In this paper, first, the general projective Riccati equation method (PREM) is applied to derive variable separation solutions of (2 + 1)-dimensional systems. By further studying, we find that these variable separation solutions obtained by PREM, which seem independent, actually depend on each other. A common formula with some arbitrary functions is obtained to describe suitable physical quantities for some (2 + 1)-dimensional models such as the generalized Nizhnik–Novikov–Veselov system, Broer–Kaup–Kupershmidt equation, dispersive long wave system, Boiti–Leon–Pempinelli model, generalized Burgers model, generalized Ablowitz–Kaup–Newell–Segur system and Maccari equation. The universal formula in Tang, Lou, and Zhang [2] can be simplified to the common formula in the present paper. Second, this method is successfully generalized to (1 + 1)-dimensional systems, such as coupled integrable dispersionless equations, shallow water wave equation, Boiti system and negative KdV model, and is able to obtain another common formula to describe suitable physical fields or potentials of these (1 + 1)-dimensional models, which is similar to the one in (2 + 1)-dimensional systems. Finally, based on the common formula for (2 + 1)-dimensional systems and by selecting appropriate multivalued functions, elastic and inelastic interactions among special dromion, special peakon, foldon and semi-foldon are investigated. Furthermore, the explicit phase shifts for all the local excitations offered by the common formula have been given, and are applied to these novel interactions in detail.