What's Wrong With This?

what is your problem with the sentence? What do you want it to portray?

How about

Within moments of her embrace, Flick felt the Mother's soft supple skin harden with cooling quickness.

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the 'cooling quickness' part to tell the reader that her body is changing form (or temperature at least, since stone is cold0

Sounds to me like you need more than a sentence to describe what's happening. Try writing it as a short paragraph.

It seems that Flick is feeling two contradictory things in one sentence - hardness and softness. It would read better if "soft and supple" were in a preceding sentence. Then it begins to harden.


Well, like that but without the double entendres.

It's late at night where you are. (I'm three hours earlier.) Unless you're mentally fresh, I'd suggest leaving it until tomorrow. Fatigue plays tricks.

"Began to feel" would imply that the sensation of hardening started at a particular time, whatever time you say it started, and continued for a while. But your sentence says she felt the surface begin to harden, which is different.

One thing – were Flick and Mother locked in an embrace for "moments"? That's a long time for a hug.

My suggestion is make it two sentences. You have one sentence with two subjects or focuses.

In the beginning of the sentence She embraced Flick - then in the same sentence, Flick felt her etc.

She embraced Flick. Within moments, Flick felt the soft, supple skin of the Mother’s arms and chest begin to harden.

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Just my thoughts..

I'm with brokenfingers: there's a pronoun problem.

She embraced Flick, and within moments, Flick felt the soft, supple skin of the Mother’s arms and chest begin to harden. Her embraced (oops: embrace) loosened around Flick’s body as her flesh became solid stone.

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Both characters are female, so you need to use care with "she" and "her." The boldfaced "her" would first be read as referring to Flick, as "Flick" was the grammatical subject of the preceding sentence. Then that won't make sense, and the reader has to go back and reinterpret.

Maybe also avoid "stone platform" and "became solid stone." Too close together. Can you say the granite platform or something?

i agree. Also, her arms began to harden and then loosen

how about

The Mother then turned to Flick and the two of them stepped upon the granite platform. Leaning towards her, the Mother wrapped her soft supple arms around Flick in an embrace. Within moments, she felt the Mother harden as her flesh became solid stone...

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Jewel101 said:

...her arms began to harden and then loosen

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Right, that's not logical, and besides, Flick will have to duck out of the hug before she's trapped by stone arms.

Leaning towards [American style: toward] her, the Mother wrapped her soft supple arms around Flick in an embrace. Within moments, she felt the Mother harden as her flesh became solid stone...

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This version will give the reader the same kind of confusion about pronouns as before. "She" means the Mother until the reader finds out otherwise, but it isn't the Mother, it's Flick.

WVWG, if you've been using Flick's POV up until this passage, why don't you drop the "she felt..." parts and just describe her sensations? Then you won't have all those "she's" and "her's" floating around and getting tangled up. The Mother embraced Flick... Her soft, supple arms began to cool and harden...

yea, it's in the pronouns or POV

If Flick is the predominant character in this scene, then let Flick feel her skin -soft, supple...then let Flick be aware of her hardness..


Or, Flick walked into her embrace...that way its his action all the way

How about instead of....

She embraced Flick, and within moments, Flick felt the soft, supple skin of the Mother’s arms and chest begin to harden.

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....You could do something to this effect....


"She embraced Flick, her soft, supple arms and chest beginning to harden as she did so."

I like this scene... there are a couple things that come to mind... if the platform is the same kind of stone the Mother becomes, perhps you could show that...

"The Mother's embrace loosened as she became the same material as the platform and the heat faded from her stony limbs."

You might be able to rewrite the tear part also to make the moment even more heart wrenching -

"The pain of separation from her children, like the solitary marble tear on her face, would be forever etched in stone."

I dunno - I turned it over a couple times. Its a powerful scene... I like it.
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Original:
The Mother then turned to Flick and the two of them stepped upon the stone platform. She embraced Flick, and within moments, Flick felt the soft, supple skin of the Mother’s arms and chest begin to harden. Her embraced loosened around Flick’s body as her flesh became solid stone. Flick looked into the face of the Mother, and on her marble cheek a single tear had been frozen, the pain of being physically separated from her children forever etched upon her face.

Lose the "felt".