Stage Directions

I open a Word document and prepare to write this blog.  I pause to consider my opening sentence, and during that pause I take a sip of Starbucks coffee.  The addition of Half-n-Half smooths out the inherent bitterness.  I set the cup down and place my fingertips on the keyboard, and I begin typing ...

There is a vast difference between action and stage directions.  Action advances the plot.  It informs the reader about the nature of the characters.  It drives the story onward.  Stage directions, on the other hand, are mere descriptors about what a character does.  It is the day-to-day activities that we all engage in; thus, it is not terribly informative.  It places a character in a situation, describes what she is doing, and yet tells us nothing that advances the story. 
I am currently reading a novel in which the author spends an infuriating amount of time on stage directions.  In one scene, the main character takes out a cutting board, picks up a knife, selects a tomato, slices the tomato, sets it aside, picks up a red onion, peels it, chops it, etc., ad nauseum. 
There is a point to the scene:  the character cuts her hand on the knife and must get stitches, which leads to a significant encounter.  Technically the scene advances the plot.  However, I do not need to know the precise sequence in which she chops the vegetables, only the moment in which she cuts her hand.  A bit of efficiency would have served the pacing better.
The novel is not aspiring to be Literature with a capital L.  It is intended to be an enjoyable page-turner.  There is nothing wrong with that.  I am not critiquing the lightness of the tale, but I do take exception to the wasted words in a needlessly lengthy novel.
I suspect that stage directions give the illusion of action.  The reader’s eye moves across the page, from line to line.  It gives the sense of verisimilitude to the story because it takes the reader the same amount of time to read as it does for the character to complete a task.  In effect, stage directions are a sort of place-holder until the real action occurs.
Earlier this year, I read a collection of Doris Lessing short stories.  By today’s standards, the stories might appear slow-paced, yet Lessing uses language efficiently.  She does not waste words on simple acts, unless they are vital to the story.  Her characters often experience an incident which sets in motion a series of actions, which inform the reader of the many layers in the characters’ lives.  There are no single epiphanies of insight, as though life were boiled down to solitary acts.  Rather, her world unfolds naturally, so you get a sense of the day-to-day lives of the characters without being told they drank coffee this morning, and on the next page, they drank coffee the next morning, unless that is crucial to the story.
Another way to think about the difference between stage directions and actions is through word count.  Most novels run between 60,000 and 100,000 words.  In effect, an author has an allotment of words in which to tell a story.  If the writer uses up 10,000 on stage directions across the course of the book, that is a significant amount of words that could have been put to better use.  Or better yet, dispense with them altogether if they are unnecessary.
Not all stories need to be Literature with a capital L.  Even a light, frothy story can be efficiently told without boring the reader with superfluous details.  I would much rather read a well-crafted, 80K page-turner than a baggy one at 90K.