I was trying to write an introduction to an epic story I had thought to write. I shared it with a couple of my friends. I used the word "precipice" and was quite pleased with my word choice. I was very disappointed to be told that I needed to dumb down my vocabulary or else nobody would connect with or get my story.

I thought... if this is just the introduction, why bother to write the rest of the story?! Then I thought to myself, what would John Milton have done if someone told him to dumb down Paradise Lost? Would Charles Dickens have dumbed down A Tale of Two Cities... just for the audience's sake? There is a time and a place to "simply simplify" and there is a time to NOT simplify! I think creative expression should be expressive and creative... not stifled for mass adoption or consumption! Make them read and do a little work on their end!

I am no Dickens or Milton by any stretch. I could only begin to imagine how the literary giants would literally be rolling over in their graves if they could see and hear the world we live in today with all of it's sentiment.