If you were making a film and you wanted some dramatic action, you might decide to slow everything down. Imagine that your heroine is in a sticky situation and you want to tease your audience by making them wait to see what will happen. In a film you could have the danger - which could be a monster, or a flood, or a fire - gradually getting closer and closer. How do you do this in a story?
Here is a simple scene written normally:
Eryl put her eye to the crack and saw something. She stepped back and stumbled. She reached out to steady herself and felt her hand sinking into something sticky. It was something that reminded her of the evil-looking substance which had dripped from the Izlok's mouth.
That was reasonably exciting but it didn't take long to read. To slow down the action I could add more words or, and this is more effective, I could make the scene appear to last longer.
Try this:
Eryl put her eye to the crack and saw
something.
She stepped back.
Stumbled.
Reached out to steady herself.
And felt her hand sinking into something sticky.
Something that reminded her of the evil-looking substance which
had dripped from the Izlok's mouth.
Now, wasn't that more effective? All I have done is to make the action seem to take longer by spreading the text over several lines. Actually, that isn't all I've done. I've also broken a few rules. Did you see where I'd been really naughty?
Firstly, I had some sentences which weren't real sentences, such as "Reached out to steady herself", but if I had started every sentence with "she" you would have been quite sick of the word.
Secondly, I used a one-word sentence. Some teachers will tell you that you can't have one-word sentences. They are quite right, of course. Normally you wouldn't use one-word sentences but, on special occasions, they can be very useful. Just to be on the safe side, perhaps you ought to ask your teachers what they think before you start using one-word sentences.
The other extremely bad thing that I did was to start a sentence with "and". How many times have you been told you mustn't do that? The reason I did it was to slow down the action. Do you think it worked?
If you're worried about doing any of these naughty things, just remember that authors of best-selling books do them all the time.