: Ordinary writing or Prose: how to make it immersive? As a beginner, I have a frequent problem when writing: I know what I want to write, but I fail to put it in good sentences that reflect

Assorted comments:

== There's a lot of explanation:

The pressure made him, with shame, due to the fear of causing more trouble, it certainly did not please Oscar, The bitterness made a tear, etc.

It's usually best to give your reader what they need to figure things out, and then trust them to figure it out.

== I agree that there are too many intensifiers.

== The back-and-forth of action isn't following the usual convention of a new paragraph for each new actor--Oscar is exploding in the same paragraph that Bob glances. I think this is relevant to immersion because it disrupts the back-and-forth of the interaction.

== There's a fair bit of redundancy. For example:

The retort hit Bob like a hard stone and he froze

We really don't need any more than "Bob froze.." We know that he's reacting to what was just said, so you don't need "the retort hit". And both freezing and "hit like a stone" describe a reaction; you don't need both.

Redundancy is likely to make the reader go, "Yeah, yeah, can we go on to the next thing?" and thus harm immersion.

== The paragraph starting with "The retort..." feels like it needs a rewrite to be more specific and less explanatory.

== The action is heavily interspersed with explanation, so we keep falling out of the scene.

I removed some of the extra stuff, without significantly rephrasing:

====

"Look what you did."

Bob risked a glance, and saw his mother's disappointment and his father's frown. He looked back to the ground, silent.

That didn't please his father. "I raised a coward! At least have the decency to face your problems like a man."

Bob froze, trying to make himself as little as possible. Why did he do it? He knew what would happen. He'd been warned. He felt tears coming. It was too late now--they were going to send him to the mines.

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In the case of the example you provide, the problem I have with it as a reader is that the point-of-view character, realistically, is not going to be doing any analysis during the exchange itself, and you forcing him to do analysis during a crisis is what makes the reader go into that non-emotional mental place.

Put another way, the paragraphs telling us to think a certain way is pulling on a different faculty in our brains. It is the back and forth between dialog and description/analysis that is jarring here.

I'd do some rearranging:

"Look at what you did..."

Bob risked a quick glance.

Oscar exploded, "I raised a coward! At least have the decency to face your problems
like a man."

The retort hit Bob like a hard stone and he froze. Why did he always
have to put himself in such difficult situations ? He knew what would
be the outcome — they were going to send him to
the mines.

And I might cut all of the below stuff, it's a mix of speculative thinking and telling and extra back-story info-dumpy stuff and so on. I don't think we need these details.

All he could see was Alice's face of pure disappointment and Oscar's
frowned brows. The pressure made him instantly look back on the ground
with shame, and he stayed silent due to the fear of causing more
trouble. Would this gesture have been the right answer for Alice who
calmed down a little, it certainly did not please whose anger.

, his parents had warned him many times. Yet, in the
end, he couldn't get to be the man his father wished for. A tear ran
down his cheek. It was too late now

-- trying to make himself as little as possible.

The bitterness made

But you'll get the hang of it, and I have no idea if my re-write is any more immersive than your original. And, your original is a fine starting point. Write an entire draft of your complete story, and then go through item by item and see what can be pruned or rearranged to better effect.

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Try writing simply, and ignoring time.

You are using too many intensifiers, and hyperbolic ones:

quick glance
pure disappointment
instantly look
anger exploded
At least have
he froze
as little as possible
he always have to

You don't trust your reader to read the scene and follow it, you feel like you need to hit them with a hammer to understand "disappointment" by making it absolute, pure, and the worst look of disappointment Bob has ever seen in his life! Well, we don't know what "pure disappointment" looks like, really. How does it differ from anger or sadness? Is she crying?

Why does Oscar's anger have to "explode"?

Also, I think you are too focused on describing the movie, and not the experience of being Bob. You say he wonders why he always puts himself in difficult situations, but asking this question doesn't seem appropriate to the moment. It is also too general, it doesn't inform the reader of anything.

Why DID he? What was he thinking would happen? What was his motivation for making whatever mess he made? How did it go wrong? Give me some information about Bob's internal state, so I understand how he was stupid, or not so stupid but unlucky, or whatever.

The scene attempts to be dramatic but contains no good conflict. You have room for it; you are inside Bob's head, but he is taking a beating without even thinking of fight back. This leaves the scene flat; you need conflict, even if the conflict is internal to Bob and he dare not speak it. In his head he should fight back against Oscar, think of what he wishes he could tell Alice but cannot because Oscar is there.

Also, ignore time. If sentence A is followed by sentence B, then without any other explanation, the reader assumes an action in sentence B is executed after the action in sentence B. And the same for every other sentence, unless you begin a sentence with "He had earlier done XYZ", we presume sentences are presented in chronological order.

Concision: In a short sentence, "He did X, then Y" can save a word over "He did X. He did Y." Also, "He did X, Y, Z and A" is more concise than the alternatives. However, if a sentence runs on for clause after clause, the length can feel too long to the reader. Sentences should END before they reach paragraph length. Don't sacrifice readability for concision, it makes no difference if you were concise but confusing.

Finally, stop putting a space before your punctuation. That is just wrong.

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"As an experienced writer, how do you write prose so that the reader gets immersed in your story?" I don't know that I do, but almost all my "writing technique", so called, comes from reading the work of others. I've had very little formal education in the writing of fiction, I've learned by reading. So if I want to write existential horror I read H.P. Lovecraft, and his many contemporary imitators, if I want to write apocalypse fiction I read John Wyndham and John Christopher. Find authors who engage you in the genre you want to work in and read their work, read it for enjoyment, then reread it with an eye to the technical details of sentence and narrative structure, then read it again as well. Then write it, not the same story but your own work using the same structures that grab your attention and hold it, it won't be right the first few times but keep reading and writing back and forward until you feel that you have capture what you want from that piece. Then get someone else to read your piece to confirm that you have in fact accomplished a good piece of work. It doesn't actually matter how closely it matches the style your were going for, as long as it works well in and of itself. As you read more and more material you'll eventually develop your own particular style which will adapt and change as you read and write different pieces.

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There are various issues here, like unnecessary words (glances are inherently quick, if something is said to 'hit like a rock', the 'hard' part is implicit) and poorly-paired/redundant terms (frowns involve the brow; 'frowned brows' is better as 'frown' or 'lowered brow'), and at times, unnecessary explanations in a needlessly passive voice ('The bitterness made a tear ran down his cheek.' can easily be 'A tear ran down his cheek'. This leaves the reader to infer its cause (bitterness) and makes it grammatically correct ('made a tear run' or 'a tear ran' are correct, 'made a tear ran' isn't).

That being said, people can't be expected to know the ins and outs of good style instinctively, and unlike most people on this site, I'm not going to endorse 'just write' as the answer; you can repeat your mistakes all you like, if you don't know what you're doing wrong, you won't improve.

Instead, read novels. Read lots of novels. Get a feel for good style. Get a feel for what good authors do right. This is how you develop an understanding of how prose is put together; writing is merely the application of what you've learned. After a certain point, writing is more important than learning the fundamentals, but for now, fundamentals are where it's at for you.

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