Prologue in Fantasy/Sci Fi

A reasonable percentage of fantasy novels still have prologues, so editors seem to think they work sometimes. I don't think most of the ones I've run across in recent years have been the old-fashioned world building infodumps, however.

If it's interesting, and it adds something to the story, then it's probably fine.

I'm one of the few people who actually like reading prologues. (Hell, movies use them enough. Why can't we?) But the truth of the matter is no matter how much it doesn't bother me that I get information served on a silver platter before anything really happens, in my opinion, there is no denying that there are more interesting ways to give your reader the information. For my notes, I do a pretty long prologue for each main city/race/magic/belief system. For my story, I find a creative way to let people know what I want them to know.

I'm not big on prologues, but I feel that Sci-fi and Fantasy generally get a pass on this subject.

However, above all else, it mustn't be boring.

I guess what I find the most helpful way to think about it is, well, exactly how you would think about any other scene in your book. Consider yourself as a reader, or who you know your audience to be, and ask; is this engaging, is this going to make me want to make me read more, does this move the story forward, etc.

Considering the prevalence of agents stating their preference for manuscripts without prologues, also ask if you can do it another way. I think in amateur fiction, part of the problem with prologues is the poor execution of them, or using them more as a crutch than a tool. The same can be said for a lot of things, I suppose. You always the goal of getting the reader to the next page, right? Ultimately, you want someone to pick up your book, and read it all the way through. If you can get someone to read a prologue, and go from sentence one to sentence two and be interested, from the first paragraph to the next, the first page to the next, and reach the end of the prologue and want to keep reading, that's good writing, right?

It's harder to do that in cases where you start either far in the future or past with characters that aren't immediately relate able to where the rest of the story picks up. Mostly, because if you do end up invested in the characters or plot in the prologue and it seems to have shifted entirely, you may make the reader frustrated. It's a bigger problem if at the end of the novel, someone looks back at the beginning and thinks, "well I found that interesting, but it didn't belong there." Often, what you learn in a prologue, has something to do with a reveal later, in which case, it may give away mystery later, or else not need to be there. Part of why they are disliked, may be because there are other, sometimes more effective ways to get the information/story/character across, etc. Sometimes there isn't.

Tl:dr; there's never a reason you shouldn't at least try, because you may do it well. But there also isn't a reason to get too attached, because it's just a structural tool.

Taejang said:

Thank you, everyone, for the thoughts! I didn't know a lot of this stuff.

I'm evaluating the prologue on my WIP, but most of this information is getting logged in my brain for the future. After all, I'm not considering just one half-written story, but rather the many stories I have yet to write...

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When you finish, try sending it to readers with and without the prologue and see what the difference in feedback is. It may turn it up being unnecessary to understand the story.

What I have found surprising, based on my old projects, is how much information your readers don't really need. Conversely, there are some things I thought were evident without explanation, which absolutely weren't. So as mentioned, it's probably best to see how people fair without it vs with it.

Just make sure the people you ask are more or less your intended audience. For instance, I ask my mom for advice still because she's a very intelligent woman, but it tends to vary from the kind of feedback I get from anyone I ask who reads more genre writing like I write. Very often helpful, but I also have to keep in mind that what she's used to expecting from a book may be different from what my regular audience would expect or desire, especially when she asks me to change something. Why someone does or doesn't like what you've done is often more important than what it is they don't like.

KMTolan said:

So, in summary, here is a quick gut check for you to help decide if you are dealing with a prologue or a first chapter (keep in mind this is just my opinion here):
1. It is removed from the main story in time and or distance. The first chapter begins elsewhere.
2. It is being told from a perspective that would be difficult to otherwise present.
3. It is one stand-alone scene.
4. It has impact on the story to come but is not directly a part of that story.
5. It contains a dramatic moment.
6. It tells something far easier than back-fill would in the main story.
7. It is not all narrative.
8. It has a definite hook.
9. It passes the “Do you really need this?” question.

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I have used a prologue in my latest novel. It wasn't there when I started writing but by the time I got to chapter 3, I decided I needed it.
Looking back at it now, I think it hits every one of the criteria above and I'm still pretty happy that it's in there. But then I would say that wouldn't I?

Makai_Lightning said:

What I have found surprising, based on my old projects, is how much information...

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It's one of those things that can be pretty hard to get a handle on. I always infodump way too much in my first drafts. For one thing, there's all sorts of cool stuff i want to show to the readers, and for another I might be fixing setting details in my mind.

But a lot of that is stuff the readers just don't need. Carve out the infodumps, and leave the characters knowing things about the world the readers don't have thorough expanations of.

Jabberwocky

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'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

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Woah! Hold on a cotton-picking minute. How will the reader understand all this? We haven't told him what a vorpal sword looks like or what toves are (both slithy and non slithy).

Quick, let's write a prologue ...

Then again, maybe not. Prologues certainly have their uses. They are a way of setting the scene and of explaining back story. They are particularly relevant in stories which rely on events that happened in the past, such as fantasy.

But the best writer in the world is the reader's imagination. Our job is not to give them a full HD surround-sound, pixel perfect image of every detail of our worlds. Instead we should be giving them just enough clues for them to fill in the missing details. Because they will fill in those details far more vividly and imaginatively than we ever could.

What the hell is a vorpal sword? I have no idea, but my imagination is working overtime coming up with what it might look like.

Please don't spoil that by explaining or giving me a picture.

I'm not a prologue hater. I've seen some that work fairly well. They are probably preferable to info-dumping through exposition and unrealistic dialogue.

But in the majority of cases I suspect that a prologue could be rolled into the main action quite satisfactorily. It also seems to be the more modern way of doing it.

Once! said:

Woah! Hold on a cotton-picking minute. How will the reader understand all this? We haven't told him what a vorpal sword looks like or what toves are (both slithy and non slithy).

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Pffft. D&D tells us in detail what a vorpal blade is.



... amateurs.

jjdebenedictis said:

It's not a matter of whether it's a prologue. It's a matter of whether it's boring.

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I think this is the key point to this whole discussion. Prologues are not in general good or bad. They are just a tool for us to use. What matter is how well we write them and how well they fit into what comes after, whether they add interest or subtract it.

Thomas Vail said:

I always infodump way too much in my first drafts.

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I suggest we try to make our first drafts as good as they can be without angsting about it too much. But first drafts are where we can afford to make mistakes, and we should not be afraid to make them. Sometimes our best ideas start out as mistakes. And if they don't lead to something good we can always delete them.

No histories of the world, neither ours or yours. That would be like starting every novel set in contemporary America with a summation of the Revolutionary War.

Something to consider, which I posted in a previous thread about prologues:

This might prove telling to some:

Agent Brenda Drake said:

By the questions I'm getting, there's a lot of prologues in #PitchWars. Just send us the first chapter, not the prologue. If you wondered.

Brenda Drake (@brendadrake) August 15, 2014

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If your prologue is going to generate this kind of response, you should think long and hard about whether you need this.

I wonder if there is a deeper issue here?

When we first think of a story, we usually imagine the chain of events leading from the start of the story to the end. This happens. Then this. Then this. The end. We might write this as:

A ... B ... C ... D ... E ... the end.

If we are writing a non-fiction book about these events, that may be how we would write it. We would start at the beginning and work our way logically through to the end.

But that doesn't necessarily work for fiction. For one thing, the main character may not have seen the absolute first part of a story. In theory, every story about world war one ought to start with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Or possibly earlier with the political tensions in Europe at the time. But hardly anyone saw Ferdinand being assassinated. If we were writing a novel about the first world war, we would probably want to show the POV of someone who was fighting in the trenches.

Instead of ABCDE, we might get BCDE. There is no need to show A.

Similarly, it can be very boring if we describe everything. I've been reviewing a book for a friend which describes every event in the order in which it happens. Unfortunately, that means that we are shown some pretty dull stuff. Day one. Day Two. Day Three.

We don't quite see the hero brushing his teeth and going to the lavatory, but it gets pretty damn close at times. That's a story told as A, B, C, D ... I gave up before we got to E.

It's a natural human reaction to write like this. I'm close to finishing a first draft of my WIP and I know I have sections that go A, B, C, D, E. I was making it up as I went along, and it shows. That's not a problem. It's the first draft. In the edit, I'll delete chunks to make it flow.

A character needs to catch a plan to Berlin. In the real world he would make a reservation, pack his bags, get a taxi to London Heathrow, pay the taxi fare, book onto his flight, check his bags in ...

In a novel, we might show him arriving at Berlin and skip all the intermediate stuff. The reader will simply assume it happened.

The real world goes A, B, C, D, E

A novel might go ... C, B (flashback), F, G

And that, I think, is one of the problems with the prologue. It might be necessary for the story. But equally it might be a sign that the writer is going to A,B,C,D,E through the rest of the book. That could be why editors and publish sometimes don't like prologues.

There is also an evolution of style thing going on here. Prologues are a little old hat. The more modern approach is to start the story from the POV of the main character, whether in first person or third. We could make a case that a work of fantasy might be deliberately written in ye olde fashioned style, but then again we might not.

Who knows? Fashions and customs may yet change. We might get bored with starting every story at B or C. The prologue may yet make a comeback. Brown is the new black, or something like that.