am.
True, her fingers curl around the arm rests. Mine would too

Reality of her POV is staring at the ground rushing toward her. Oxygen masks dropping. Dull screams from the adjoining cabin or a steward losing his footing.

It's a question of where the camera is pointed. Are we looking out from the POV seeing where they look vs turned to stare down the POV and how they react

Quote Post 2

Re: he furrowed his brow VS. his brow furrowed

Does that mean, in the example of Romano's eyebrows shooting to his hairline, that you would have him shoot them up? That would be weird. I've seen plenty of examples of the alternative, though: His eyebrows shot up, regardless of whether the character is the POV character or not.

Another example from this evening, a character's jaw drops. Did he drop his jaw or did it drop in response to the shock he got? I can't recall any examples of the former (he dropped his jaw), but lots of examples of the latter (his jaw dropped), even when referring to the POV character.

Quote Post 3

Re: he furrowed his brow VS. his brow furrowed

Does that mean, in the example of Romano's eyebrows shooting to his hairline, that you would have him shoot them up? That would be weird.

Very much so. "Laurie raised her eyebrows" would be my preferred approach because I'm almost always character-centric looking out.

I just word-searched it and found zero cases of eyebrows moving up (or down) without the POV character's intent. I have one jaw-drop in there. I put that one in deliberately to serve as a dialogue tag / to break up another characters speech flow.

This technique may not work for you, especially in a multi-POV story so YMMV. It can also get wordy. For example, I'll avoid saying "POV character was scared" or "POV character was surprised". Instead I waste time showing the event and hope the reader infers it. Reviewers may hit certain scenes with "how did POV react?" so I know I need to put more words there or trim it all out and have a simple "scared" or "startled"

Quote Post 4

Re: he furrowed his brow VS. his brow furrowed

She took a step in that direction, but hesitated, suddenly conscious of how alone she was in these areas bridging the living zones.

Here's me wasting twelve words when a simpler turn of phrase would do: She frowned, suddenly a little scared. Or better: She felt nervous.

I sometimes shorten my overlong setups, but I never swap to: Her brow furrowed. She frowned would be my pick.

Quote Post 5

Re: he furrowed his brow VS. his brow furrowed

Kdot Opined wrote:

"Laurie raised her eyebrows" would be my preferred approach.

Hmm. How about: Romano jumped in his seat, held down only by his safety belt, his eyebrows to (at?) his hairline.

That works for both his eyebrows shot to his hairline and him raising his eyebrows to his hairline. For the record, I wouldn't write either since eyebrows can't do that, but I'm pretty sure I do this with other movements that I see regularly, at least on this site (e.g., his eyes popped, his hair stood on end, his mouth fell open, etc.), most of which are cliches and should probably be purged anyway.

Quote Post 6

Re: he furrowed his brow VS. his brow furrowed

If we’re in a character’s POV, I would use frown, since the character would be unlikely to think of his brow furrowing, but he is likely to voluntarily “frown.” For an observing character, both would be acceptable and avoid overdoing an action description by using alternatives. Your second example would be used only for an observing character, since it would be an involuntary action by the POV character. Hope I interpreted your question correctly.

Quote Post 7

Re: he furrowed his brow VS. his brow furrowed

Thanks, Jack.

I was trying to avoid rewriting it as frowned since the above is really just one example of the kinds of things that come up all the time. I see "he knitted his brow" and "she furrowed her brow" quite a bit as alternatives to frowning, at least from writers on this site. Since I do use them to minimize repetition, I tend to think of frowning, furrowing one's brow, and kitting one's brow as almost interchangeable (there are some minor differences in terms of definition and usage, so I only use the ones appropriate to a given context).

Referring back to my discussion with Kdot, earlier: in a moment of shock for the POV character, one could write (this example is for the purpose of this discussion only, not something real):

a) he shot his eyebrows up (not good)
b) his eyebrows shot up (better but really only works when the action is involuntary)
c) he raised his eyebrows (imprecise without context since it doesn't reflect the speed at which the eyebrows went up)
d) his eyebrows to his hairline, which I could see using in an example like the one below:

When the aircraft engine exploded, Romano jumped in his seat, held down only by his safety belt, his eyebrows to (or at) his hairline. In this example, the words to/at his hairline also don't convey the speed at which the eyebrows went up; once again, context is necessary, which is fine since it's right there in the example sentence.

That being said, I probably wouldn't use alternative c for the example sentence since Romano merely raising his eyebrows seems to dampen just how frightening the event is (e.g., engine explodes, he jumps in his seat, he raises his eyebrows, then goes back to reading). Raising one's eyebrows in an emergency like this one is how Spock might react, but not an ordinary human, IMO).

Quote Post 8

Re: he furrowed his brow VS. his brow furrowed

Is the action deliberate, or automatic, or habitual?  In the first case, the person is the actor.  In the second case, since it was not a deliberate choice, the person is not the actor, and should not be the subject of the sentence, any more than you would say that someone sufferring from back spasms "spasmed his back".

Quote Post 9

Re: he furrowed his brow VS. his brow furrowed

njc wrote:

...any more than you would say that someone suffering from back spasms "spasmed his back".

Good one. smile Romano's reaction to the aircraft engine exploding is clearly a shock, so it would be "his eyebrows shot up" rather than "he shot his eyebrows up."

Thanks, njc.

Quote Post 10