For those dislike prologues

[Steerpike]

This may or may not hold water, but in fiddling with the first scene of Winter's Queen, I received this response after writing a mock-up prologue to introduce the villain:

I don't think it demonstrates that the prologue was absolutely necessary. What this basically tells me is "Yes, having a prologue works, and here's why." But a prologue is only strictly necessary if there were no other way to write the story than to include it, and I doubt anyone will be able to cite such an instance

 

[glutton]

This may or may not hold water, but in fiddling with the first scene of Winter's Queen, I received this response after writing a mock-up prologue to introduce the villain:

Well, judging from the responses in this thread it would likely be wiser to label the part with the villain 'Chapter 1' if it's intended to be the opening since, you know, some will skip it automatically if it's labeled 'Prologue'.

It feels almost like racism to me, not that it's nearly as bad or serious as real racism of course but it's like a form of literary discrimination or prejudice - ah, there's the word I was looking for - based on a term (prologue) that isn't actually defined by the negative traits that have become so associated with it.

 

[Ireth]

I don't think it demonstrates that the prologue was absolutely necessary. What this basically tells me is "Yes, having a prologue works, and here's why." But a prologue is only strictly necessary if there were no other way to write the story than to include it, and I doubt anyone will be able to cite such an instance

Very good point. I am still attempting to make chapter 1, scene 1 able to hold up the beginning on its own, since as far as I know publishers and the like receiving samples like to start there, not with prologues. It's still proving difficult.

 

[Ireth]

Well, judging from the responses in this thread it would likely be wiser to label the part with the villain 'Chapter 1' if it's intended to be opening since, you know, people will skip it automatically if it's labeled 'Prologue'.

It feels almost like racism to me, not that it's nearly as bad or serious as real racism of course but it's like a form of literary discrimination or prejudice - ah, there's the word I was looking for - based on a term (prologue) that isn't actually defined by the negative traits that have before so bound to it.

Well, the trouble with that is that the "prologue" is a single scene only 1.5-2 pages long, so it's hardly justifiable as a "chapter" compared to the rest, which range from 15-25 pages each. I have seen books with teeny-tiny chapters (one was even a single sentence!), but it doesn't work for me when it comes to my own writing.

 

[tlbodine]

Prologues in books are like nonessential clauses in sentences. You don't *need* them, but good ones will change the meaning.

We can all agree grammatically that "The woman, known among the villagers for her love of eating babies, submitted her nanny application" contains a nonessential clause. You can pluck the center part right out of the sentence and the sentence still makes perfectly good grammatical sense: You've got a subject, a verb and an object. It's a perfectly valid sentence without that clause.

But you can't deny that non-essential bit is pretty darn essential to the meaning, at least for the person receiving that application.

 

[glutton]

Well, the trouble with that is that the "prologue" is a single scene only 1.5-2 pages long, so it's hardly justifiable as a "chapter" compared to the rest, which range from 15-25 pages each. I have seen books with teeny-tiny chapters (one was even a single sentence!), but it doesn't work for me when it comes to my own writing.

I'd personally probably just have it as the first scene in Chapter 1 at this point.

 

[Ireth]

I'd personally probably just have it as the first scene in Chapter 1 at this point.

Which is what I've been considering.

 

[Steerpike]

Prologues in books are like nonessential clauses in sentences. You don't *need* them, but good ones will change the meaning.

We can all agree grammatically that "The woman, known among the villagers for her love of eating babies, submitted her nanny application" contains a nonessential clause. You can pluck the center part right out of the sentence and the sentence still makes perfectly good grammatical sense: You've got a subject, a verb and an object. It's a perfectly valid sentence without that clause.

But you can't deny that non-essential bit is pretty darn essential to the meaning, at least for the person receiving that application.

Yes, but the idea that a prologue is the only way to convey that meaning is not convincing to me.

 

[Devor]

I understand your concerns, but that intense action scene and that beautiful characterization will not mean much to the reader. It's the first chapter; we have no idea who fights, why they fight, who they are. Without knowing what the story is about, I'm afraid I can't enjoy that action scene as well as I should.

I may be wrong though. If your prologue has a good pace, then you may very well demolish the myths concerning them.

This happens, too. It all depends - action doesn't have to mean a sword fight, and some characters will make you care about them quickly. But I understand it's a pet-peeve of many editors and agents (and to me, sometimes, too) to have a big fight in the prologue or the first chapter, when you don't care who the characters are.

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

But is a prologue by definition to you an infodump and necessarily not an active scene? It kind of sounds that way and if so, is that something inherent to the term 'prologue' or just a reputation prologues have picked up due to the commonness of those that are non-active backstory-giving ones?

No. It doesn't have to be an info-dump. Although most wind up rather "info-dumpy" as a standard. Even those laced with action tend to diminish the active role of the reader...their discovery. Other than the potential to info-dump, that lessening of the reader's role is the main reason, in my opinion, why people don't like prologues. I'd guess about 95% of the prologues I've read, in crit groups, are filled with details that could be subtly woven into the story main without the need to shine a spotlight on them & make them stand out right up front.

"The more subtle and elegant you are in hiding your plot points, the better you are as a writer." - Billy Wilder

EDIT: The only reason I can think of where a writer may NEED a prologue would be where they are dealing with a work of monstrous proportions...say 250k words plus. I can understand a decision to write a prologue for something that is occurring behind the scenes of a story in order to avoid adding onto that word count.

 

[Feo Takahari]

Just to discuss my personal experience:

I wrote a story about people whose problems came from being willfully blind and refusing to acknowledge the world around them. This of course meant that I could only show a larger world through subtle hints that they were missing something, and these sailed right over my beta reader's head. (The most spot-on quote in the resulting email: "It's like the only people in the world are these characters, and the only thing they do is fight monsters.") I went back and added more hints, but these still didn't feel like enough. Rather than make one of the characters self-aware (which would have interfered with the plot to some degree), I just added in scenes with another character who did notice a bit of what was going on.

These scenes (a "Prologue", a few "Interlude"s, and an "Epilogue") don't further the plot in any way. The story could proceed from beginning to end without them. But barring rather more skill at dropping hints than I demonstrated, they seemed to be the best way to work around the weaknesses of the main character's POV.

 

[SeverinR]

I usually avoid Prologues, have yet to read one that was interesting. (And thats even in books I loved)

I don't really care. I hate spoilers, and I stopped reading blurbs around ten years ago after I came across one too many that spoiled something that happened 100 pages into the book.
.

I hate that in movie blurbs too. They tell you something that the movie slowly reveals. Hard to not read a movie blurb when renting, or when deciding to go see it in a theater.

With that:
Would the opening rolling words be a Prologue of Star wars? "In a Galaxy far,far away...." Or was that part of chapter 1?

 

[Ophiucha]

I suppose, if I could pinpoint my problem with prologues, it is their very nature. Before the story, literally. (Well, quite literally, 'before words', but let's not bring Greek into this.) It may enhance the story, it may foreshadow the story, it may simply give you a little flavour or context. But if it happens before the story, then it's not part of the story, and I'm the sort of author and reader who prefers people to trim the fat. Which may seem odd given who some of my favourite authors are, but I think excess can be seasoning instead of gristle if you want an extended food metaphor. Prologues, generally, aren't. If a prologue is necessary for the story, then it probably should be brought up during the story - and generally speaking, it is.

Which I guess is my main problem with prologues? Like, the information will be reiterated, sometimes even told again as a little story, despite us having to read it ahead of time. In Lord of the Rings, they have conversations about the rings of power later on and talk about all of the characters who ever touched it and talk about specific instances that were part of the prologue again as we meet the characters who were there/descended from them. It's got some nice flavour text, it sets the tone a little, but it's just making a short story out of the pieced together flashbacks and exposition we get a few chapters later.

Like, prologue: woman running through the rain, struck down by big bad's henchman, baby is abandoned on the doorstep of loving family. Chapter one: "John, your mother and I have been meaning to tell you this. You're adopted, found you crying in the rain on our door one night in summer." Chapter three: some guy comes into town and reveals that he knew John's mother, eventually revealing her reasons for running away. Chapter six: John meets the henchman who killed his mum, who reveals that fact (maybe not right away). By the end of the book, every little fact of the prologue will be repeated at least once, which just sort of makes the whole thing seem... pointless?

 

[Ireth]

On the topic of details being repeated, I think there's something to be said for situational irony -- that is, when the readers know things the characters don't. Your prologue is one such example. The reader might read that and go "ooh, a foundling. I wonder how he'll react when he finds out?" That will add some flavor to the scene in which the adoptive parents mention it, rather than having it come completely out of the blue, as it were.

 

[Addison]

Prologues can double as spoilers, which is a poison to the rest of the story.

 

[tlbodine]

On the topic of details being repeated, I think there's something to be said for situational irony -- that is, when the readers know things the characters don't. Your prologue is one such example. The reader might read that and go "ooh, a foundling. I wonder how he'll react when he finds out?" That will add some flavor to the scene in which the adoptive parents mention it, rather than having it come completely out of the blue, as it were.

Situational irony is *the* purpose of successful prologues, as far as I'm concerned.

The prologue in Game of Thrones: Sure, we could've started right away with Ned beheading that Night's Watch run-away, but would the scene have been the same if we hadn't known that he *really did* see the Others? And doesn't it change the way we read the entire rest of the book, knowing that the Others are alive and well beyond the wall?

 

[skip.knox]

Prologues are a plague peculiar to fantasy fiction (nice alliteration!). I have a theory (don't we all?).

So many fantasy stories start slow. You know, farmboy discovers he's actually a king or a wizard or a wizard king. So we have to start in the damned farm or blacksmith shop. Everything is strictly small potatoes for a while (unless you start with the Conan gambit, of course).

The prologue becomes a way to make the story Epic from page 1. Hey, everybody, this is a tale with dragons and magicians and blood splatter. Stick around! Strange things are afoot at the Circle K.

This isn't to say that a prologue is necessarily bad, only that it seems to be unusually necessary in epic fantasy.

 

[Steerpike]

I think that's probably true as to why people use them, slip.knox, but I think that should also be a warning sign to people. Like I said earlier, if you're looking at your chapter 1 and it looks slow, or uninteresting, or fails to grab the reader's attention, the answer isn't "Hey, I'll add in an attention-grabbing prologue." The answer is to make chapter 1 good.

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

I think that's probably true as to why people use them, slip.knox, but I think that should also be a warning sign to people. Like I said earlier, if you're looking at your chapter 1 and it looks slow, or uninteresting, or fails to grab the reader's attention, the answer isn't "Hey, I'll add in an attention-grabbing prologue." The answer is to make chapter 1 good.

Or...to discover a better starting point for your story.

 

[ThinkerX]

I don't normally go with prologues - mostly because my stories tend to be on the short side anyhow.

Yet, I've been contemplating something for a while.

'Labyrinth' is looking like two separate stories, of long novella to short novel length. The second takes place about 15-20 years after the first.

The first story is told in journal form (somewhat like Glen Cooks 'Black Company' if that helps any).

I am considering a short prologue for the first story where the MC in the second story finds the journal. Hmmm...

Prologue for Book One: MC 2 finds journal

Book One: MC 1's journal

Book Two: MC 2's reaction to journal and subsequent adventures