Something I have found is that I love reading parts where the POV character shares with us his thoughts on what is going on around him, but I really can’t stand it when he is explaining what is going on, like I can’t figure out things on my own.

I like to see the action and feel it. But I also want to know what internal motivation the character has for the way he responds.

For example, he might choose a kick to the weak knee of his opponent when he is fighting for his life, but if he is merely in self-defense mode, he might simply block the opponents blows. I want to know why he makes those choices. Sometimes it is clear in the set up of the scene, but sometimes what the character sees and interprets as the action unfolds reveals his choice of action. It’s those interpretations as the action unfolds that put me right in the head of the character and deepens my involvement in the scene. While the blow by blow scene is more like reading a play. There is a place for it, but too much makes me feel the writing is shallow and doesn’t engage my emotions.

Am I making any sense?

The more “universal” an action, thought, emotion, whatnot is to all people, the less important it becomes to describe that thing in detail. The less likely anyone would have that action, thought…, the more explicit the writing must be to move the story along. Because the story actually stops when we can’t fill in the blanks easily from our own experience.

Consider Swain’s examples from his book (at least I think I remember them being Swain’s) to show this in action.

John leaned forward to slide a velvet jeweler’s box across the table to Marcia. “Would you please be my wife?”

“Yes! A million times yes,” Marcia said.

is a pretty easy exchange. It doesn’t need a lot of additional work to assume that Marcia is ecstatic. We can all be expected to know that she’s happy that John proposed.

But if we have instead…

John leaned forward to slide a velvet jeweler’s box across the table to Marcia. “Would you please be my wife?”

“Not if my life depended on it.” Marcia took another bite of her chicken. “How’s your steak?”

we have a much more complicated exchange where we really need to know a LOT more about why Marcia is reacting that way to the proposal.