Eliminating Prologue- Help!

Flawed Creation · Jul 12, 2004

my work-in-progress currently has a prologue. I want to get rid of it.

the prologue contains only the "Villain" (the book has no true villain, only an apparent villain), and details him raiding a crypt for the ancient magic he needs to fulfill his plan. it then continues with some hints of his scheming and the plan.

it's typical fantasy prologue fare. not terribly original, and i don't think it stands out enough to grab readers.

chapter 1 is a different story. it introduces the major characters, has some exiting action, a peek at their motivations, shows the main conflict and theme of the book. and is, IMHO, really cool. (or will be when i've got it fixed up.)

therefore, i want to start with chapter 1- it's more unique, grabs more attention, and is more thematically interesting.

the only problem is that the story of how the villain got the stuff is necessary to the book.

so what should i do?

keep the prologue? do a flashback sequence? do a "the two towers"? (describe one sequence of events, then jump to other characters and describe things that happened BEFORE the previous chapters.)

hint at the past through short internal monologue? (dialogue might be better, but the villain doesn't talk to much of anyone until LATE in the book.)

please help me!

James D Macdonald · Jul 12, 2004

Cut the prologue.

If the information in it is important it'll turn up in its proper place later in the book.

Flawed Creation · Jul 13, 2004

thanks- i'm not sure where it fits in, but i can find a way, i'm sure.

GeoffNelder · Sep 27, 2006

I fully understand your dilemma. Many readers, including editors, hate prologues they see them as barriers to getting on with the story rather than the hook you hope it to be.

Some writers pick a particular gripping paragraph within the book and with an odd word modification copy it as a prologue. That works for me, and I did it for my Science Fiction WIP, but a member of the BSFA Orbiters crit group I belong to, said it didn't help him. He held my mini-prologue in his head waiting for it to appear in the body of the story. Aaaarrgh.

Nevertheless, I feel a short flash forward para can be a good hook, as well as a mood setter. But long several-page-long prologues are out.

Good luck with yours!

Geoff

blacbird · Sep 28, 2006

For beginning or inexperienced writers, prologues are almost always used as info-dumps. And almost always make the novel stillborn. I just had the experience of critiquing a chapter two of a manuscript for which I hadn't seen chapter one (I'd missed a critique group meeting). Nobody else in the group liked chapter one, but it seemed from the comments of others that it was essentially a prologue; I found chapter two to be a decent beginning, and recommended to the writer that he simply eliminate chapter one, and feather in any important information it contained at some appropriate place in the narrative.

Of course, he thought that was a dumb idea, and rejected it. I don't go to that critique group very frequently anymore.

Start with something happening, a scene, characters ineracting. Don't start relating history and background, which is much of the time what a "prologue" is. And why readers tend to react badly to one.

caw.

Good Word · Sep 28, 2006

I think it's kinda strange to dig up a post from the old board and respond to it like it was just posted.

The original post was from 2+ years ago.

Evaine · Sep 28, 2006

Well, it's something I hadn't seen before, and anything you haven't read before is new.
Katherine Kurtz wrote a prologue to her first novel, Deryni Rising, which worked well. The body of the story was about the short period leading up to the coronation of the new 14 year old king - and whether he would survive to be king at all.
The prologue was important because it took place on the day his father died, and therefore gave some indication of what the man was like who other characters were grieving over, and what the boy had to live up to if he ever made it to be king.

Other prologues, however, just remind me of Frankie Howerd in Up, Pompeii, fussily re-arranging his tunic as he says: "It came to pass...." (He never got much further than that).

Prawn · Sep 28, 2006

I have a prologue in my current WIP. It's only about 150 words. It shows a girl commiting suicide. Ch 1 has the detective finding the body. Many people on this board have said prologues are a bad idea, but are they always bad?

Liam Jackson · Sep 28, 2006

I don't know that they're always a bad idea. I think it's more a matter of how they're contructed and the intended purpose. Info dump=bad. Mood, characterization, set-up for later events=good. (maybe)

Here's a war story for you. I'm of the school that believes if it's good enough for a prologue, then it's good enough for Chapter One.
However, I was actually told by an editor to include a prologue. He felt it would set tone and mood for the entire story. Good idea? I've no idea. But I wrote the darned prologue.

citymouse · Sep 28, 2006

NO.

Prawn said:
I have a prologue in my current WIP. It's only about 150 words. It shows a girl commiting suicide. Ch 1 has the detective finding the body. Many people on this board have said prologues are a bad idea, but are they always bad?

jpserra · Sep 28, 2006

Why Not?

I've used prologs in all my long works. I see it as a fingerprint of my style of writing. I do know that many of the editors who've read my material didn't care for it. One wrote the following:

It should be short.
It should have critical importance to your story.
It should be short.

I use them for a visual effect for the story, rather than regurgitating facts through dialogue. My stories have historical events that cascade over time, actually causing the story I'm telling.

SJAB · Sep 28, 2006

The prologue in Scott Lynch's "The Lies of Locke Lamora" is twenty-seven pages long. It hasn't done that book or its writer any harm.

I think you need to do what you feel is right for your story. Though forums like this are helpful, sometimes you get so many different opinions on a subject it can get confusing.

There is no step by step procedure to producing a book that will sell. If there was a lot more people would be published.

blacbird · Sep 29, 2006

jpserra said:
It should have critical importance to your story.

This is the key phrase. I'd append to it: If you can do what you propose to do in a prologue in any other way, do that instead.

caw.

Eliminating Prologue- Help!

Flawed Creation

James D Macdonald

Flawed Creation

GeoffNelder

blacbird

Good Word

still crazy after all these years

Evaine

Prawn

Writing is finite,revising infinite

Liam Jackson

Heathen Horde Elder

citymouse

fantasy dweller

jpserra

Recovering Gumshoe

SJAB

Being edited for submission

blacbird