For those dislike prologues

[Jess A]

...However in my case the 'prologue' in my second book is a scene with action featuring the MC, which I originally labeled as Chapter 1 but renamed to 'Prologue' because there's a 4 year timeskip between it and the start of the main story and a beta reader commented it should thus be called 'Prologue' instead of 'Chapter 1'. If it's skipped, the reader misses out on some setup for stuff that happens later, and characterization of the heroine.

Questions - would you skip this simply because it's labeled as 'Prologue' and if so, do you think I should change it back to being called 'Chapter 1' in spite of the timeskip?

BTW, the 'Prologue' along with some of the next part can read here with the 'Look Inside' feature here - Iron Flower (Legend of the Iron Flower): Billy Wong: Amazon.com: Kindle Store

Hmm...

Our books have that in common:

Chapter 1 in my book introduces my character and an action scene (etc) plus two other major characters. Chapter 2 is set three years later. I still went with calling them chapter 1 and 2. I had some help from people on this site recently, actually, which was fantastic. I don't think it matters that chapter 1 is set 3 years before chapter 2, depending on how you write it.

Since your chapter 1 seems to be Rose's story and chapter 2 reveals it to be a story (told 4 years later), I think stick with chapter 1 and 2.

On prologues:

Seeing prologues in books does not turn me off the story, usually. Not generally in fantasy novels. Sometimes I don't even read what it says at the top - prologue, or chapter 1.

What I hate about some prologues is when they just dump endless information about the character's back story and the world when I can learn this through the novel in a more tactful way. I picked up a book that someone recommended me some time ago, a fantasy book. And the prologue was not only long, it was an absolutely boring and over-dramatised account of some powerful faerie king's tragic sob-story past. Strangely, for all the info dump, I still didn't know what the setting was supposed to be. And since the faerie king had no personality during the book, I didn't feel sorry for him. I didn't care about him despite the prologue's attempt at context.

Boring.

Generally prologues don't bother me - I liked the way Feist did his prologue in...Silverthorn? ... I forget. Somewhere across the world, the villain was doing something evil. Only problem was I then proceeded to forget about the villain completely as the story proceeded, because he didn't return for ages. On saying that I suppose the entire prologue could have been cut off and it wouldn't have ruined my experience.