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

A. E. Lowan

Forum Mom
Leadership
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 

Tisiphany

Acolyte
Yea I was reading a book, and honestly I can't remember what it was. Some romantasy I'm sure. The author used an anatomical term I had never heard of before. Which isn't the end of the world, but it was also very...idk, random? It seemed so out of place and made the whole thing kinda weird, imo. It was like <something superplex> or something - when i looked it up it was some super specific part of the abdomen and I wasn't even entirely sure it was being used correctly. She used it probably 4 times through the book, and every time it made me scrunch my face. In another example in a different book, the author used "downright apoplectic" a few times, and that seemed like they were forcing a unique word. Which, again, isn't the end of the world. I still loved the book and I read all 4 of them. But it definitely made me scratch my head. I was at least able to contextually tell what the word meant, and that was helpful.

I also completely realize that I could be being too particular, and that not every reader is going to feel that way! I for sure don't think it's worth not finishing a book over though. :D Maybe write it how you want it, with your specific wording, and have a close friend or family member read a small excerpt including that, see what they say? That's personally probably what I would do.
 
This made me literally lol.
you're allowed to type 'laugh' you know lol
Though I earlier had a discussion about phrases like 'being honest' and their real meaning so who cares lol (It sprung from someone complaining about a coworker using the word 'literally' every other sentence/word)
 

A. E. Lowan

Forum Mom
Leadership
you're allowed to type 'laugh' you know lol
Though I earlier had a discussion about phrases like 'being honest' and their real meaning so who cares lol (It sprung from someone complaining about a coworker using the word 'literally' every other sentence/word)
Never! Confusion to our enemies!

...wait, no enemies here? Well, fardles. Who can we confuse, then? No, I think our readers are finally getting used my nonsense. Oh! Wait. We're an equal opportunity shop. So, then...

Confusion to EVERYONE! Be ungovernable. Be weird.

Welcome to Seahaven. ;)
 
Never! Confusion to our enemies!

...wait, no enemies here? Well, fardles. Who can we confuse, then? No, I think our readers are finally getting used my nonsense. Oh! Wait. We're an equal opportunity shop. So, then...

Confusion to EVERYONE! Be ungovernable. Be weird.

Welcome to Seahaven. ;)
I seem to flipflop on when I use the full phrase of laughed out loud or just 'lol' depending on the context. If I internally laugh hard enough I go for good old 'wheezed' or just post the classic wheezing gif.

Honestly despite me being chronically online, I don't use a whole lot of 'internet' vernacular in my vocabulary.

I occasionally use 'cringe' and 'bruh' in the way the internet does, some other things too (There's a word for being attracted to a fictional character. Though I don't particularly like it even ironically because it's basically slang) but I try to keep it minimal heh.
 

A. E. Lowan

Forum Mom
Leadership
I seem to flipflop on when I use the full phrase of laughed out loud or just 'lol' depending on the context. If I internally laugh hard enough I go for good old 'wheezed' or just post the classic wheezing gif.

Honestly despite me being chronically online, I don't use a whole lot of 'internet' vernacular in my vocabulary.

I occasionally use 'cringe' and 'bruh' in the way the internet does, some other things too (There's a word for being attracted to a fictional character. Though I don't particularly like it even ironically because it's basically slang) but I try to keep it minimal heh.
My wife and I started playing MMO's in 2006. I was a staffing recruiter and one of my bosses would play on his laptop at work. I'm basically a magpie, especially when it comes to video game graphics, and this game was gorgeous. I immediately went full Gollum and asked Jenny, the wife in question, if I could have it for my upcoming birthday.

Yeah, that was a hard no. She wasn't going to pay a monthly fee to play a game she already owned. She is notably smarter than me... but I'm tenacious. So I didn't let it go. I stepped it up and asked that we get the game for both of us and I wanted her to play with me. That time she said yes. So, we install it, back when the game was on physical media, and then we logged in.

Eight hours later, Jenny was a hardcore junkie. And that was how we ended up playing World of Warcraft in Vanilla, and how I started talking like a lolcat - I communicate half in interweb kittehs, half gamer slang, half movie quotes. First time I said "Woot!" about something in our first guild's chat, Jenny freaked out because we didn't really know what it meant, but I thought it looked happy.

A few months later, I brought a 40-man raid to a screeching halt, mid-charging into the boss, by asking, "What's tea bagging?" I'm a terror.

Fun fact: I type as fast as I do not from writing, but from typing and healing/tanking at the same time. I'd say it was like how so very many teenage boys I've known who can type like a stenographer because gamer girls, but that's not who I was talking to. Word to the wise, always make sure you're talking to the right person before hitting Enter on that steamy reply. Mistakes were made. Muchly laughing was had.
 
My wife and I started playing MMO's in 2006. I was a staffing recruiter and one of my bosses would play on his laptop at work. I'm basically a magpie, especially when it comes to video game graphics, and this game was gorgeous. I immediately went full Gollum and asked Jenny, the wife in question, if I could have it for my upcoming birthday.

Yeah, that was a hard no. She wasn't going to pay a monthly fee to play a game she already owned. She is notably smarter than me... but I'm tenacious. So I didn't let it go. I stepped it up and asked that we get the game for both of us and I wanted her to play with me. That time she said yes. So, we install it, back when the game was on physical media, and then we logged in.

Eight hours later, Jenny was a hardcore junkie. And that was how we ended up playing World of Warcraft in Vanilla, and how I started talking like a lolcat - I communicate half in interweb kittehs, half gamer slang, half movie quotes. First time I said "Woot!" about something in our first guild's chat, Jenny freaked out because we didn't really know what it meant, but I thought it looked happy.

A few months later, I brought a 40-man raid to a screeching halt, mid-charging into the boss, by asking, "What's tea bagging?" I'm a terror.

Fun fact: I type as fast as I do not from writing, but from typing and healing/tanking at the same time. I'd say it was like how so very many teenage boys I've known who can type like a stenographer because gamer girls, but that's not who I was talking to. Word to the wise, always make sure you're talking to the right person before hitting Enter on that steamy reply. Mistakes were made. Muchly laughing was had.
Oh lord, I wish I could have seen their faces.
The Raid: Going extremely well even with the newbie helping out.
The Newbie: So guys, wtf is Teabagging?
The entire group: .... [did...I read that right?]
lol

If it helps, I never really knew what teabagging was either (when I was a youngan browsing the internet at first) until I saw it. I had gathered from the phrase it was some form of taunting an opponent? But until I saw it I had no clue. Then when I saw it I was like oh...wow...humiliating guys...closest thing I ever do to Teabagging is Taunting an opponent in Smash brothers when I get a KO. But even that's more honorable than a teabag animation wise.

When I was in High school I could type reasonably fast, but, not very accurately. I could reach speeds of 200-ish WPM if I tried, but, that's only if you ignored the mistakes lol Now I haven't taken a speed test lately, But I'm sure it's a lot slower now.
 

pmmg

Myth Weaver
This made me literally lol.

I always find LOL funny, cause I dont think anyone is actually laughing behind the screen. They are just imaginary laughing, which in its own way, makes the whole things a lie. That you have to qualify it with that you literally did actually makes it feel more true.
 
I always find LOL funny, cause I dont think anyone is actually laughing behind the screen. They are just imaginary laughing, which in its own way, makes the whole things a lie. That you have to qualify it with that you literally did actually makes it feel more true.
I dunno, when I say 'I wheezed' or read someone say it, I'm not actually wheezing, outloud. Because at some points that would prompt the parents to come check on me? But internally, I am laughing/wheezing and usually as the proper response to something I saw/read. Though I do think people use it a little too much, just like lol.

If someone found themselves 'wheezing' outloud at everything funny in real life, I'd be concerned.

To make things worse if we're talking literal imagine LMAO. Two concerns. 1: What was so funny that you laughed that part of you off to begin with. 2: HOW do you even laugh that hard to begin with. ROFL is easier to understand but rare to do in real life.

Another funny one is the classic 'skull' emoji in response to something funny.
 
I always find LOL funny, cause I dont think anyone is actually laughing behind the screen. They are just imaginary laughing, which in its own way, makes the whole things a lie. That you have to qualify it with that you literally did actually makes it feel more true.
I have numerous times sprayed wine or coffee over my keyboard when reading something amusing.
 
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