The late morning sun warmed her face but hadn’t the strength to dispel the mood she was in. Or The late morning sun warmed her face but (it) hadn’t the strength to dispel the mood she was in. ------ In critiquing my short story someone just inserted (she) where the (it) is inserted above. I didn't think it needed a pronoun at all as it was implied by the sentence structure. What is your advice? Does it need clarification? Is it possibly a British/US English difference? Only, I've offered this piece for critiquing at University and it has been graded by two professors, and no-one mentioned it before. But I want to enter the story into a competition and would liek it to be as good as possible. I'd be grateful for any reponse. Many thanks ILF
either way is ok, imo... as both an editor and a writing tutor, i wouldn't take issue with either one... 'she' would make no sense, as it seems to me it's the sun lacking strength, not the person... however, i would suggest placing a comma before 'but'...
It certainly doesn't need the pronoun, and my personal preference would be to leave it out, but the sentence is still standard English if you put it in. I suspect your reader misunderstood the sentence and thought it was the woman who was lacking strength. Including the "it" would at least prevent that misreading.
