Aurora
Sage
^^Actually, Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie has fascinating flashbacks. It truly works in that story and gave it a richer context.
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An argument for a Prologue
- Thread starter Demesnedenoir
- Start date
> I get the impression that these tidbits are important to the author, but he's simply failed to make them important to me.
Absolutely this. An infodump happens when the reader decides that he's no longer interested in the information being presented. Otherwise, it's fascinating detail, right?
IOW, "infodump" is simply a sub-species of bad writing. There's nothing wrong with telling the reader about your world. There are lots of ways to do this. Choose one. *shrug* Choose five. But for all love write it well!
Absolutely this. An infodump happens when the reader decides that he's no longer interested in the information being presented. Otherwise, it's fascinating detail, right?
IOW, "infodump" is simply a sub-species of bad writing. There's nothing wrong with telling the reader about your world. There are lots of ways to do this. Choose one. *shrug* Choose five. But for all love write it well!
Ruru
Troubadour
For me, it seems to come back to how well a prologue is done, and what it's for.
I really enjoy world building, and so I enjoy reading info dump prologues that tell about the world of the story, so long as the information feels like it will be relevant. The start of the story is definitely the place for this however, in my opinion at least. Especially if it is information that the reader can use to immerse in the story more fully.
Prologues that are snip-its of another story line that isn't visited properly until later can be good, particularly as a way of forming a bit of a cliff hanger to keep the reader drawn in.
For myself, my current WIP has a prologue. Its less than 600 words long and is written as an extract from a piece of writing within the story. It exists solely to explain something to the reader that is meant to be common knowledge among my characters, the idea being the characters wouldn't talk about this thing, or think about it, because its something that just is. I've tried to write it in (drip feed it I mean), but it needs to be explained early on an all my attempts at this halted any flow I'd managed to achieve.
I really enjoy world building, and so I enjoy reading info dump prologues that tell about the world of the story, so long as the information feels like it will be relevant. The start of the story is definitely the place for this however, in my opinion at least. Especially if it is information that the reader can use to immerse in the story more fully.
Prologues that are snip-its of another story line that isn't visited properly until later can be good, particularly as a way of forming a bit of a cliff hanger to keep the reader drawn in.
For myself, my current WIP has a prologue. Its less than 600 words long and is written as an extract from a piece of writing within the story. It exists solely to explain something to the reader that is meant to be common knowledge among my characters, the idea being the characters wouldn't talk about this thing, or think about it, because its something that just is. I've tried to write it in (drip feed it I mean), but it needs to be explained early on an all my attempts at this halted any flow I'd managed to achieve.
Rkcapps
Sage
There is definitely a trend against prologues and I can see why, but mostly I've seen them well done i.e. there is a portent, or important part of history that will become relevant in the story, or something about the world is relevant to the story and enriches it. I look for the reveal and connection as to why the prologue is important. I want it and if it's there I enjoy a prologue.
Back in the 1980s, I read David Eddings and recall his prologue worked. I don't recall it to be an info dump but that was 25 years ago. I'm vague. I may not think the same today but I was 20. 20 year old's tolerate more so if that's your target audience too and it works, go for it.
Back in the 1980s, I read David Eddings and recall his prologue worked. I don't recall it to be an info dump but that was 25 years ago. I'm vague. I may not think the same today but I was 20. 20 year old's tolerate more so if that's your target audience too and it works, go for it.
If a prologue is very short and dumping info I may not care too much. It's over and done with quickly. But even for common knowledge in the world I feel there are generally better ways than prologues.
DragonOfTheAerie
Vala
I suppose my meaning is that sometimes infodumps serve the story better than scattering bits of important info like breadcrumbs. Over-reluctance to infodump can sometimes lead to a very long and drawn-out relief to a case of the where-the-heck-are-we's. Sometimes it's better to just get the important stuff out of the way rather than spread it through the narrative. Not always or most of the time, but sometimes.
I wrestled with having a prologue for Goblins at the Gates. It consists of a single scout seeing the goblin horde. The goblins run him down at the end of the chapter, which is only about 3k.
If I make this Chapter One, there's a natural expectation that this scout is the hero of the book, so his death would be disorienting. I need the scene because the goblins do not appear until several chapters into the book. Seeing them at the opening lets the reader know this is fantasy, despite all the Roman legion stuff that follows.
That's why I choose to make it a prologue.
If I make this Chapter One, there's a natural expectation that this scout is the hero of the book, so his death would be disorienting. I need the scene because the goblins do not appear until several chapters into the book. Seeing them at the opening lets the reader know this is fantasy, despite all the Roman legion stuff that follows.
That's why I choose to make it a prologue.
Dude, that's why I said "side musing" and "back to fiction". Obviously movies are different that text.
I was defending Disney, and made it obvious I was a huge Disney fan. Yes they are hugely successful. And they use prologues.
DragonOfTheAerie
Vala
I think the reason I don't use prologues is that my books' lore is often veiled or hidden, and discovered by the protagonist later in the story. It makes sense that i'd want the reader to share in the revealing or discovery.
And I don't often have to show a scene that's necessary to the plot that can't seamlessly be made Chapter One.
And I don't often have to show a scene that's necessary to the plot that can't seamlessly be made Chapter One.
- Thread starter
- #30
Demesnedenoir
Myth Weaver
I think this might be what my editor thought, basically. Although in hindsight, I wasn't dripping fast enough and it left confusion for her reading the book so other readers would've been worse off in many cases, LOL. This probably ties into he way I (and so many writers) don't make things obvious enough because the we know what's going on. The infodump can also serve to set the world and story apart, point out a few things that make the story world different, which might not be obvious otherwise until further into a book.
Malik
Auror
My argument for the prologue is that it's usually misused. Many fantasy authors -- especially new ones -- don't understand the point of the prologue; I think they just see that other books have prologues, so they put one in, figuring that their book needs one, too. This is how we ended up with so many shitty prologues.
In epic fantasy, the world has to be changed by the characters' actions. That's what, by definition, makes it epic. If the characters are just muddling about in a fantasy world and getting in adventures without world-rocking consequences, you're writing high fantasy. Which is also fine.
But the prologue is not backstory. In epic fantasy, the world is a separate character. The prologue is a scene introducing the world as that character, so that we can tell how much it has changed at the end of the book. The world will interact with the other characters, and will go through its own arc through the story.
If you're not writing epic fantasy, don't write a prologue.
More on this here.
In epic fantasy, the world has to be changed by the characters' actions. That's what, by definition, makes it epic. If the characters are just muddling about in a fantasy world and getting in adventures without world-rocking consequences, you're writing high fantasy. Which is also fine.
But the prologue is not backstory. In epic fantasy, the world is a separate character. The prologue is a scene introducing the world as that character, so that we can tell how much it has changed at the end of the book. The world will interact with the other characters, and will go through its own arc through the story.
If you're not writing epic fantasy, don't write a prologue.
Why would the world/setting as a character need a prologue any more than any other character?
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Is it the speed or some other factor? Steven Erikson, for example, actually tells you very little about the world. The reader is tossed into it and left to sink or swim. It's less a drip than a dry faucet you might be able to get the occasional film of moisture out of if you stick your finger far enough in.
Malik
Auror
It doesn't, and that's the problem. Characters don't need extensive, four-page info-dumpy backstories, and neither does the world. The prologue is just the world's introductory scene; it tells us about the world, as a character, at the beginning of the book. Nothing more.
Ah, yes I see. I misread your post. My mistake.
FifthView
Vala
Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;
Whose misadventur'd piteous overthrows
Doth, with their death, bury their parents’ strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,
And the continuance of their parents’ rage,
Which, but their children's end, naught could remove,
Is now the two hours’ traffic of our stage;
The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;
Whose misadventur'd piteous overthrows
Doth, with their death, bury their parents’ strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,
And the continuance of their parents’ rage,
Which, but their children's end, naught could remove,
Is now the two hours’ traffic of our stage;
The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.
So the going advice is to avoid doing something like this as a prologue or intro to the world, characters, and story.
Just dump the characters head-first into the story and let the reader sort it out.
But I'm not at all against this sort of thing if it works for the story. If it's short. To set the stage. Chances are fairly decent that this info is going to be in the blurb anyway. So why use it within the book? For the same reasons, heh.
Maybe the advice not to use a prologue that does these things arises from the desire in readers to "figure it out" and the assumption of advice-givers that all readers like being dumped head-first into the story with the characters. There's a certain omniscience implied in such an intro, insofar as readers are being given info outside the heads of characters; maybe the modern taste for limited POVs leads to a certain habit of appreciation and enjoyment springing from the head-first experience.
The advice might also be given out of a knowledge of how terribly wrong such prologues can go; I mean, the numerous bad examples.
But I think there's merit in setting the stage if the intro is well written. Primarily, this orients a reader, may hook a reader with promises, and this can help if the first two or three chapters don't fast track the plot.
In Romeo and Juliet, Act 1 Scene 1 starts with some random Montagues and Capulets encountering each other on the street, a fight brews, Romeo's and Juliet's parents join the squabble, until the Prince arrives. Then all leave except Romeo's parents and Benvolio, his friend. They ask Benvolio where Romeo is, Benvolio's seen him but as usual lately Romeo's been moping about and not wanting company. But Romeo appears, and Benvolio tells the parents to leave, so he can talk to Romeo friend-to-friend to see what's up. Romeo goes on and on about Rosaline, and love, and his despair. Romeo doesn't meet Juliet until the fifth and final scene in the first act; the second act starts with him outside the wall to the garden, and the two don't have that famous scene in the garden until the second scene of Act 2. So there's a lot of setup as the characters and world are introduced. The prologue gives the viewer context for these by introducing the conflict and the fact that this is a tragic romance that's about to be told.
Imagine without the prologue, walking in to the play with no knowledge of it: The families' brawling, the wondering where Romeo is (not involved in the brawling), his introduction talking about some lost love, i.e. his mind not on the feuding between the families...The viewer might think this is going to be a play about street warfare between these two families and, until Juliet is introduced, wondering how Romeo's going to figure heavily in that battle! With the prologue, the viewer can interpret what's happening until Romeo and Juliet meet at the end of the act (will have the context) and may be waiting a bit on the edge of the seat to see how that romance will start amidst such conflict.
So this for me is just a general example of how such a prologue might be useful. I suspect Demesnedenoir's story might have required that kind of drip-drip of characters, milieu, etc., in the first chapters, and his editor thought an intro to the story was required for this reason.
I'd still say keep such an intro short and sweet. Plus, it doesn't hurt to have some personality behind that intro, someone speaking it, heh. The R&J intro is a chorus intro (outside narrator), and D's has a first person speaker (that may or may not be speaking to the reader...at first!) This gives the feeling of importance; such a speaker must feel the info is important enough to tell. I've been thinking of doing something similar with my WIP, but in the form of an excerpt of a letter written about five years after the events of the book, from and to individuals who didn't actually participate in the events.
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The analogy is stronger the more the two things being compared are similar, at least with respect to the characteristic being analogized. I think they're quite different here. In a play, you lack all of the tools a novel writer has to get this information, effectively, into the story proper. If you don't have the chorus give this background information, then what? You'd be stuck with some lame dialogue between two characters telling each other what they should already know. With a play, which is meant to be seen on stage, you have a more limited tool set to work with. This is, to me, to most effective way to set the stage (so to speak) in a play format, whereas if Romeo and Juliet were being written for the first time as a novel there would be no reason to do this. You could very easily convey this limited amount of background information within the very first scene, where Benvolio, Tybalt, and the random nobodies are fighting.
FifthView
Vala
Well, no, you do have the option to introduce this early in a play. Just have Romeo and Juliet meet in the first scene, have attraction, and, like the scene at the ball, the eventual realization that OMG they're from two warring families. You could maybe even have family members show up, interrupting them, and a brawl breaking out, until the Prince arrives. And the "Wherefore art thou romeo?" spoken at the end as the sides are being split up.
Sure, you could always restructure the play or change your mind about whether the viewer needs the information. But if you want to stick with this opening and want the reader to have information upfront, options are more limited than with a novel. If one were writing this as a novel, there would be no reason for a prologue.
The only good argument for a prologue I've really heard is "I'm the author and this is a stylistic choice I'm making." Ok. Perfectly valid. Follow your vision for the work. Why not acknowledge it as what it is--a choice among stylistic possibilities. Everything beyond that seems to be an attempt to rationalize the choice. I see a lot of "I need a prologue" from new writers. No, you don't. Doesn't mean you can't have one, but if you think it is necessary you* don't understand the other options.
*Generic "you," not any specific person in this thread or elsewhere.
FifthView
Vala
Sure, and you don't need to not have a prologue?
I think that examining why Shakespeare might have made the choice he made might illuminate other factors besides stylistic choices.
I don't know precisely what those factors are at this point, but I think it has something to do with focus. If the play had been written in the alt-style, pushing Juliet's and Romeo's meeting to the first scene, then I think that maybe the whole play would be focused on that relationship. But I think that maybe the milieu, the family strife, social conflict is as much the focus as the romance. To put this another way, if the viewer was introduced to that budding romance in the first scene in the way I described it, then all the conflict would be background information to that romance. Romeo and Juliet would have needed to wade through it, sure, like trying to cross a marshland (i.e., any other environmental factor.) This is also how I've experienced a lot of fantasy: Sure, there's a fantasy world with lots of interesting things in it, even social conflict, but that's background to the character's goals and conflicts. Drip-drip-dripping bits of info about the world kinda shunts that world to the background–or might. The world's only so important as it antagonizes or allies itself to the characters' paths. But I think we can say that R&J is just as much about that world as the romance.
