Question about prologues

[CraftyCreations411]

I'm writing a memoir about my time in the Army and specifically about rape.

Most of the feedback that I have gotten suggests that I open my book with the first rape.

According to Mike Larsen, most nonfiction books are written in sections.

I was thinking of making the first rape as a prologue and then using my different duty stations as different sections. This way if I needed three or four chapters for Fort Riley but only needed two chapters for Fort Lee, I could break it up.

Would this be a good idea?

Thanks for the help,
Candy

[K1P1]

Candy,

I think that would be fine, as a working plan.

I have found with my books that I really can't estimate the word count or how much detail will be appropriate until I'm well into the drafting process. Then I sometimes have to cut a lot of what I originally thought was important, to allow what I discovered was more important to expand, and all this requires revisions to the structure of the book. My books (three so far) have always diverged from the structure of the original proposal, which is something my editor has no problem with. She'd rather have a book that really works, than a book that adheres to the outline submitted one or two years earlier.

Go ahead and try it the way that you suggested, but stay alert so you'll notice whether the structure you've chosen is causing problems because it really doesn't fit the contents. In the end, I think the contents and structure must be tweaked to work well together.

[rosepetal720]

Is this about people raping you, or about Army men raping other people?