Prologues

I'm conflicted about prologues, always have been. In principle, they work very well in that they set up a conflict or background that becomes necessary to the plot later, or function as an attention-grabber.

However, there have been cases where I've poked around in a book, got five sentences into the thing and put it down to never look at it again. Sometimes they just don't work.

So I ask you: Do prologues grab your attention? What elements work best in them? What would turn you off while reading one?

I don't care much for prolouges - I prefer to discover the basis of the world myself. Sometimes they work, but when they're written as some sort of dramatic mythos or story from religion or ancient history, I have to resist the urge to groan out loud. If one is going to write a prolouge, it shouldn't be radically different from the rest of the story. A snippet from an important event that predates the story itself is okay, but only if it's told from a character's POV (assuming the rest of the story is written the same way).

Here's my situation. The prologue is a myth that is crucial to the main story, but it would be awkward to present that information as part of the narrative. As a prologue, it appears in context and gives the reader a taste of the world that s/he otherwise wouldn't get. What other options do I have?

You could always make the prologue in Anachronic Order compared to the rest of the story. Have a scene from later be the opening and actually "catch up" to it at some later point.

I'm doing that for at least two of the books in my trilogy. (I'm thinking the prologue and the first three chapters of the second should throw a Decoy Protagonist. I wonder if I can do it clever enough.)

The problem with myth prolouges is that, at the point it is presented, the reader really doesn't care yet. The reader can't relate or find the myth exciting when s/he doesn't know the world and history to which it belongs, the characters it will affect and the event it will trigger.

A better way, I think, would be to start of with the main story, have the characters act like they normally would, and then reveal the myth to the reader later. Then the reader will be engaged in the story and think 'ooooh, so THAT's why they had to find the diamond/follow those rules/write down those things/fight that group/whatever'.

I included a prologue in what I'm working on at the moment, but I'm not sure if it works; could anyone advise me?

I have the main story told in first-person present tense, set in 1896. The prologue is told in third-person past tense, and takes place thirty years after the rest of the story: it's basically the protagonist (Caroline), though you wouldn't really know it at that point, now in her fifties, watching one of the other main characters (Kestrel), who hasn't aged at all since they last saw each other, visit someone's grave. They both know that the other one is there, but don't acknowledge each other.

In the last chapter, which I haven't actually written yet, Kestrel leaves a note, supposedly from a mutual acquaintance, lying on a table before leaving (she doesn't see Caroline again after that point), which gives the address of the cemetery and a date and time thirty years in the future, so implicitly Caroline goes there thirty years later to see what it was about.

Then I also wrote an alternative version of the prologue, first-person from Kestrel's point of view, which answers a lot more questions, mostly as a character development exercise for myself. The note she dropped, not by accident, wasn't actually one the mutual acquaintance gave her but another one which she left deliberately to get Caroline there. She's visiting the grave of her husband/partner, who was killed a decade or two before she meets Caroline in the first place. And she wrote the note to Caroline because in the entire time they knew each other, she always stopped (think, messing with her thoughts) Caroline from asking whether Kestrel is immortal. So when she sees her thirty years later looking exactly the same as she did before, she's getting some answers.

Only now I don't know a) whether I should use/work in the alternative version, or b) whether to use either of them, because it's kind of cliched. People on here tend to be good with constructive criticism, so yeah...if anyone could give me any advice on that, it would be great. Thanks.

edited 14th Jan '11 10:37:16 AM by cityofmist

Actually I think that would be a good use for a prolouge. You should use the first prolouge you wrote - The other might answer more questions, but it isn't too hard to figure that out even with only the first prolouge and there's no need to make it easy for the readers, anyway (;

Personally, I'd write the prolouge in third-person like the rest of the story. But that does reveal that it's Caroline we're hearing about, so ... Up to you.

Thanks for that. Actually the third-person one only refers to Kestrel by name; it's not quite from her POV but it does get inside her head a bit. I always find it difficult, when I'm writing something and I know exactly what's going on, to keep in mind the amount you'd know just from reading it.

I'm glad I could help.

Yes, the amount of information the writer should give is problematic. I often end up revealing either too much or too little, before editing my way to the right amount. It's something you have to put a lot of thought into.

I run into the same problem a lot with information too. Managing to keep everything straight is what trips me up the most while writing; I always want the readers to know as much as I do about the characters and the world, and sometimes it's just not necessary.

I like the first prologue idea myself, (and lets hope I've understood it here, haha) because the tense is different it will be enough to distinguish itself from the rest of the work but since it's still very much about the characters, it won't pull attention away from them.

That right there is one of my big things about prologues: I tend to enjoy them much more if they're focused on characters than if it's mostly about mythos. Too much information dumped on me in the prologue tends to intimidate me, silly as that might sound. The more chances I have to connect with the characters, the more interested I tend to be in the novel/comic/etc itself. I think it also helps the flow of the story better if the world/mythos is introduced naturally through the narration and dialogue.

Oh, I know - the type of prologue that I really hate is when it's set in some kind of fantasy universe and they have a prologue about the Rise of the Evil Empire, or something similarly context-y, and then the main story starts with something like 'Two Hundred Years Later...'

That's one of the reasons I wrote a prologue set a while after the story finishes, so that the reader (if I ever let anyone read it) can contextualise it themself as they go along.

edited 15th Jan '11 7:20:33 AM by cityofmist

P Frost - Your last paragraph is exactly what I mean. You just worded it better than I could xD

cityofmist - The prologue suddenly making sense at the end of the story makes the reading experience that much better.

Huzzah! Rare eloquence shines through! Those English classes are good for something after all! (Thanks!)

Definitely exactly the kind of thing that gets me. I read primarily Sci Fi, and usually that's the quickest way to make my eyes cross.

Mmm yes. Out of three complete books I have squirrelled away on my hard drive, two have 'prologues': One is a very brief look into how the absence of the main character affects his little brother, the other shows the first interaction between two characters who, in the main storyline, are very close. Both pieces focus entirely on a defining event that influences who the characters become in the main body. (Or at least that's what I'd like to have accomplished, heh!) 'Write what you'd like to read' and all that.

Three complete books? That is impressive. I've got hopelessly stuck about four-fifths of the way through mine. I've rewritten the most recent scene three times, in completely different ways, and I can't get it to work. I dream of having three complete books.

Whining aside, your prologues sound cool. I like the character-focused ones much better, as well.

edited 15th Jan '11 9:15:43 AM by cityofmist

On a similar note, is "Three years later..." too much of a time lapse between a prologue and its main story?

Oh, this prologue of mine introduces four significant protagonists and the lead antagonist.

edited 15th Jan '11 7:16:23 PM by colbertimposter

I can say that there are a lot of people out there who will outright skip any prologue that looks like a myth, prophecy or setting summary. Myself, admittedly, included. I can see a few reasons for this:

- it delays the story and meeting and becoming invested in the main characters.

- it's often not relevant for a long, long time, if ever. Please please please at least make sure it's relevant to the story.

- it can spoil the story (especially true in the case of prophecies).

- fantasy writers are known for their major problem with info-dumping, and prologues are especially susceptible to this.

just a warning before you invest too much time and energy into writing one. A lot of people are going to think this way.

edited 15th Jan '11 11:27:27 PM by Bask

As far as the three 'complete' books go, two got done by absolutely forcing myself to finish them and worry entirely about editing later (you can guess where this leaves me now), and the third was my Na No entry for this year (also a mess edit-wise). So I guess I used 'complete' in a general sense, haha!

[[colbertimposter]], I shouldn't think so. Three years is acceptable in my eyes, especially if it introduces characters you're going to be using later. Maybe someone else have an opinion on this? One of my prologues does this too, with a gap of two/three years. I might be biased.

I agree with pretty much everything you stated there. Those points illustrate problems I see with prologues all over.

Prologues are strange. It's like you have to begin your story twice! It's hard enough to begin it once and hook readers.

I've heard most editors don't like them, except for epic fantasy publishers. The best prologues I've read (and I haven't seen many) weren't used to info dump, but to give readers an advanced taste of a plotline/element used much later on in the book, or share a viewpoint that's only used once and then never again: kinda like the beginning of A Song of Fire and Ice.

One of the better prologues I've read recently was for The Name Of the Wind. I don't want to spoil anything, but without the portrayal of the main character that the prologue provides I would not have gotten so involved in him. He would've seemed like a Mary Sue to me. But since we see him in the present as a defeated loser it cast a shadow over the rest of the story. Really clever.

I try to avoid prologues in my own writing. Most of the time I don't see a use for them.

...too many arrows...oh well. No, I think three years would work fine, probably, because it would be using the same characters and settings (I assume). It's only when it's a historical event or something similar, really far back from the main story, that I tend to not like it, because it's just not that interesting.

@Bask: That's more or less the correct thinking when it comes to prologues. I knew better than to make mine an Info Dump that has no real relation to the story or characters and is never really brought up again.

The way I've seen good prologues written (and did so myself) was actually set it during the main story with consequential events. Whether you set it In Medias Res, in Anachronic Order (or both), or focused on something your main character(s) is/are doing (or hell even all three) to give them some kind of barest idea of who they are and what's going on. The prologue is after all a "hook" so to speak. Better yet, with these kinds of prologues, you can actually write the story so that it "catches up" in the main continuity even so much as blatant copying of the events written in the prologue when it does. (and not in my opinion suffer quality issues)

A good example of this is the prologue to The Fall Of Reach. It's set long after the introductory chapters and events, it focuses on characters giving a basic sense of who each is, is set up in the middle of action, and by the end establishes a basic sense of what's going on and what to expect for later. True the prologue in TFOR is never mentioned again directly, but it does the job.

Thank you, P Frost and Cityof Mist. That's good to know.

I like prologues if they're done well. Which is not very often.

I myself have deleted the prologue from the novel I'm working on in favor of more story. In it's place is a simple and shot in-universe quote.