Verbs are the action words of a sentence. The make-things-happen words. The jocks, one might say, of the parts of speech.
In stories, they do everything from orienting a character in space, making them speak, revealing their inner lives, and manifesting the actual action of the piece, whether that action is karate fights, kissing scenes, or comedy hijinks. By upping your verb game, you up the poignancy of every sentence, scene, and plot point.
What is a strong verb? It is a verb that is more specific and more descriptive than common verbs that tend to be more generic or “weak.”
“Look” is a common, unspecific verb. There are so many ways you can look at something from glare to stare, from gaze to glance, from peruse to peer to many, many more with different meanings and implications.
Let’s compare:
“Sally looked at John.”
All we know is that from this is that Sally direct her visual attention to John.
“Sally glared at John.”
Now we know Sally is angry. We can picture a distinct expression on her face.
“Sally glanced at John.”
It was a brief look. Maybe dismissive, maybe shy, maybe something else depending on context. It is very much possible that with a mere glance, Sally missed some details of what John is doing at the time which could be plot relevant.
Let’s do another:
“Ernest walked down the street.”
Does the job of getting Ernest from here to there. Maybe “walked” is all you need in some writing circumstance, but it’s a bit flat.
“Ernest strolled down the street.”
Has a pleasant connotation.
“Ernest shuffled down the street.”
Ernest seems tired.
“Ernest strutted down the street.”
Ernest is now a confident man.
Strolled, shuffled, and strutted are visually distinctive walks with different…