Just a use of English problem and how to solve it, that might be useful for someone else who is writing a novel.
It’s about a sentence that doesn’t seem right; that sounds awkward, long winded, and old fashioned.
This is just a personal view, of course; someone else might not have a problem with it.
By the way, probably the best way of handling ‘problem’ sentences like this is to write them even though you are not entirely happy with them.
Otherwise, you can too much time trying to solve the problem; time that you could spend more usefully on being creative.
You can always return to it later.
Let’s take a look at the problem.
“Who are you?” she demanded of him.
‘Demanded of him’ is the problem.
It seems a little awkward, long winded, and old fashioned.
How can we solve it?
‘She demanded’ is fine.
The problem is, ‘of him.’
What if we try the following.
What if we get rid of ‘him’ in this sentence. and place it in a new sentence, instead, as in the following.
She looked at him angrily.
“Who are you?” she demanded.