"If you have to stop and google it, don't include it." ?

[Naruzeldamaster]

I was told this in a different writing forum way back when, and just recently thought about it.

I'm pretty sure the original question was about a passage where a character identified another by the fact that she had two different colored irises and used the scientific term for it and...not just saying that he noticed she had two different iris colors.

On paper, it was pretty in character for the character in question (He's very book ish and has a big vocab) that character has been revised three times since then and this is still true.

But on the other hand I thought of myself as the reader. I could see myself being 'taken out' of the story to google that.

Some readers don't mind that, others would, so particularly for medical terms I'm still like ? what do I do here?

 

[A. E. Lowan]

I was told this in a different writing forum way back when, and just recently thought about it.

I'm pretty sure the original question was about a passage where a character identified another by the fact that she had two different colored irises and used the scientific term for it and...not just saying that he noticed she had two different iris colors.

On paper, it was pretty in character for the character in question (He's very book ish and has a big vocab) that character has been revised three times since then and this is still true.

But on the other hand I thought of myself as the reader. I could see myself being 'taken out' of the story to google that.

Some readers don't mind that, others would, so particularly for medical terms I'm still like ? what do I do here?

Okay, no. I can respond to this with nothing but blunt truth. That was idiotic. Whoever said that and thought it was a great idea to spread around like y. pestis or xylitol in peanut butter- and we use medical terms. One of our FMC's is a trauma surgeon - should be stuffed into a copy of 1984 and made to think about their life choices.

It's reductive. It talks down to the reader and encourages laziness in the author. It looks at language only as it communicates information, and not as the whisper of poetry that makes us fall in love with people who don't actually exist or as the weapon we wield to shape the world.

What do we do? We do homework for a living. If we hit terms the reader needs to know, we help. Like this.

From Faerie Rising: The First Book of Binding...
~~~

“I feel… strange.” His lips tickled her skin.

“The extra power is making you light-headed. Push it into me, now, and I’ll guide you.” His hand pressed into her belly and Winter couldn’t catch the whimper of pain before it escaped. He tried to pull his hand back, but she held him in place. “Don’t. I don’t know how this will feel, but right now I’m in a lot of pain. You can’t let it stop you.” Besides, suddenly pulling away like that would only hurt her more, but he didn’t need to know right now.

Cian hesitated and then nodded. He let out a steadying breath and the flow of magic into her body increased.

Winter felt her spine begin to bow again and she fought to keep her breathing even. Here was hope. Given the destructive nature of the energy potion she wasn’t sure how much hope it was, but maybe he could buy her just a few more days, long enough to stand against Midir. To serve her city one last time. To attend her father’s funeral. That was all she needed.

But first she had to be Cian’s guide and teacher in this healing.

She shuddered under her body’s onslaught and cast herself again into the flow of his magic, following his magical senses into her own damaged body. It was a strange experience, visualizing inside herself like this, and seeing the systemic extent of the degeneration was shocking. And painful. What was it about looking at an injury that made it hurt more? For a moment she was overwhelmed, but she shook it off. She had seen, and successfully operated on, guts that had been shredded by bullets, blades, and claws. Bellies that had been torn open and things both tender and foul, organs not meant to be seen that were exposed to the air, which pulsed with life and recoiled from touch.

It had simply never been her before. She had worked while exhausted, while shaking from pain and effort, while frightened—even while weeping. But she had never been the one on the table. This was a different kind of agony.

“Let’s begin at the top of the abdominal cavity.” Winter slid Cian’s hand upward a few inches, bunching dress and sweater fabric over their joined wrists. “Here’s the stomach, with the esophagus feeding down into it.” Through his magic she could see the organ in its entirety, as clearly as if it were laid open to the light. Fascinating. “Do you see how the tissues are eaten away and bleeding? How it’s swollen and raw?” She stopped and thought back to what she had said. Would he understand everything she needed to tell him? She had to remember that Cian’s grasp of English wasn’t strong, and she had to keep her explanations simple—not an easy task for a physician in her element.

Cian nodded and turned his face downwards against her chest as if he was trying to see it more closely. Maybe he was. “Yes. I can feel it’s wrong. It’s pulling at me to make it right again.”

Interesting. She mentally shrugged. She really had no idea how magical healing was supposed to work, in practice. What did she have to lose by letting Cian’s instincts be their guide? She was dying. “Follow that pull. I’m right here with you and I won’t let you go too far.”

The swirl of magic converged on her stomach, and as she watched the flesh was rebuilt, the bleeding stopped, and the standing blood reabsorbed. The swelling subsided leaving behind a healthy organ. Winter realized that she had stopped breathing and inhaled. It was amazing! “Perfect. How do you feel?” She checked to make sure he was maintaining his connection to the flow of power from the earth.

“I feel good.”

“Then we can keep going. Don’t stop pulling energy from the earth. We still have a long way to go.” And with that she continued, guiding him organ by organ, structure by structure, through the intricacies of each system, performing repairs beyond her wildest dreams down to the daintiest of capillaries. She made him pause often, but he only forgot to maintain his power flow a couple of times and only showed minimal signs of tiring. The inflammation of her abdominal tissues caused by the degradation and internal bleeding dwindled to nothing as her body was restored, and the hurt faded away. Winter was limp with relief as Cian finished. “Thank you,” she whispered into his hair. She closed her eyes and reveled in breathing without pain.

 

[Naruzeldamaster]

Interesting, that does make me feel better about one of my characters then.

She's about 15 ish but has the personality (not the mind, just the personality traits) of like an 8 year old. BUT she has an extraordinary abundance of medical knowledge.(The admittedly hand wave-y excuse is that her parental guardian never let her read 'books' so she read medical books instead, many of them far more advanced too.) She even surprises my more book-ish character sometimes. Most adults aren't prepared for her to talk about jugulars in a medical way either, so when she does they're surprised.

Though that's kind of the gag of this whole group, not judging a book by it's cover. It certainly doesn't help that her manner of speaking is somewhat feral, not quite to the level of a cave man but pretty close. Also doesn't help that she speaks in and refers to herself entirely in third person. (which probably gives the impression she's more childlike naturally)

 

[skip.knox]

I have a decent vocabulary, but plenty of books send me scrambling, probably none more than T.H. White with The Once and Future King. It was a cornucopia of nouns. It is also one of my best beloved books.

 

[Mad Swede]

This is all about context. Context in terms of the setting, the characters and the story arc.

If it is appropriate for your characters to use deeply technical terms in that setting (eg in a story about hospitals and their staff) then the characters should use those terms. If there is a very obscure term in the text then you might want a charadter to look puzzled so that another character can explain it, as would happen in real life. John Grisham's stories do this very well, as do many SF authors. As an author you can assume that those who read stories like this either already have some knowledge or don't mind looking it up later.

What you can't do as an author is be unfair to the readers. So describing a temple building in a medieval style fantasy setting as a peripteral tholos isn't OK, you have do a bit more and have a character look at the temple with some care if you want to give a detailed description of the temple in question. However, if you have a ancient greek style setting then using a term like peripteral tholos is usually OK, because it is appropriate to the setting and hence the characters.

 

[FifthView]

If the question is broadly whether readers are likely to stumble over terminology, I would vote to always add sufficient context for a reader to come to some understanding of the terminology.

The understanding doesn't need to be exact. Most of the time, a general idea would do.

You won't always know how obscure the terminology will be for readers. You don't want to talk down to readers.... but go watch some of the videos on YouTube by PBS Space Time. I'm reasonably versed in many of the topics, but that professor can drone on and on with terminology that leaves me utterly baffled.

If the topic, event, or character development depends on a solid understanding of the terms being used, make those terms clear enough to have the effect you want on the reader.

All that said, sometimes mysteriousness and befuddlement are entirely the point, so you can leave those things less clear.

 

[Penpilot]

You can't account for every reader's vocabulary. If the word is appropriate for the character or setting, then IMHO, it would be a mistake to dumb it down so to speak.

One time in a writing class, someone critiqued one of my stories. And one of the comments was they didn't know what a helm was, as in someone was wearing a helm. This story was set in a fantasy setting. Now, I don't fault the person for having a hole in their vocabulary, but the reason I remember this till this day is because of the tone in which this was said to me. It was like how dare you use this stupid word which I don't understand.

 

[Naruzeldamaster]

You can't account for every reader's vocabulary. If the word is appropriate for the character or setting, then IMHO, it would be a mistake to dumb it down so to speak.

That's the message I'm getting from ya'll here, provide the right context and just about any word is fine.

One time in a writing class, someone critiqued one of my stories. And one of the comments was they didn't know what a helm was, as in someone was wearing a helm. This story was set in a fantasy setting. Now, I don't fault the person for having a hole in their vocabulary, but the reason I remember this till this day is because of the tone in which this was said to me. It was like how dare you use this stupid word which I don't understand.

That was kind of my experience with the medical term for having two colored irises. (I know what it is I just can't spell it off the top of my head)
The commenter (Though only speaking through text) was like 'bro what is this?' even though if I recall correctly, the character identifying the female character as having two different colored irises. I asked them " ? Uh, what is problem ? " (Not literally but with the same energy) and they explained their logic. Something about it 'taking them out of the story' because they didn't understand the word. On one hand I get it, but on the other hand I'm like ? Something that small takes you out of the story?

Even at the time I was like 'someone's a 'smarty pants' ' to put it family friendly, but I was too young/inexperienced to critique/question said critique.

I had another poor experience with people reviewing my work ages ago (when I was like 13) but that's a different topic for another time.