: Re: How to improve writing non-action scenes I think in terms of action. Whenever I am imagining any scene I am about to write, I see it as a movie playing in my head which I then pen to paper.

@Kaufman555

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I have the same issue where much of my inspiration for writing is visual mediums (film and comic books). Action scenes are quick and fun to write. Non-action scenes (not the term I use but I'm getting ahead) can be slogs to get through. But I've found some techniques to get through it.
First, Action vs. Non-Action scenes are the wrong way to think about it. All scenes are action scenes; some scenes are lacking in gun fights, car chases, and explosions against a blazing setting sun (say what you will about Michael Bay films, but the man can make them quite pretty). Scientifically speaking it's impossible to have dialog in a vacuum. You might have the conversation between your characters in your head, but do you block them while the talk as well (Blocking being a theater term for how the actors are suppose to move through the stage while they talk). These actions can communicate meaning just as much as the words being said... think about how the characters are behaving and consider that talking is a free action: you can do just about anything and still have a running dialog.
As I mentioned in comments in another answer, Joss Whedon is amazing at this as there's plenty of quiet scenes with wonderful dialog as well as action scenes. But I also recomend you watch some of his other work as he likes to highlight his skills with one over the other. In the series Buffy the Vampire, the fourth season episode "Hush" was written in response to a critic saying Whedon over-relies on dialog. The result is an episode with a majority of it's runtime having no dialog between characters what-so-ever, and all the characters have to rely on how they emote and pantomime to communicate with each other and several times there are conflicts in what is intended vs. what the "listener" interprets the actions to mean. A fifth season episode does pretty much the reverse: In "The Body" the action sequence is probably the most forgettable part of the episode (and likely the entire franchise), but that doesn't mean the episode isn't intense and puts you into a roller coaster of emotion and for the most part it's all dialog. In fact, there's no noise added into the scene that doesn't exist in world which helps the listener to pay attention to the dialog and the staging of the scene. It contains one of the best monologs in the entire series to boot.
From a writing standpoint, perhaps re-read the Harry Potter books and take note of what's going on during dialog scenes. They rarely take place just on their own, as there are always some characters in the background doing something unimportant in the scene (Fred and George are setting up some pranks, Proffessor Binns is droning on about a useless point in magical history, the pets are doing pet things (especially obvious with Crookshanks) or Luna is doing something weird.). These not only add a bit of comic relief to the dialog but give the reader a mini story to follow while the characters talk about things later. Some actions might even become important later on (almost all non-Binns class scenes include some element to be used later... like learning Wingardian Leviosa, which not only sets up putting Hermione's damesel in distress moment a few scene's later, but also sets up the resolution to that situation). Try including some funny background events or some mundane actions that characters are focused on to highlight their boredom (if you're traveling in a flat field of tall brown grasses, have them try and make their own fun in the scene... show them being bored by playin "I Spy" only for another character to guess the lame feature... or have the character be amused by a cow off in the distance... to the point they invented an entire story for the cow as they slowly pass it.). And some times, for the sake of spectacle, you have to lovingly paint a mental picture of the marvel in front of your characters as it might set the stage for the battle... give the characters the complete grand look at the battle field because when the action comes into play, you should use short, brief sentances to help show the speed of the battle. This is no time to place all the scenery.

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