: Ways to reduce the -ing verbs in dialogue and action tags? I find myself writing these a lot: "Thanks." She tilted her head shyly to the side. As soon as she did, her chin-length hair

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Adding to Mark Baker's excellent answer, there's a concept called "beats" about how actions dictate the pacing of a scene. Every time you interrupt the dialogue with an action that's basically another beat. This has the effect of a very strong punctuation mark - I do mean it when I say it interrupts the dialogue. It should thus be used to accentuate important parts of the dialogue, not liberally sprinkled for more description.

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Presuming you are just trying to break up some repetitive structure, and not trying to eliminate them altogether, because I don't necessarily think any of these are better, just different...
Convert it to an infinitive...

"Thanks." She tilted her head shyly to the side. As soon as she did, her chin-length hair slid off her face to reveal a bowl-sized bruise. It made her tiny eye look enormous.

Convert it to a regular verb...

"Thanks." She tilted her head shyly to the side. As soon as she did, her chin-length hair slid off her face. It revealed the bowl-sized bruise that made her tiny eye look enormous.

Convert it to a past participle (a bit ugly here)...

"Thanks." She tilted her head shyly to the side. As soon as she did, her chin-length hair slid off her face. A newly-revealed bruise made her tiny eye look enormous.

Convert it to a noun (again a bit ugly here, and shifts the meaning slightly)...

"Thanks." She tilted her head shyly to the side. As soon as she did, her chin-length hair slid off her face. The revelation of a bowl-sized bruise made her tiny eye look enormous.

Omit it altogether if it can be implied by the context...

"Thanks." She tilted her head shyly to the side. As soon as she did, her chin-length hair slid off her face and a bowl-sized bruise made her tiny eye look enormous.

And in general terms, play with the flow of sentences and clauses and actions to see if you can find a different rhythm, perhaps using some shorter sentences or with a more serialised set of actions. By which I mean, ask whether you really need a character to perform with both hands at the same time. e.g.

Thanks." She lay her head to the side and her hair slid off her face. A bowl-sized bruise swelled one eye.
I gave her the the pen drive then cocked a finger at the eyepatch tattoo. "Does that hurt?"

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