"Pulling on his pants, he rushed to the door when the doorbell rang, fumbling with the latch."
That's an example of False Simultaneity: multiple actions that take place consecutively, but are written such that they appear to be concurrent. Anyone who has ever tried running while donning pants can tell you that it's extremely difficult even without reserving one hand for doorknobs. Falling on one's face is not the least likely outcome.
If you doubt me, please do give it a try. Ideally, have someone take pictures that you can post below for our entertainment.
The problem caused by writing in this fashion is that the reader becomes confused and needs to think, to go back over the words and attempt to process them into a sequence of events that makes some sense. This interrupts the narrative flow, which in a story is a mortal sin.
Let's look at a couple of other examples -- more Sci-Fi this time.
"The captain fired back as soon as she saw where the shot had come from."
This is an example of Simultaneity -- two things happening at the same exact moment. Here, it's not literal; everyone has reaction times, and no doubt there was some mechanical delay between pulling the trigger and firing the gun. Instead, it's used as a figure of speech, a hyperbolic method of saying by implication that the captain fired without hesitation, and that the weapon's blast occurred without any noticeable delay.
"The captain rolled her eyes when she noticed the source of the exclamation."
Here we have False Simultaneity. The difference between the two examples is minor; try to pin it down before I explain.
[musical interlude: three bars of Tijuana Taxicab]
The difference is that, in the second example, it doesn't serve the narrative.
On the off chance the captain's sarcasm training was as intensive as that for combat and her eye-rolling was an instantaneous reflex, it might possibly be close enough to accurate for hyperbole to apply. However, in that unlikely event, surely the reader would appreciate an extra few words of narrative detailing the number of times the eye-roll had occurred in response to this stimulus and the fact that it was now automatic behavior.
Rather more likely would be the following order of events:
There is an exclamation, presumably by a crewman.
The captain heard it and sought to determine its source.
Once she discovers the source, she realizes it's likely nonsense, coming as it does from a habitual source of annoyance.
She rolls her eyes.
The reader needs to know these things, certainly. There's a ton of information shown by the action and her response, and it's probably important to the story. We need to know that there was a remark ("Oh, crap!"), that the crewman who made it is prone to overreacting, and that the captain is painfully aware of this.
One could possibly go into extreme detail: "Oh, crap!" exclaimed a crewman.
The captain noticed it was Daniels shouting -- again. She rolled her eyes. "What is it, Daniels?" she asked in a long-suffering tone.
Here, however, our business is Flash -- complete stories in a thousand words or less. Brevity helps drive any story, but with us the need is extreme. The same information can be conveyed in fewer words:
"Oh, crap!"
Sighing, the captain rolled her eyes. "Yes, Daniels?"
Note that the sigh and eye-roll are presented as concurrent, but that the reader is also free to interpret them as consecutive -- because the only important information is that the captain is going into this thinking his "Oh, crap!" is likely a ridiculous response. This preserves the narrative flow, avoiding confusion without overstating the obvious.
The moral of the story: Avoid false simultaneity. It doesn't serve the narrative.
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