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.
