What is a pale noun? A word with no vibrancy? A word that is shocked? A word pasted with makeup? I can see her face now, and by her looks, I would say she is young but has already been hit by life…so she’s hiding. She doesn’t think it’s safe to shimmy too seductively, to laugh too loud.
She does not want to dress herself up with adjectives. They might give too much away.
She’d rather bury behind the action in a verb: danced, succumbed, poured, seared, died. Such words carry the reader on one’s back, looking over the writer’s shoulder so he can see what the writer sees.
Pale nouns camouflage a writer’s intentions. Words like bed, dresser, rug, blinds, suggest an interior but that is all. We do not know what is lurking in the room that contains these objects…not unless the writer decides to tell you.
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