@SarahWeaver6, The words that matter, the right words.
Instead of:
A long stairwell loomed into the depths, she ran down the stairs after him.
Try:
A long stairwell loomed into the depths, she ran down after him.
Two words cut, and the meaning hasn't changed. Take out anything that's redundant. The description tells the reader its a stairwell so it implies that's where she's running as that's what the character is seeing right now.
Easy! Other ones like:
He turned, toward the pumpkin.
Can become:
Turning toward the pumpkin.
As long as readers know who's pov is leading the chapter they'll assume it's the main pov doing the actions. :)
Adding in a few -ing words is perfectly fine, as it also helps with the problem of changing up the sentence variety, to avoid" He/she" "I/me" all the time.