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

[A. E. Lowan]

Hmm, I'll say it's out of character for these kinds of terms to be used in canon, but it's an earth-adjacent world, so they probably exist. And two of my characters are very knowledgeable about these terms. One of them is less likely to use them in day to day conversation (But she has the knowledge) and the other is absolutely giving context to the reader before he uses the phrase outloud. He's not just randomly throwing it out there as a pick up line. (he's too socially stilted/awkward to try that)

If the reader doesn't understand that said medical term is referring to her irises I'm like ? what can I do at that point.

You drop the medical term. Unless that specific term is plot important, you aren't required to use it. Like this. Battlefield surgery in the blood and mud, and pay attention to how she's dealing with the terminology.

It's worth noticing the repeat here. It mirrors the first lines - The little bell above the shop door preceded the desperate cry of, “Help! We need you!” The urgency in Winter’s friend’s voice tore the wizard’s attention from her task. - and I actually just noticed. The brain, amiright? lol

Once again, from Faerie Rising...
~~~

He looked at the sword. Then what did he need to do? He looked up. Get this back up to the roof where it could be put to use? Yes, that must be it. He looked for the building entrance…

“Look out!” Jessie cried.

Bodies pitched over the roof edge and plummeted down, forcing Brian and the knights to dive out of the way. It was Lana and a strange man, landing in a tangle of limbs, daggers, and blood.

Lana lay limp, but the man seemed barely phased. He rolled to his knees with a roar of rage and wrapped both hands around Lana’s throat, squeezing down with all his strength. “I’ll rip your head off, half-breed!”

“Now!”

Brian rushed forward and drove Keeper through the man’s back, jerking to a stop before he pierced Lana. The man cried out in pain, blood spraying Lana’s unconscious face, and without warning the blade sprouted chains that latched onto the man’s wrists and ankles and pulled up short, prying his hands from Lana and binding him painfully to the blade.

Brian blinked. That was different. He moved around the coughing man and knelt beside Lana, her throat swelling and purpling with bruises. “Winter! We need you.”

Winter rushed forward, stepping carefully around the bound man, and knelt in the mud beside Lana. “She’s not breathing,” she muttered and palpated Lana’s throat. “Her hyoid is broken, and her trachea feels crushed. She’s suffocating.” Winter dug in her bag, pulling out a bottle of rubbing alcohol, a scalpel, and a pen.

Jessie’s eyebrows rose, and she moved to hold the bag open for her mistress.

Brian looked from wizard to wizard. “What are you doing?”

Midir scowled, blood trickling from his lips. “Ruining a perfectly good murder.”

Winter gave him an unfriendly look and doused the scalpel with the rubbing alcohol, handing the bottle to Jessie, who doused Lana’s neck from chin to chest. “She needs to be intubated. She needs help to breathe until her body can heal the damage he caused. So, I’m making an alternate access point for the air. Jessie, fish out the water bottle and get me a dose of the painkiller, please.”

“With… a pen?”

Winter took the pen apart and threw the innards into the purse, creating a tube. She cleaned out the inside with the alcohol and nodded. “Yes.” She then took up the scalpel and made a precise cut just above the meeting of Lana’s clavicles, just below the swelling, blood welling up around her fingers, and neatly popped the pen casing into place. Immediately air whistled through the tube and Lana’s chest rose, greedy for oxygen. Winter began taping it in place.

Brian breathed a sigh of relief. “Okay, that was one of the cooler—”

Lana’s eyes snapped open and she came up swinging.

Brian caught her hands before she could batter Winter, and Lana began coughing while Winter held her tube in place.

Winter stroked Lana’s dark hair and murmured soothing things while Lana coughed and shook. After a moment the succubus tried to say something around the swelling, but nothing came. She then looked up at the roof, and then back at Winter and pointed, lips parted with wonder.

It looked as if the sun was rising up there.

 

[Prince of Spires]

You drop the medical term. Unless that specific term is plot important, you aren't required to use it

I prefer the reversed approach. Unless the specific term is plot important, just put it in there and assume that either the reader will catch up and understand enough to know what you mean, or he'll not care and move on but will have learned something about the character (namely that he's the type to use big words...).

Of course you can either explain it in context or have another character ask what on earth he's talking about. But those are just secondary options. They're nice to have but not necessary.

Also, the only way to judge if it's a problem is to give it to a reader and ask. Which means you first have to finish the thing.

 

[Karlin]

The one super important thing is: do not agonize for hours over one word. Your time is too valuable for that.

 

[xena]

I think if you do enough research on it, you absolutely can use it. Having to look something up doesn’t mean it doesn’t belong, as long as you understand it and it fits the context.

 

[PhilyG123]

No, but that's ridiculous, isn't it? It you don't know the word, then you do some research and get a bit smarter.
Your readers will get smarter too if they look it up. Nothing wrong with doing some research on words.

 

[Naruzeldamaster]

I think if you do enough research on it, you absolutely can use it. Having to look something up doesn’t mean it doesn’t belong, as long as you understand it and it fits the context.

I did some research on it myself way back when. Well ok fine, I did a quick google and daddy internet pulled up the right medical term and description of it. Did a bit more research to get better info after that but not much. But that's probably more effort than people writing some movie scripts (Especially hospital drama) tend to do.

There was a Doctor/part time youtuber I watched for a bit (Well not religiously, I clicked him when he popped up in my feed) and he gave experienced feedback on what was 'wrong' with a scene in some movies. I learned some amusing / interesting things on some of them. I believe his youtube name was Doctor Mike or something, it's been a bit.

No, but that's ridiculous, isn't it? It you don't know the word, then you do some research and get a bit smarter.
Your readers will get smarter too if they look it up. Nothing wrong with doing some research on words.

I did some quick research on it, but probably not deep enough research to fully understand the term (At the time) but to be fair I was like...15 ish? at the time, I didn't fully understand what the term 'do some research' in a competent way equated to.