To prologue or not to prologue...

In the past, I've been very open about my dislike of prologues - that is, until I realized one might benefit my own novel... While researching, I found a really great article that weighs a prologue's pros and cons and talks about the reasons to use one (and how to write one). I think it might be helpful to you:

http://www.writing-world.com/fiction/prologue.shtml

To be frank it sounds like a less than exciting way to start a book. If I was browsing and the first few pages felt like a lesson I would probably put the book back down in favour of one that embued the story line with the same information or put it in an appendix at the back.

I agree with Vein... doesn't sound like an effective way of beginning a story. You have to ask what purpose does it serve the readers to have that prologue, and why do you need it? Can the information in the prologue be integrated in the novel?

Most of the time, prologues are used by the writers to create back stories or character sketches that serve no real purpose to the main story other than giving some background information. And that only means the writer doesn't really know where the story begins. It's not to say prologues can't be done beautifully, but my experience tells him that most prologues (the ones I've read) are unnecessary.

Also:

Since it would need to discuss the systems of both merging systems and their context to normal European history, it could get lengthy and slow.

But without the historical context, I think it would read more like a fantasy than the feel of a history that I want.

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It makes me wonder if you trust yourself as a writer (to be able to convince your readers about your alternate history without a big lesson up front) or if you trust the readers to be smart enough to get it.

Read some alternate historory fiction and see how the authors did it.

I know I wouldn't like a history lesson up front, explaining everything to me. *Yawn* When's the story going to start? I would probably put the book down just on that.

However, I'm co-writing a thriller set during the Civil War. That presented the problem of having to build a historical setting that some people aren't familiar with--and at the same time keep it interesting. I'm from Los Angeles. The Civil War was a chapter in a history book. So we worked hard on the setting in the first couple of chapters to make someone like me get that setting while still enjoying the story. It wasn't saying it was the Civil War and quoting historical facts to the reader. Rather, we built into those chapters story events that really worked the setting in a way that kept the story moving forward but conveyed that this was a different place and time.

Prologues serve a purpose, especially in sci-fi or fantasy, but you do have to be careful. You want enough info incorporated so that you aren't dragging the body of the story down with info dumps, but only just enough. I bet you'll see, later in the tale, where you have worked some of that background info into the story itself. When that happens, go back to the prologue and edit that information out, or nearly out.

With alt-hist, I think you need a prologue, otherwise you'll end up with an info heavy, action light, first chapter or so. IMO.

Hmmm this one looks like it might be tough.

Prologues do serve a purpose, but not if they're just an info dump. The best prologues are story and showing also - not telling and narrative. You'll lose a reader if you start like that.

You could maybe have an appendix or...

I was thinking you can start each chapter with a quoted history blurb - kind of like in Dune. Where a relevant part of history is explained as if being quoted from an actual history book.

Just some thoughts...

There are few prologues, in the history of prologues, that were entirely necessary. Try to find a way to put the necessary information you want to convey into the story itself, before resorting to them. Some readers don't mind them, others hate them, but I haven't met too many who love them. To avoid the potential of boring your reader, try to convey the information, somehow, within the story itself.

Remember that ultimately, you have to make the choice. While all of the advice in AW comes from an honest and wanting to help place, when your book comes out you'll be standing alone to take the adulation and the scorn.

brokenfingers said:

I was thinking you can start each chapter with a quoted history blurb - kind of like in Dune. Where a relevant part of history is explained as if being quoted from an actual history book.

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If done well, this can impart a lot of history without being a "lecture" prefaced to the front of the book. If I needed to give that much backstory, I might try something modelled after this -- to me, it add to the "realism" of the world, that there are books/documents about it (even if they are only in the author's mind!)

I'm with the minimalists -- can you include just enough info to set the stage without actually trying to explain the whole history?

I know I've read a book that used the timeline model to do this -- instead of a prose prologue, there was a blurb and ever-so-brief timeline of the major historical confluences. Can't remember the title, but it did work -- although I was sorely tempted to skip the whole thing (I tend not to read frontmatter or quotes, etc in novels. Yes, bad, I know.) until I noticed dates. There were maybe four of them (perhaps equivalent to 1066, conquest of England; 1492 'discovery of america'; 1917, WW1; 2056, joint settlement of X -- very high level stuff). The rest of the details were buried in the text.

Don't fall into the trap of trying to divulge the history via dialog. That always sounds faked.

prologue

There's nothing wrong with a prologue, if it really is a prologue, and if it's done well. If people don't want to read them, they don't have to, and they'll never know whether or not they missed anything important, so it won't matter to them.

Something I don't remember being touched on before, however, is an epilogue. A true prologue needs an epilogue for balance, and one of the ways you know a prologue really is a prologue, is whether or not an epilogue will also be needed.

Either way, go ahead and write the prologue. It does no harm to write it. You can always remove it later. But don't make it lengthy and slow. Cut, trim, and make it readable.

Jamesaritchie said:

There's nothing wrong with a prologue, if it really is a prologue, and if it's done well. If people don't want to read them, they don't have to, and they'll never know whether or not they missed anything important, so it won't matter to them.

Something I don't remember being touched on before, however, is an epilogue. A true prologue needs an epilogue for balance, and one of the ways you know a prologue really is a prologue, is whether or not an epilogue will also be needed.

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Bear with me...I work the night shift and I've had construction workers pounding away all day so a lack of sleep has left me feeling contrary.

I agree that a prologue needs an epilogue to keep things balanced. So as I read this post, I was nodding my head and thinking, yes, yes. But then I thought about it and began to question my thinking. In my first novel I had a prologue, labeled as such because the action (which was VERY key to understanding the main story arc) takes place eight years before the rest of the story, which covers a period of only two days. The book also had an epilogue and there was a time leap from the main story to that as well but it was only a matter of weeks. I felt pretty strongly that the prologue should have been a prologue, but I didn't feel so strongly about the epilogue. I called it an epilogue because, well, because I had a prologue and that seemed to dictate the need for an epilogue. That balance thing and all. Yet I can't help but think that I could have simply given that epilogue a chapter number and even though it would have bugged me to no end and gone completely against my writer aesthetic, it wouldn't have made any difference to the majority of people. Are there any "rules" about epilogues and prologues? Is it written somewhere that if you have one you must have the other, or is it simply a natural pairing, like yin and yang, night and day, beginning and end?

And the discussion in another thread made me wonder if there is a perception about people skipping epilogues the way there is one about people skipping prologues.

Thoughts, anyone? (And despite my questions above, I still think a prologue requires an epilogue. It just ain't natural otherwise.)

Beth

A teacher once told me that epilogue means the story has already ended. Everyone's gone home. And you're left alone in the room trying to clean things up. Some readers will stay, but some will leave. It's up to you -- but you must realize that some people are going to skip that and go home, so if you put anything important in there, some readers are going to miss it and they wouldn't think of going back to read it again (unlike, say, if they miss chapter 13 for some reason and chapter 14 doesn't make sense anymore).

Ultimately, it's your choice. Just know the reality and decide what you want to do.

E.G. Gammon said:

In the past, I've been very open about my dislike of prologues - that is, until I realized one might benefit my own novel... While researching, I found a really great article that weighs a prologue's pros and cons and talks about the reasons to use one (and how to write one). I think it might be helpful to you:

http://www.writing-world.com/fiction/prologue.shtml

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Thanks for that link! I put my prologue through the test that was described there and, luckily, mine fits the bill

That sounds like a good way to make readers put the book down. Readers don't read for history lessons. After all, if you write all that stuff in one block, the reader won't remember most of it. You need to trust the reader. We're okay with being a little lost at first, with trying to figure out the world. As long as you sprinkle in those details, you should be fine.

My thriller WIP has a prologue which is a flashback, an event which happened centuries ago but which has relevance to the main intrigue.
It's not really a history lesson, it's more like an incident which has repercussions in the present time.

veinglory said:

To be frank it sounds like a less than exciting way to start a book. If I was browsing and the first few pages felt like a lesson I would probably put the book back down in favour of one that embued the story line with the same information or put it in an appendix at the back.

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This.

maestrowork said:

A teacher once told me that epilogue means the story has already ended. Everyone's gone home. And you're left alone in the room trying to clean things up. Some readers will stay, but some will leave. It's up to you -- but you must realize that some people are going to skip that and go home, so if you put anything important in there, some readers are going to miss it and they wouldn't think of going back to read it again (unlike, say, if they miss chapter 13 for some reason and chapter 14 doesn't make sense anymore).

Ultimately, it's your choice. Just know the reality and decide what you want to do.

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That's a great way to put it. I'd go a step forward with the metaphor and say that a prologue, to me, is like the people who volunteer to come early and prepare the horderves and get the tables unfolded.

I, for one, come for the food, and leave when it's gone!

I am doing a prologue for my book, because it kind of starts in the middle. Gives readers a back story, helps so you don't have to resort to flash backs. I am using the prologue as more of a back story, then anything else.

E.G. Gammon said:

http://www.writing-world.com/fiction/prologue.shtml

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Great article!
I had been having questions about prologues, too, but that made it very clear that mine has a place in my story -- thanks!

to the original post: I kind of think of that kind of prologue like the opening scene of The Fellowship of the Ring -- it's necessary to know about the rings and how they came to be to understand Tolkien's world, but you have to do it in a way that keeps it short and simple, and that piques the reader's interest.

maestrowork said:

A teacher once told me that epilogue means the story has already ended. Everyone's gone home. And you're left alone in the room trying to clean things up. Some readers will stay, but some will leave. It's up to you -- but you must realize that some people are going to skip that and go home

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So, someone reads a book and gets near the end and sighs because the book was so good but now it's almost over...and then turns the page after the last chapter and discovers there's an epilogue and thinks, "Nah. Won't bother."

Having a hard time believing anyone would actually do that. It's contrary to human nature. Usually after a good book, we want more, more, more.

And if they don't read the epilogue because they didn't like the book or the way it ended...then the author's got bigger problems than nerely having an epilogue.

ETA: I also don't think a prologue requires an epilogue, or vice versa. Do what meets the needs of the story.

I've been debating the prologue idea for awhile now as well.

I figured that I feel it adds much more to the story as the information is uncovered throughout. It doesn't take much, anything from a referral of a past event that can lead to a subtle explanation can provide the reader with the idea that you want them to.

But of course, I'm the type of reader that will read a prologue no matter what because some I have read helped expand the story and give it its pizza base - however some were pointless. More like unneeded decoration.