Yes, you all can stop telling me I've been Thogged. I know. And while I can't complain about the attention, I'm becoming obsessed by a related question. You see, I keep looking at that sentence, and now I need to poll the audience, because I can't see what's wrong about it. Dependent clause still refers back to the subject of the sentence, right, and not the intervening adverbial phrase?

Sentence in question is:

The stool wobbled under her when he took her hands, the one leg shorter than the others that his father hadn't mended in fifteen years gone past.

Test the sentence by removing the adverbial phrase:

The stool wobbled under her when he took her hands, the one leg shorter than the others that his father hadn't mended in fifteen years gone past.

Let's take out the prepositional phrase too.

The stool wobbled under her, the one leg shorter than the others that his father hadn't mended in fifteen years gone past.

No, that still looks right. Am I misremembering my grammar that badly?

...I think I need a new career...

I have literally spent all day thinking about a single sentence.

Well, I also went for a walk and got sushi and called my Mom and played a little guitar and made plans to go car shopping tomorrow and, er, played a lot of Bejeweled. And wrote about three pages of "Refining Fire." And figured out several important things about Sol Todd that will let me write him, thank you, because one thing I always need to know is the metaphors by which any given character perceives the world.

But you see, there's also this sentence.

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Solomon Todd thought of Kent State, and spread his arms out wide until they ached like spanning wings.

good image. bad words. hrm.


Solomon Todd thought of Kent State, and stretched his wide arms until they ached like spanning wings.

argh. slightly better.


Solomon Todd thought of Kent State, and stretched expanded arms until they ached like spanning wings.

have a few more adjectives there, Bear.

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Then with expanded wings he stears his flight
Aloft, incumbent on the dusky Air
That felt unusual weight, till on dry Land
He lights, if it were Land that ever burn'd

Dammit.
If Milton can do this, so can I.
Hmm. Lengthened. Extended.

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Solomon Todd thought of Kent State, and extended spanning arms until they ached like wings expanded.

ouch. ow. also ouch. bad jingle. bad.


Solomon Todd thought of Kent State, and stretched his arms until they ached like wings expanded.

He's plasticman?


Solomon Todd thought of Kent State, and stretched
arms wide to ache like wings expanded.

Okay, no way you're getting that into iambic pentameter. Just back away from the blank verse and nobody needs to get hurt.


Solomon Todd thought of Kent State and stretched arms wide, to ache like expanded wings.
Solomon Todd thought of Kent State and stretched arms wide, to ache like wings expanded.

Solomon Todd thought of Kent State and stretched arms wide to ache like wings expanded.

Solomon Todd thought of Kent State and stretched arms wide, to ache like wings expanded.


Huh. On the other hand... maybe all I had to do was move remove move the comma.
And I get to keep the Milton reference, because it matters to me.

SCORE!

Yep, Sol, you're going to Hell. Only sort of metaphorically speaking.
Sorry, man.
Nothing personal.

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Yep. That was all day, that was.

All this for genre hackwork. Isn't it a good thing I'm not a real writer? I'd never get anything done.