I like to act out my own scenes sometimes. (When no one is home; I definitely cannot act). I like to do this, though, because it gives me an idea of what exactly is going on in the scene. It gives me a really clear picture of what I want to happen, because usually I can only describe what's happening if I can see it first.
The problem with this is I see everything, so my first instinct is to write everything. I think, "well, I see him turn on his back and do this, so I must describe every little movement so the reader knows what's happening."
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Every book would be three times as long if every writer did that. The thing is, the reader doesn't need to know what I see in my head. I give them enough words so that they can take the words and use their imagination to fill in the rest. It's amazing what you can do with a few words. It's easy, for me anyway, to think if I describe it enough, they'll see it perfectly. In fact, I think the opposite is true. You just have use the exact perfect words so that those words trigger the imagination in the way you want them to, so they see a bit of the picture you see (of course, it will never be the same picture).
And that's really hard. But whoever said writing was easy?
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