Which one of these paragraphs has more of an emotional effect for you?

Mom stared off into the distance. Her mouth didn’t move. Her hands stayed in her lap. One tear trailed down the side of her face. She stood and walked out of the room.

Mom longingly stared off in the distance. Her stoic mouth didn’t move at all. Her hands stayed perfectly still in her lap. One lonely little tear made its way down the side of her face. She gracefully stood and gently walked out of the room.

I hope you said the first one. You know the age-old saying about “less is more.” The same holds true with our writing. When you’re a beginning writer you want to use as many adjectives and adverbs as possible. But those tend to take away from the writing. By adding all the words in that I did in the second paragraph, I took the first one from showing the reader to telling them what was happening.

You can tell the mom is sad about something. For me it strikes more of an emotional cord. So in writing there should be as few as possible any adjectives or adverbs to give the reader the effect you are trying to convey.