When does it become necessary to name a main character's family members? My protagonist's mother and sister appear in the first chapter of the novel and a chapter towards the end of the novel. They are not the main characters, and they don't appear without the protagonist Jo. Do I name them and address them with their names in the scenes? Here is a snippet from Vintage classic Stoner: His father shook his head. ... Finally, his father moved in his chair. Stoner looked up. His parents' faces confronted him; he almost cried out to them. His mother was facing him, but she did not see him. It reads simple and the readers can feel the weight of the scene. Here is a snippet from my work, where I decided not to name the protagonist's mother and sister. Jo's mother wore the look of someone who had just won the lottery, while her sister appeared happier than ever, relieved that her impending departure meant one less mouth to feed on her mother's meagre salary. ... Jo' mother and sister were seen with a grin affixed on their face. I feel what worked in Stoner, didn't work in my scene. The repeated references like 'her mother', 'her sister' sound tedious to read. But these 2 characters only appear in 2 chapters as explained earlier, and they don't appear independent of Jo. So I thought the extra character names would confuse the readers, as few more female characters in the book have significant roles in the story. Would like to hear the forum members thoughts on this.
I think it totally depends on the scenes they're in and how developed their characters are. It largely depends on who the POV character is and what they're used to calling them. In Season of the Witch I started off only using Mom and Dad during a car ride out into the country because that's Rachel's names for them, but when they reached Grandma's house Grandma used their actual names. I think his mother and his father worked better in the Stoner excerpt because the writing sounds more formal. In yours it seems less so, possibly his mom and his sister would work better. I won't critique the two people with one grin thing at the end, since this isn't the Workshop.
It's a POV thing. Most people refer to their folks as Mom and Dad, but there are a few that use the first names in real life. That's a character thing and suggests certain things about their upbringing. The people I knew growing who referred to their folks by their first names were the suicidally progressive types, which works for a vibe if approproate. "His mother/father" is fairly detached/distant, which is also fine if that's the POV. I will say that epithets can get very tiresome very quickly, but if it's just a few scene, then probably not an issue.
Just want to share my two cents (only worth a penny) As a more utilitarian writer my view is "do what you want." The reason you seems caught up on this seems to be the "flow" of using the names you want, not the meaning/usage of the names themselves. if thats' the case for first draft 'get over it' write the story, when you get to the second draft work on the flow. But if you choose to call the character "Mother" rather than "Rebecca St. Montague" well you must have a reason, well trust that reason and trust your reader to be able to read the word mother 3 times on one page without their brains exploding.
Like others have said this is a POV issue. When I have written parent characters I've never given them names beyond mom and dad. I think it would seem awkward to refer to your MC's parents by their actual names. Of course, there can be reasons and exceptions for everything, but in general I would keep them as mom and dad.
It's not so much the technical category of POV but the nature/personality of the narrative voice in question. And to what degree of intimacy the POV falls along the spectrum. How a character views and reports the world around them will vary greatly between, say, a 17 year old hooker and a 80 year old Rhodes Scholar. Same shit, but vastly different symbols.
True. How close is your character to his family? If not very (raised by a nanny, sent to a private school, only sees mom and dad on breaks), then "Hello, father" seems OK. But if the family is very close-knit, and see each other every day, then names (or at least something more familiar than "father") seems mandatory. Your character would at least say "mom" and "dad" (or "ma" and "pa" in some states; I've even seen "mama" and "papa"/"daddy", although that seems to be concentrated in the American south. See here: https://www.homearea.com/featured/regional-dialect/the-south-has-serious-daddy-issues/#:~:text=While%20overall%20mentions%20of%20%22Mama,most%20of%20all%20in%20Mississippi. ) Of course, if the parents have scenes where they are alone together, they'd call each other by their names. Would they allow their kids the same familiarity? Some parents think it's disrespectful, while others think it shows a more casual, peer-to-peer atmosphere. It's up to you: what would you like your fictional family to be? (Don't say that real life is simple!)