So I am currently practicing my writing certain scenes and I got to a pretty intense scene basically where the character is sneaking around and trying not to get caught. What is another way to say "her breath hitched.." because I don't wanna keep using that term, it seems boring and just uninspiring to me
I'm not familiar with that expression, but I would try to find a word to replace both, breath and the verb. She panted. She gasped. She wheezed. She huffed. She breathed.
caught? shuddered? Or she held her breath? But I think referring to a character's breathing more than a couple times in a scene is going to feel a bit much regardless of the precise words you use.
Yeah, "breathing" beats will get really old really fast. If you have a character who continually experiences hitching, fluttering, or shuddering of breath I'm going to think that she's got COPD or something.