I want to say someone approached another person slowly because they were nervous. Is this correct? Amita walked towards Mandy, taking slow, tentative steps. He swallowed, and took a seat next to her. His body was tense and withdrawn, recoiled like a deer calf lost in the woods. Is there another way to show a person nervously walks towards another person and seats next to them?
My suggestion is to establish first that he is nervous. Amita had a case of the nerves. Jaw clenched, he took the few steps to sit beside Mandy, every muscle in his body tensed.
How is a body withdrawn? Or, for that matter, recoiled? And is that what lost deer calves do? I should have thought they run around bleating for their parents. Anyway, I think you are over-writing (and, perhaps, overthinking) this; you can imply a nervous or tentative approach with a simple choice of verb. I would simply say something like Amita edged towards Mandy. Swallowing is ok, but again, unless they are in church or at a table and Amita is actually occupying an adjacent chair, just simply He swallowed and sat next to her (the comma can be omitted for very short phrases).
I would go more towards describing Amita's body language in this scene. Look at the section on closed body language herehttps://www.scienceofpeople.com/body-language-examples/
Amita walked towards Mandy. He was sick with passion. His sexual neuroses were like a butter churn, coagulating and thickening his latent anxieties in the presence of his anaclitic love object. He had spent so much time in therapy, so much effort overcoming the domineering influence of his mother...did Mandy resemble her too much? No! He screamed at himself internally. No such questions! He was conscious--far too conscious--of his unresolved Oedipal problems. Sometimes, he wanted to lobotomize himself and scar his hypothalamus with a sharp filleting knife. Then he could sleep without this passion, this terrible burning. His fevered obsession with Mandy was too much for him to bear. He swallowed as he approached their table. She smiled at him. He sat down next to her. She picked up her menu. "Have you tried the calamari?" she asked, biting her lower lip and trailing her painted nails along his white shirtsleeves. Amita didn't acknowledge the touch. She was a whore! he thought. A filthy whore! He stared at the knife in front of him, sharp and phallic. He wanted to pick it up and stab her over and over until her blood went everywhere and her body was stiff and unable to seduce... That's a good example of the sort of thing you should do...uh just as an example. I don't think he's overwriting at all haha
It really depends on how important the action is, if it pivotal to the plot FKs rather purple example is the way to go however the op suffers badly from over describing every single action. If it’s a simple action that’s not plot important it can be described simply or not described at all
