Help! I’m being pursued by an angry prologue!

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kaku

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Help! I’m being stalked by an angry prologue!

As an avid reader, I’ve never been a great fan of prologues. Too often, I’ve found authors using them as a crutch to provide info dumps. At other times, they burden their readers with having to remembering information that isn’t relevant until the reader is half way through the novel. I’ve always felt the reader would be better served if the information was provided in the context of the story.

Now I find myself faced with a dilemma: people whose opinions I respect have suggested that my WIP should have a prologue.


I’m hoping you, my peers, would favor me by sharing your thoughts on prologues. Do you feel they serve a useful purpose? If so, what kind of information can be considered appropriate in a prologue? How long should one consider making a prologue?



Thank you in advance for taking the time to respond.



Regards,



Kaku Kindly
 
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E.G. Gammon

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I remember someone saying on here a while ago that if the stuff found in a prologue is important enough that the reader should read it, it should be called Chapter One. I never read prologues....
 

Liam Jackson

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I think such devices can serve a useful purpose. Stage-setting, back story, introducing keys that give readers the "Oh yeah!" moments, later in the book.

I also think prologues make for convenient dump sites and are easily abused, as you pointed out.

Each story has different needs. Yours may benefit from a prologue. My first novel didn't, and as much as I liked the way it read, I axed it before the printer ink dried. What story ingredient would your prologue supply, that couldn't be added in a chapter?

Edited note: As a general rule, I support EG's comment. Though I always read the prologues, I consider them just another chapter without the number.
 
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brinkett

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kaku said:
Now I find myself faced with a dilemma: people whose opinions I respect have suggested that my WIP should have a prologue.
Have you asked them why they think you should have a prologue? You might be able to fix whatever's bothering them without a prologue, but you have to understand what the problem is first. As UJ once said, beta readers can usually tell you what's wrong, but not how to fix it.

I’m hoping you, my peers, would favor me by sharing your thoughts on prologues. Do you feel they serve a useful purpose? If so, what kind of information can be considered appropriate in a prologue? How long should one consider making a prologue?

It depends on the purpose of the prologue. Sometimes a prologue is necessary (and can't be chapter one) if it's written from the POV of someone who isn't a character in the book, for example. Prologues that bug me are those that very well could have been labelled chapter one, or those that dump a ton of info that isn't necessary to understand chapter one, or two, or...
 

Susan Gable

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kaku said:
Now I find myself faced with a dilemma: people whose opinions I respect have suggested that my WIP should have a prologue.


I’m hoping you, my peers, would favor me by sharing your thoughts on prologues. Do you feel they serve a useful purpose? If so, what kind of information can be considered appropriate in a prologue? How long should one consider making a prologue?

Kaku Kindly

Use how you feel about prologues as a reader to guide yourself if you do write one. Sometimes the story DOES need one. I'm not a huge fan of them myself, but I did use one in my book from last May. I wanted to show the heroine giving birth because the fact that she actually gave birth to this child was a critical part of this story - because you see, the child isn't hers. :)

Chapter one, and the main story, opened almost four years later. Hence why the birth wasn't chapter one, it was a prologue.

You know, you can write a prologue and then later change your mind and chop it back out. :) Write it (or write several <G>) and see if it works or not. Only you and your story can decide for sure.

A prologue can be the sign of a lazy writer. But it doesn't HAVE to be. :) Let your instincts as a reader guide you. (Oh, I hope that doesn't sound too much like "Use the Force, Luke." lol!)

Susan G.
 

Jamesaritchie

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Prologue

kaku said:
As an avid reader, I’ve never been a great fan of prologues. Too often, I’ve found authors using them as a crutch to provide info dumps. At other times, they burden their readers with having to remembering information that isn’t relevant until the reader is half way through the novel. I’ve always felt the reader would be better served if the information was provided in the context of the story.

Now I find myself faced with a dilemma: people whose opinions I respect have suggested that my WIP should have a prologue.


I’m hoping you, my peers, would favor me by sharing your thoughts on prologues. Do you feel they serve a useful purpose? If so, what kind of information can be considered appropriate in a prologue? How long should one consider making a prologue?



Thank you in advance for taking the time to respond.



Regards,



Kaku Kindly

I seldom use prologues, but when one is need, it's needed. If a prologue contains the information it should, and is written as a prologue, rather than as a substitute for chapter one, any reader who skips it is going to be missing valuable information, whether they know it or not. And they'll never know unless they read it.

Some extremely good novels have been written with extremely good and valuable prologues attached. Not all stories need prologues, but some do.

A prologue is a tool, just like any other. If you need this particular tool, then you should use it.
 

maestrowork

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My thought is that if the prologue is important, it should have been Chapter One. The only time when I think a real prologue is necessary is when you have to delve in a significant backstory that you just can't integrate into your main story, or non-story-related information (like the history of the world) that would make reading the story more interesting.
 

RGame

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If I had never come to this forum, I never would have realized that the simplest things could put off readers. People who never read prologues. Never would have occurred to me in a million years. At another forum I saw people complaining about POVs. "More than four POVs and I stop reading." Again, never would have occurred to me in a million years.
 

sunandshadow

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kaku said:
At other times, they burden their readers with having to remembering information that isn’t relevant until the reader is half way through the novel.

Have you considered that maybe this creates suspense? That the author wants the reader to spend the first half of the book wondering how this piece fits into a seemingly unrelated puzzle? Or, it could help soften the shock if the book is one of those which changes focus halfway through by signalling what the true focus is going to be? I have seen some very effective prologues which form the first part of a fairy-tale frame for a more realistic story, or provide a historical context for a story to take place in, like the establishing pan of the landscape in a movie.

The only time a prologue annoyed me is when I really liked the viewpoint character and setting in one and wanted to read about them, but the rest of the book was set years later with a different viewpoint character.
 

maestrowork

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sunandshadow said:
Have you considered that maybe this creates suspense? That the author wants the reader to spend the first half of the book wondering how this piece fits into a seemingly unrelated puzzle?

Then it should be Chapter One. Some people (or many a lot of people, me included) do not read prologues.

For example, in the Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown used a prologue and an epilogue, which should have been Chapter One and the last chapter. I fail to understand why he made them pro/epi-logues. I don't think he understands what they mean.
 

RGame

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Why not just pretend the words at the top of the page say "Chapter One" instead of "Prologue?"

Is this the Monk board or something? :)
 

sunandshadow

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Writers wouldn't put prologues if they didn't intend them to be read as part of the book. Why would you potentially damage your reading experience by not reading everything the writer presents to you, in the right order?
 

maestrowork

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Because you just can't tell the readers what to read and what not to read. That's the reality, folks.

Many readers read everything, even down to the ISBN barcode! But many readers don't read: the copyright page, the dedication, the foreword, the acknowledgement, the prologue, the epilogue... They open the book and go directly to Chapter One -- to them, that's where the story begins.
 

Lenora Rose

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maestrowork said:
Then it should be Chapter One. Some people (or many a lot of people, me included) do not read prologues.

For example, in the Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown used a prologue and an epilogue, which should have been Chapter One and the last chapter. I fail to understand why he made them pro/epi-logues. I don't think he understands what they mean.

There are also readers who would feel betrayed if Chapter One turned out to be 20 years before the rest of the story, or from a different POV. Calling the opening a Prologue is a way to signal that either the POV, or the time, or something, is not the one used in the rest of the book, and to keep that reader from feeling betrayed. There are other ways to do this, but really, Pro- and Epilogues are the easiest.

I wish desperately that people would not abuse prologues by making dry and infodumpy ones, or ones that ultimately don't connect. However, I'm also willing to forgive even a dry infodumpy cruddy horrid prologue (Even if it turns out to be information unnecessary to the reader), if Chapter one starts as a book ought, in a way I would enver forgive a chapter One of the same kind -- because at least I've been forewarned. Although I'd wonder what the editor was thinking not to trim it, (or if the editor tried and the author wrote STET!!!! all over it, just what the author was thinking).

Dan Brown, from what i've been told, messed up most of his writerly stuff. He got the propulsion of Story and Plot right, But nobody yet has recommended his structure or style as exemplary examples.
 

Susan Gable

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Lenora Rose said:
There are also readers who would feel betrayed if Chapter One turned out to be 20 years before the rest of the story, or from a different POV. Calling the opening a Prologue is a way to signal that either the POV, or the time, or something, is not the one used in the rest of the book, and to keep that reader from feeling betrayed. There are other ways to do this, but really, Pro- and Epilogues are the easiest.
.

Amen, Lenora Rose! Preach it! <G> Obviously I'm of the same opinion when it comes to Prologues - they signal something DIFFERENT from the rest of the story, which is why in the example I gave from my own work, I didn't make it part of Chapter One. Because the rest of the story took place 4 years in the future.

Ray, please tell us what you feel the definitions of prologue & epilogue are. And explain to me why I was wrong to use a prologue in my book. We may never agree <G> (and that's OKAY!) but I'd like to hear your logic. (If your logic is just that some people may not have read the prologue because I called it a prologue instead of chapter one, then I won't agree with that. <G> I'd say, well, then, that reader missed out on something I intended for them to experience.)

Susan G.
 

maestrowork

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Susan, my feeling is, there's a place and time for prologues. Like you said, if something is important to the story, and it happened 4 years before the main story starts, and you want to get it out of the way first (without sinking into a long flashback), then yeah, put it in a prologue and be done with it.

The reality is, there are going to be readers who jump to Chapter One immediately. We writers might hope, wish, pray, beg all we want that the readers will read everything, but ultimately, some readers will skip prologues.

Personally, I'd like to keep the flashback to the minimum, or work it into the main story. But I understand sometimes it's just easier to lump the whole thing and put it in a prologue. But if the prologue is SO important and interesting, why not make it part of the main story, even though the timeline/POV is off? Just put it in a separate chapter. Nobody would notice. ;)

Also, if you keep the backstory from the readers until later time, you can build suspense that way: Who are these people? How did it get to be this way?
 

rich

After reading a book and discover a prologue, how could any reader say that they never read the prologue? That's ludicrous...and a bit pretentious.
 

Susan Gable

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maestrowork said:
Personally, I'd like to keep the flashback to the minimum, or work it into the main story. But I understand sometimes it's just easier to lump the whole thing and put it in a prologue. But if the prologue is SO important and interesting, why not make it part of the main story, even though the timeline/POV is off? Just put it in a separate chapter. Nobody would notice. ;)

Also, if you keep the backstory from the readers until later time, you can build suspense that way: Who are these people? How did it get to be this way?

:) Ray, darling, it's not a flashback if it happens first in the story and shows up first in the book. <G> (See, that's one of my big bugaboos - I'm a very sequential person. I HATE flashbacks. The only flash-backy thing that I love right now is the tv show LOST, and I tolerate that because IT WORKS! <G> But my husband walked in on the show one day, and he hard time following it because he didn't know how the writers were telling the story with the flashbacks.)

And I'd notice. lol. But see, this is the wonderful about writing. I can be right AND you can also be right. <G> Because there is no one-size-fits-all set of "rules" for how to do this right, despite what some writers may want, and despite what they may tell other writers. <G> (Personally, besides being sequential, I'm a huge fan of rules, so it took me some adjusting to be able to say this! <G>)

Susan G.
 

rich

Prologue: on that note, my last post was in agreement, (or disagreement) with my nature, and that rich, after rereading his last post, finds that he's still at peace with the world--barring any unforeseen unforeseenity.
 

Thekherham

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I don't do prologues... at least I haven't yet.
I start at Chapter I and go to The End.

When I do read a book that has a prologue, I do read it... but that's mainly because I read just about everything in a book. (O.k., I don't read the index.)
 

brokenfingers

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As JAR said, prologues are but one of many tools a writer has at their disposal.

Sometimes prologues don't work or are irrelevant - but I've found those to be in the minority. Many stories I've read would be hopelessly skewed without knowing the information the prologue contained.

I'm curious though how someone can read a book and not read the prologue. It is, after all, a part of the story and when done right it can be a very effective part of a story. To me, that's like saying: I never read the fifth chapter.

Hmmm, I don't know - maybe it's me but I think that going into a story without reading the prologue is like going into a cave with only two batteries in your flashlight instead of the required three. But that's just me.

It might be a genre thing too. I think prologues are most rampant in the fantasy field - which would make sense since many cliche fantasies include a prophecy and deal with events that sometimes span thousands of years.

Anyways, my point is that I've seen prologues used very effectively in many genres and they definitely affected the way the story took shape for the reader.

If it works, use it - if it doesn't, don't. If it's integral to your story - by all means put it in, and if a reader doesn't read it and so misses out on the full reading experience you've provided for them - then it's their loss.
 

maestrowork

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Susan, in your case, the prologue may work because the timeline moves forward. It just so happens that between your prologue and your main story there is a big time gap (say, 4 years have passed). I still wonder, though, other than the 4-year gap, is there a reason why the prologue is not part of the main story? I mean, if P happens 4 years ago, and M starts now, but you need to know P to understand something about M... Then it's all about structure. Meaning, if you integrate P into your M, then your P would naturally become F (flashback). ;) It all depends on how your organize your book. ;)

In my book, I thought about putting the "flashback" as a prologue because the rest of the story happens in real time. I decided against it. Was it a good or bad decision? I don't know. Impact-wise, however, I thought the way I organized it (without using a prologue) created better suspense. :Shrug:

I agree -- do what works. For me, prologue doesn't quite work, so as a writer, I try to avoid it if I can.
 

Lenora Rose

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Well, so far, truth be known, every story I've written where early drafts have had a prologue has ended up with the prologue cut or integrated, so I'm not saying it's impossible to make it a flashback, or come out in the course of events, or the like. Nor am I saying it's better.

But I try to imagine Steven Brust's Agyar without the prologue and epilogue. Because the story, including the pro- and epilogues, is typed as it progresses by the PoV character(s), we know when and how each page is typed out, and even at exactly what point the papers are laid down on the desk in the order in which they currently sit. The opening and closing can't be moved. Can't be named chapters 1 and <final>, because they make a very specific frame that is clearly outside the main story, and without which, just as clearly, the whole main story has a bit of a different tone.
 

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In some mysteries that are based on an old event but that involve an new investigation of it, the author does something like a prologue, but doesn't call it that/ For example they may start with the heading 1978 and then write 2 or 3 pages about what lead up to the murder or about a character at that time. Then they start with Chapter 1 telling the reader that it is 20 years later with a time reference in the first paragraph or two. This avoids the problem of people skipping something labeled Prologue, but it serves the same function. Generally I am only in favor of using a prologue if you have looked long and hard at your story and determined that the material in the prologue does not belong in the body of the story but is in some way essential to it.
 
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