The Word Cloud

Pesky Prologues

Gosh, ain’t it fashionable to have a prologue these days. I did it with two of my novels – once via a flashback, the other a flashforward.

Mostly, I think these things are horribly overused. I wish I could take the flashforward out of The Sons of Adam, I never liked it at the time & I don’t like it now. People put them in because they’re worried that their opening isn’t strong enough without it. And my answer to that: Make the opening strong enough and get rid of the prologue!

Each time you switch time periods or viewpoints at the start of a book, it’s a log lying across the track of the reader’s engagement with story.

But then again, everyone seems to use prologues, so my personal aversion can’t be the last word in things. But still – please – just for me – make any prologue short & sharp.

Or am I totally wrong? Do you like prologues? Like the Heated Debate begin.

I don't like or dislike - it depends what it's doing.

I do think it can be a lazy way of coping with backstory, or creating suspense, or sorting out a piece of plot, or making up for a dull opening chapter. So I think the first impulse to have a prologue always needs to be fiercely interrogated. I've also sometimes suggested to editorial report-ees that, if the function of the prologue only becomes clear well after the sample chapters, then it might be worth leaving it out of a speculative submission, since quite a few agents and editors share your view of them - no doubt for all the reasons I've suggested. (I suggest reinstating it if they're asked for the full MS - do tell me if you think that's a bad idea!)

On the other hand, it can work. A Secret Alchemy has one, as a very late addition, suggested by my editor. I'd re-ordered the rest of the book, and the result was that it opened with a scene which was right for the structure, but probably the most conventional narrative in the book. She suggested that we needed something to tune the reader into the fact that it wasn't conventional historical storytelling at all: in narratological terms, if you want to be pompous, I needed to create the reader the book needed to work best.

And I found that it had all sorts of other uses too in establishing genuine suspense, themes and ideas, characters, voice -  and despite the fact that it was in the voice of an otherwise minor character, it wrote itself very fast, which is always a sign that it's the right thing. And it's turned out to be some reader's favourite part of the book. I often begin readings with it.

I rather like them - I think one of the times that they work best when they're a sort of teaser, providing a question that the rest of the book then has to answer.

Many prologues (and epilogues) strike me as being like packing tape. It's as if the novel won't hold together on its own, so you stick something round the ends in the hope that it all won't fall apart when you pick it up (as that simile just did).

Prologue and epilogues are subtle things. Budding writers seem to incorporate them instinctively, which could be nurture or it could be nature. If the latter, it suggests that these devices have a role to play. I agree that they should not be used for back - or forward - story in a lazy way; I also agree that they should not take the place of a lively first page. I've always used them, especially prologues, in quite an elaborate form, 'nesting' the story of one period in another. In a desire to be simple, modern, accessible, I haven't used a prologue in the book I'm working on, although there is an epilogue. But now, having read this discussion, I'm thinking about it a bit more consciously and I believe that this morning's session is going to be the writing of a prologue. So very many thanks to WordCloud for inspiring that!

Rules for prologues, if ever there should be rules, might include: keep it short; don't include characters that will never feature again; don't use it as a device for including backstory which, properly, should be in the narrative; question whether you need a prologue at all, i.e. don't have one just for the sake of it.

I've never used one, but I don't have a problem reading them if the purpose is right - and that purpose is usually that the story Should Start At The Beginning.
No, they're no substitute for properly incorporated backstory, but what if your story started with a single incident 20 years in the past? Unless you're doing a whole retrospective job (eg a detective story) you want the reader to know what you know. A time jump of 20 years in your main narrative is a lot uglier than a prologue at the start - so what exactly is wrong with having one?

These days I think a Prologue can have an additional function similar to the 'pre-title sequence' of a film. Yes, sometimes that's just a way of saying 'look, there's lots of action coming up stay tuned throug the dull bit and it gets better', but sometimes it can state a theme in a way you couldn't in the narrative without having your editor blue-pencil it. My favourite pre-title is Goldman's 'Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid' - the bank, bolts, shutters, safes with huge combinations. Butch asks 'What happened to the old bank? It was beautiful!' to which the clerk replies 'People kept robbing it'. Butch says something like 'Small price to pay for beauty'  and that's it, you're in, you have the whole theme right there. A well-written prologue can surely do this too?

One day I'll even think of an example...

I generally avoid prologues when writing, but for the saga I've got going I wrote one unconsciously; there're a number of people and places that the main characters already know, and trying to introduce them to the reader without introducing them to a character is difficult. Difficult to do well, at least.
It's simple to introduce the reader to a world and its people when one of your main characters is clueless. The character can be the reader's buoy. Without a buoy, I think that the reader needs an oxygen tank - maybe a prologue - 'cause without one they'll nearly drown, they'll fight to get out and then they'll flee. Giving them a scuba suit, flippers, goggles and speargun is always going to be overkill. If you think all those things are required then the water you're exploring is too deep. And while your reader isn't going to drown, they're probably going to get the bends. Or get torn limb from limb by a giant squid.

I've added a prologue to my already sharp, action-packed (I believe!) first chapter simply because my main characters wouldn't otherwise appear until about page 5 or 6. It's fairly brief and succinct. What do you think?

Prologue

Without the “masterstroke” Nick and Colin might never have become embroiled in the worst rioting the Ulster capital had seen for decades. There may well not have been any. And the two lads would certainly never have come to influence one of the city’s most notorious figures in the path he chose to follow. A path that would brook no return.

What started out as an eighteenth birthday celebration might have ended as just that. But it didn’t.

Chapter 1 then starts with:

It was a masterstroke!
To continue as the were was not an option... etc. etc. (don't know why the font keeps changing.)

whilst I cant comment on the rules and suitability of using prologues, because im still hiding myself behind my big 'im new to this' sign, I do think that prologues have a use. For me, reading is simply escapism, and if a good story is a jet plane away frm my daily worries, then a good prologue is the airport. It is the book equivalent of somebody saying 'Now let me tell you a story... far far away...'

For me, I feel that sometimes it's required to have a prologue. I have in my first book - it's set in the past and is a bit of history to the story that the readers need to know about and perhaps a good introduction to the story. I have also considered an epilogue as my story does not end in the first book, it continues on into another book.

I love prologues! They are like the teaser trailer to a film. Would you go to see a movie if you had no idea what it was about? That is what a prologue does for me, it gives the reader a taste of your style, a feel for your work and lets them know whether there's any point in them reading further. It presents the author with the chance to deliver mystery/excitement/tantalisation and then be able to get on with telling the story from the beginning. It's all very well to say 'make your opening stronger', but then you'd just have to explain it all anyway, leaving your first chapter a jumping, dithering mess. That last point rather depends on the genre you're writing in though. Prologues - awesome!

I can see where you're coming from issur, but I would have thought a lot of what you're describing would be covered by the blurb. To me a prologue feels like I have to get into the story twice.

I understand that, but the blurb gives only the gist of the story, whereas a prologue showcases the author's style. I've lost count of how many times I've purchased a novel based on it's rear cover, only to realise that it was one of the most abysmal attempts at scribbling that I'd ever had the misfortune to lose money over. Prologue every time. Just keep it nice and short, so I can read it in the shop! Haha!

Yeah, I agree with both Issur and Barb: blurb and prologue, two quite different species. The blurb may well not even be written by the author and is purely a hook to get the reader to buy. But the prologue, if there needs to be one, is something else altogether. It's not meant to give a sneak preview of what the book's about, but it will certainly be written by the author and so give an indication of the writer's style. It might be setting the scene, or may be describing some earlier event that the reader needs to know about to make sense of the rest of the story. Either way it needs to as gripping, or intriguing, as the opening paras of the first chapter, or the reader/agent/publisher will cast it aside.

Editorial Anonymous puts it beautifully: 'The place for backstory is not at the front of your story'. Also, if the reason for the prologue isn't beautifully clear in the chapters you're submitting to the agent, then leave it out of the submission:

http://editorialanonymous.blogspot.com/2009/07/back-to-front.html

Emna

my knowledge is only tiny compared to your great minds yet i find prologues intreging, if it adds something to the book, the twilightseries (meyers) prologues i found very disapionting, they were just snipets of sections she wrote later in the book, not actually adding to the book at all.
i like the old style mystery to the prologue, something happening that doesnt nessacery effect the chacters just the story, like Dan Browns books, they all start with a murder. something which then takes the book to find out why he was killed.
or in the good old teenage fiction i read ten years back, teh proogues would be shady and share very littel until you read the book and realised what had happened

I'd never, ever use a prolugue to describe backstory. If i use one, it's generally to set a mood or an idea, but mostly to hook a reader. Almost all of my prologues feature some kind of action, and generally introduce a central character in some form.

Prologues, in my mind, need to be quite short and very relevant. You need to connect back to it somewhere, even if that happens much later in the novel.

I cannot stand prologues that are pages upon pages long, and filled to the brim with 'aren't i so clever?' waffle and needless exposition. Don't bore your reader before they've even got to chapter one!

I'm inclined to agree with Valkia. My prologue is very short. It introduces the main characters, who wouldn't otherwise appear for four or five pages:

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Had it not been for a clandestine gathering of certain individuals above a fairly ordinary-looking public house south of the border, Nick and Colin might never have become embroiled in the worst rioting the Ulster capital had seen for decades. There may well not have been any riots. And the two lads would never have come to influence one of the city’s most notorious figures in the path he chose to follow. A path that would brook no return.

What started out as an eighteenth birthday celebration might have ended as just that. But it didn’t.

I think this kind of a prolepsis is a bit of a double-edged sword. On the one hand, you're teasing us with hints of what happened next, (what meeting? what riot?) and hopefully we'll read on to find out more. On the other hand you've told us what happened next: the only questions left are How? and perhaps Why? It's a good bit harder to keep the tension going if you've actually told us the outcome. Fundamentally, you're telling us something twice, which is almost always a bad idea, whether at the sentence level, or in the book as a whole.

If the sole purpose of it is to introduce some main characters, that purpose might be better served by rejigging chapter one to introduce one a bit earlier.

PS, Tony, if we know that they were involved in the riots, that 'may' should be 'might'.

Thanks, Emma. I'll think hard about that. As you say, what meeting? how did it bring about a riot? how did Nick and Colin become involved? to what extent? who was the notorious figure? what path did he choose? and how did the boys influence his choice? Lots of questions and really only one 'tell' - that there were riots, which just about evrybody associates with Ireland anyway. But, as i say, i'll think more about it.
And thanks for spotting may/might. I'd used 'may' the second time to avoid repeating 'might' without thinking that, strictly, it was a different part of speech.

My prologue dealt with a specific incident from the past of what would become a central character. It's a bit violent, but i chose it for a few reasons

1) it sets one of the initial themes for the story, as well as one of the primary hero/villain relationships from the outset.

2) it introduces two main characters, who wouldn't otherwise appear for a few chapters, and allows me to introduce them without having to include as massive amount of backstory gumpth to explain why they're significant people

3) it's bloody and vengeful and angry, which is basically my way of saying 'this is how the story is going to be. If you like it, stick around'.


I may post it sometime, find out if it has the effect i intended it to have

Valkia, I'm just playing Devil's Advocate here as with Tony, but most of what your prologue is doing sounds as if it could be done in Chapter One. Only this:

"it introduces two main characters, who wouldn't otherwise appear for a few chapters, "

is something that might work well in a prologue, if the novel as a whole starts somewhere completely different. But there's no law that says all the main characters have to be introduced on Page One, in any case. If you think of MCs as the reader's representatives in the story, then you really only need one, and no more, to come in fairly soon after Page One.

Emma

It's a good point well made, but introducing the characters isn't my sole intention. It also provides a bit of flavour for a character, who is quite deeply affected by the events in said prologue. I felt that, as it happens a few years previous to the main story, it would feel disjointed to have it as a first chapter, then wander off with a new character several years later in the second chapter.

Similarly, because it's an important event, i wanted to hand it to the reader in such a way that they could see it for themselves, rather than have to artificially hint and it and explain it during the rest of the story.


Oooon the flip side, i'm also aware the story could live without it. I'm really just using it as a hook, and if a reader were to skip it, it wouldnt harm the story too much.

It's worth mentioning that it's only about a page or two in length.




To sidetrack slightly, the idea of main characters for me is always difficult. I do have what i'd consider to be a 'main' character in this book, but i've also got two, maybe three other characters who could so easily fit into the role. I'm a character-based writer, and i love nothing more than to write something, then see three different people pick three different favourite characters. It pleases my poor undernourished ego no end.

I think most prologues (not all) sometimes just take away some of the sense of discovery that we as readers enjoy. I'd rather find out things by reading the story than to be told some crucial bit of information at the start. So, my own personal take on it is to weave such things into the story and let the reader discover them.

Hmm, i have become very tempted to post mine in the critiques section, just to see if it is indeed a superfluous prologue...