Protagonist's siblings appearing later in the story?

Morwen Edhelwen

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So, am working on my WIP, and thinking whether it might be jarring to introduce the protagonist's siblings later on, or whether it's better to introduce them along with his parents (well, his mother, the cook and housekeeper) at the beginning. Would anyone find reading a book in which the protagonist's siblings weren't mentioned in the opening to be jarring, as in "Oh, wait, X has siblings? I thought they were an only child!"
 
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Is there a reason why you want to wait?
 

Morwen Edhelwen

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Is there a reason why you want to wait?
Well, not a plot-relevant reason, but because I feel like dumping too many characters in at the beginning and trying to distinguish them might confuse a reader. You know how in SYW, people are confused by too many characters? Yeah, that.
 

Morwen Edhelwen

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that could help. Also, (sorry to derail my own thread), but can you introduce a character with a nickname or should you mention their real name and then have other characters call them by the nickname?
(I'm talking about a situation similar to a hypothetical book set in Russia where people with the same name use diminutives to distinguish themselves from other people with the same name. Except my book is set in a Latin American banana republic, and the protagonist's sister's called by her nickname by her family. The story's in first person, so the MC writes about the sister using her nickname.)
 

tengraceapples

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Maybe use their nickname and have someone later on. Who is pissed,
Or someone official type person call them by their government name
 

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In Whispering Willows (my WIP) Briony, her family and friends always refer to her older brother as Saint instead of his real name, Baron St. Regis, Junior. In fact I don't think I've written his real name in anything but his character profile. If the nickname is important to the character and helps define who they are then by all means use the nickname more than the real one. Characters will tell you what they want to be called and when they want to show up. Readers can tell when things are being forced.
 

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Introduce the character the way the speaker would think of them. If the character goes the whole book with a nickname, so what? If someone gives their full name for some reason, let the context show that it's the same person.
 

scottprotege

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So true.

Also maybe you could mention the siblings but go into greater detail later?

This is what I found myself doing in my WIP. MC mentions her brother on the first page, but we don't see him for the first time until the 5th chapter. By then I feel the reader already knows a bit about him before they meet him.
 

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If you just mention the siblings at the beginning along with everyone else, it's not really much different than having them show up except that now all the readers have is one more name they don't know whether to file away or not. The best plan is to have them mentioned when it's natural. If they're important enough to show up at all, you don't want one just suddenly being there halfway through the book with no mention at all, of course.

Think of introducing your characters like how you're introduced to people. Let's say you're at a party and your best friend introduces you to Joe. Now you know Joe, and maybe a couple of things about him that your friend or Joe told you during the introduction. "Here's Joe. He's an accountant. He went to college with me. Hey, Joe, remember when we rocked that protest to save the spotted owls?" As Joe interacts with people that you are interacting with too, you learn more about him. Maybe he tells stories about his life. Maybe he mentions some family members or friends. If he's telling you everything about himself, whoa, overload, you're never going to remember most of that stuff, especially names, and especially on top of the other people you're meeting at that party. And he's probably not going to talk about every single person in his life.

But you and Joe hit it off, and he starts becoming more important to your life. You start learning more about him and his history. He invites you to eat dinner with his family. When you walk in, chances are you're not going to be surprised to see that he has two brothers. Chances are that he's mentioned them in context at some point. It might have been at that party where you first met, but if he talked about everyone he knew right then, you're not going to remember. But if one day between the party and Thanksgiving dinner, you're meeting him for coffee, and he's sighing because his brother is calling with tax questions again, then you'll probably remember that first time you went, "Oh, he has a brother." And when you meet that brother for the first time at that dinner, it won't seem strange at all. If you've never heard of the brother, it seems very strange (and probably makes you wonder what's wrong between them that he's never even mentioned the brother).

Of course, if the siblings are very important to the story, I would assume they'd be introduced ASAP and not left until late. The OP is vague on what "later on" means. If it means, 5K in instead of on the first page, I wouldn't consider that too late for introducing much of anything, actually.
 

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So you're saying the siblings come into the story on the second page? Ummm.... that's still the beginning if that's what you mean. What genre are you writing? Have you read a lot of books by different authors in the same genre? You might be surprised how helpful that would be to you when it comes to writing.
 

Morwen Edhelwen

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Dieselpunk- science fiction. Genre of my current WIP. By opening I mean on the first page. I want to avoid
"My name's X and I have five siblings called..." because my narrator already knows that stuff and it's overload with too many names.
 
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HistorySleuth

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No, they don't need to be on the first page. I can tell by your questions here and elsewhere that you need to read more. More reading of science fiction would help you write it. How many books have you read? The best way to get an idea of how things go in a story is by reading a lot.
 

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Think about movies where the MC has multiple siblings. Do they start off with a string of the cast? Or do they come in when it's relevant to the story? Are you jarred when the sibling arrives?

If you're really concerned about it being jarring, you can always insert some dialogue that references the sister. Such as: "'Save a cookie for your sister,' Mom said, swatting my hand away from the jar." Then when the sister appears later in the book, the reader already knows she exists.

As for the nickname, if everyone calls her that, you don't need her real name at all. Judy Blume and her "Fudge" character come to mind. I'm not sure if she ever said his real name, all I remember is Fudge. My MC in my WIP calls her sister by a nickname unless she's pissed, then she uses her real one.

It all comes down to "what would the characters do?" Would they use anything other than a nickname? Would they mention the sister before she actually appears in the story? Let the characters do the work for you.
 

Morwen Edhelwen

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No, they don't need to be on the first page. I can tell by your questions here and elsewhere that you need to read more. More reading of science fiction would help you write it. How many books have you read? The best way to get an idea of how things go in a story is by reading a lot.

Do you mean science fiction books, or books in general? I've read a lot of books in general.
 

KalenO

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Well you should always try and be as well read in the genres you're writing as possible. How else will you know if the things you're doing with your story have been done a thousand times before, etc, etc.
 

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In general, as you read, look at how other authors are doing what you want to do. What works for you and what doesn't? So for example from your questions in this thread, how quickly do they introduce characters of varying importance, and how do they treat nicknames?
 

HistorySleuth

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Both really. Read generally, for general structure of things but also in the genre you are writing because each genre has certain elements that are different. Read not just for pleasure but to analyze how different authors put a story together.

I guess the best example I can give is for mysteries. Noir mysteries are very gritty, dead body in the first few pages kind of stuff, most likely cussing, sex, murder is right there in front of the reader. But cozy mysteries start a bit slower, sex is behind closed doors and only eluded to, and murder usually happen off scene. Mysteries also will be different than fantasy. Mystery readers are not going to want to have fairies and gnomes jumping into the plot.

Anyway, what I'm getting at is you should read science fiction, particularly diesel-punk if that is what you are writing.
 

Morwen Edhelwen

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In Belinda Hollyer's Everything I know about you, (yeah, not YA, but). The heroine, Eliza, introduces herself as Lizzie but mentions that her real name is Eliza on the second page. Other very important characters are mentioned in the opening.
 

Morwen Edhelwen

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Both really. Read generally, for general structure of things but also in the genre you are writing because each genre has certain elements that are different. Read not just for pleasure but to analyze how different authors put a story together.

I guess the best example I can give is for mysteries. Noir mysteries are very gritty, dead body in the first few pages kind of stuff, most likely cussing, sex, murder is right there in front of the reader. But cozy mysteries start a bit slower, sex is behind closed doors and only eluded to, and murder usually happen off scene. Mysteries also will be different than fantasy. Mystery readers are not going to want to have fairies and gnomes jumping into the plot.

Anyway, what I'm getting at is you should read science fiction, particularly diesel-punk if that is what you are writing.

I don't know of any dieselpunk books. Know of some steampunk, but not dieselpunk.