"Use strong nouns and verbs." Most writers have heard this, and it's probably taped to more than one monitor as a reminder. But like so much writing advice, it's important, yet vague. Exactly what is a strong noun? How do we know what nouns are best for our writing? There is no right answer because every story will need something different. As good as this advice is, it isn't always very helpful.
It reminds me of an episode of Friends where the dumb-yet-lovable Joey wrote a letter of recommendation. To sound smart, he used the thesaurus and replaced all his "dumb" words with "smart" ones.
"They're warm, nice people with big hearts" became "They're humid, pre-possessing homosapiens with full-sized aortic pumps."Strong nouns, yes, but an improvement to the line? Nope.
