The full sentence:
藤木がハッとしたように言った。
「thing Fujiki said」
Fujiki said with surprise ...
How does this differ from just saying
藤木がハッと言った。
Is したように necessary, and if so, why, and what extra is it adding?
Note, I'm happy with how the するように construct works normally. I'm just asking about whether it might be redundant in this sentence since ハッと is already an adverb.