I run a private online crit group where participants “pay” by giving critiques in order to get them from other participants. Recently, one participant posted this question after my feedback on her work-in-progress
Question: I’m not sure if I totally understand something you advised me on. You said, “No second stage directions in one sentence.”
an example of this is when I wrote a triple stage direction:
“Maria crossed herself, picked up her spoon and said X”
Why, Marsha is 2 or 3 stage directions not to be done? Is it because it is “over-writing?” I looked that term up and I think that is why you advised this. And yet, in novels it seems common to do multiple stage directions. For example:
“Laila kneeled before her mother and took her hand.”
“He coughed, cleared his throat.”
“He hunkered down, pulled her to him, and held her for a long time.“
Answer: It’s overwriting when the actions aren’t necessary to move the scene forward.
The examples you posted from published books are not equivalent to the example from your own work. Maria crossing herself, picking up a spoon and saying something are not three significant actions. One of those actions will move the story forward with fewer words and in a less distracting way.
In this example:
“Laila kneeled before her mother and took her hand.”
Both of Laila’s actions are separate and significant. If you took one of them out, the meaning would change. The writer has used an economy of words and action to progress the story. It’s a beautifully pared down sentence that’s infused with action and emotion.
An overwritten version of the above would be:
Laila smoothed the wrinkles out of her skirt, then looked into her mother’s blue eyes. She knelt down onto the small embroidered cushion at her mother’s feet, then reached out and took her mother’s hand.
In this example:
“He hunkered down, pulled her to him, and held her for a long time.”
Again, the actions are quite separate and vivid with an economy of words. You couldn’t remove any of the actions and have the same progression of story. And again, this is a beautiful sentence, infused with meaningful action. Actually three significant actions, vividly shown, in just 14 words.
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