Pacing. Perhaps the most underused and underestimated implement in your toolbox.
Watch movies much?
If you do, you'll notice that some movies seem to drag and others keep you on the edge of your seat. Part of its the story but not just story content. You can bore someone to death droning on about a scene if you are not careful. Directors and their editing teams spend a lot of time providing just the right amount and usually hammer their pacing home with sound and visuals to tie you to it.
So its like this. You can spend a couple of minutes hiding behind your nifty GM shield talking about the slime dripping from the wet dungeon walls until it falls on teh players or you can throw a towel at a random player and yell, "slime drips down on your from above! what do you do?" and scare the wits out of them and shock them into action. Tense or action scenes should run just like a movie: fast and sharp. Be loud, abrupt, and quick. Don't give the players a lot of time - keep the pace moving. if a player stalls - too bad. You snooze, you lose. Keep your scenes moving to the pace of your action scene. Give description the same way, drawing it back to minimal lines when things move quick and build in deep detail otherwise.
Key point. Don't bog down. Control the game stops and slows. Use your voice, body, props and god damned everything to enforce it. Don't do a one-man stand up routine though. Bring the players along with you. Suck them in and make sure everyone is into what's going on and no one is standing alone. If they are doing nothing, point at them and ask what they are doing and make it affect the situation. Everyone is at the table to play so make sure you build the potential for them to do so. Definitely build in, where possible, a scene or cool point where they shine in the game.
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