Monsters in California: Small Edits

Remember when I used to post all kinds of sprite animations every day?

Not anymore! Hahahaha!

All I'm doing these days is editing, and a large part of editing is taking bloated sentence and trimming off all the fat.
You would think that descriptive words would add more imagery, but I've had the opposite results. It seems like the more words you add, the less effective the sentence is at painting a picture in your head.



Miles looks back at me and frowns.

TO

Miles looks at me and frowns.

TO

Miles frowns at me.



The last version is the simplest, but it's also the most effective at focusing on what's important (the frown). The looking back part doesn't really have to be there. (Given the scene that was established earlier in this out-of-context example) it's implied, and you can trust your readers to fill in the ______.