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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/6255
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

I hope this explains what's been said as opposed to reiterating it.

-ing phrases slow the pace. Subsidiary clauses slow the pace. You're writing action. Don't slow the pace. Modern middle school English teachers ask students for sentence variation. -ing phrases are a common result. These phrases may sound scholarly, but they do not work in fiction.

If you introduce on an -ing phrase, you introduce simultaneity. All actions that follow must occur at the same time. Rearrange your sentence and the law is obvious: He coughed blood while switching his reactivated communicator. If you introduce the sentence on the -ing phrase, you keep the reader reading for the payoff; when will I know what is happening simultaneously? I have ADD. I can't pay attention until I know. The reader cannot even begin to understand the sentence until the subject shows up. Who is acting the action? Without the actor, our minds are blank. Introductory -ing phrases encourage the reader to read over those initial words. If you rearranged them, the reader would keep at it linearly.

One way to envision the process: Write as if you were your character in that moment. Don't write as if you are your character retelling his war story. Example:

> Giving all his effort not to utter so as much as a moan from his agony, he gave himself three seconds of reprieve…
> 
> Sure enough, in three seconds the mental assault subsided, if only to a tolerable level.

If you were Sinclair in the moment, you'd say:

> He needed to moan. He shouldn't. He gave himself three seconds reprieve. The mental assault subsided, if only to a tolerable level.

Is that no fun? Does that take away the poetry of authorship? The voice of distance? No. You inject the voice subtly. Your voice merges with Sinclair's. The word reprieve? I doubt Sinclair has thought to himself: I will give myself three seconds reprieve. He might say rest. He might say, "I'll give myself a fucking break." You say reprieve. The reader understands the merge between voices, and you are allowed to make Sinclair's profanities into poetry. Understand, however, that in this complex relationship, Sinclair's voice is more immediate and more enticing than yours. In the action plot, stick with his voice as much as possible. That beautiful word choice? You can get away with it. But only so long as it is not the entire foggy lens through which the reader has to muck in order to get to the good stuff--the plot. Make that lens as clear as possible. I hope this description helps.

Original score: 3