[GavinMcG]

> Not everyone is privileged to have higher-education or have the ability to learn the entire Oxford dictionary.

That you bring up education and vocabulary suggests that you do think there's such a thing as better writers. One obvious example: compare a given three-year-old to you. You are almost certainly a better writer. Compare you at three years old to today. Same story.

Sure, you may be right that passion is required. But why dismiss skill?

[skilled]

Exactly, I am talking about skill and the use of words as a means to add flare to a story, but it does not make you better. Just because you can translate a black and white story (which conveys the message/lesson) using all the colors of a rainbow does not make you better.

[GavinMcG]

Do you mean "flair"?

You're right that people can disagree about what to value, but I'd think that given a set of values, maximizing them is better than not. If you're a writer who does care about using all the colors of a rainbow, doesn't learning how to use indigo and orange make you better than when you only knew black, white, red, and green?