Prologue or Chapter 1?

[crayfish]

This was touched on in another thread, but in a different context. The structure of my story starts out by introducing the main character as an 11 year old girl, the short series of events that takes place is relevant to the rest of the story - then I wish to jump ahead 20 years for the remainder of the story, bringing in my character as a 31 year old.

My question is, is it suitable to write the first portion as a prologue and then start the next time period at chapter 1? I've seen this done with a few other science fiction novels (PF Hamilton Pandoras Star for example).

Cheers for any advice.

 

[Jake Reynolds]

Hey Cray, this was touched on in another thread, but I think its worth having a thread focus on it.

I myself started both my trilogies with prologues featuring the main charaters as children, covering significant events that had an effect on their later years, when chapter 1 joined them. I thought it was a great way to introduce them, to explain why they are the way they are, and what they fight for.

Since then I have deleted them. I think it is a superfluous vanity that comes from loving your characters, and one that is very hard to hit the delete button on. However, my way of looking at was that there simply wasn't any real reason to have it in there, other than that I wanted to have a prologue like so many other fantasy authors.

In the case of main-characters-as-children at least, it isn't necessary, because if I'm doing my job properly, the reader will come to know who the main characters are, what they're fighting for and why they're doing it. To be so heavy handed in directing the reader as to who they should be paying attention to is a little condescending, in my opinion.

An alternative, however, is to change it slightly. For example, one of my prologues was about a girl (let's say mage, for the sake of this example), who destroys her village as a child, when anti-magic inquisition types turn up looking for her. Because a) I wasn't really happy with it as introduction to my magic system (I was throwing too much at the reader too early) and b) because one of the inquisitor types comes in later, I rewrote the entire prologue from the inquisitor's perspective, leaving the reader to make their own (very simple, granted) consclusion that the young woman they were dealing with at chapter 1 was the girl from the start.

I still deleted it though, because even after all that it still wasn't necessary. That isn't to say such an intro won't be necessary for you, I'd just advise being objective about it, no matter how much you like the scene (and I really liked that scene).

Remember to do what is best for the book!

Now, a brief note on epilogues. I love them, and will always use them. They're a great way to both 'finish' the story, but also allude to the next one. If you think of all the great movie trilogies that do it (Back to the Future, Fellowship of the Ring [though granted, the 'hunt some orc' scene was in the novel Two Towers, but meh], even Magneto's little shiver of the chess piece in X-Men Last Stand), they can lead to exciting cliffhangers-that-aren't-cliffhangers, because they're hinting at more to come even though your main story is effectively 'finished'.

In short, I think prologues can be excessive and go wrong easily (remember, the reader doesn't even know your world yet), but epilogues are brilliant, because the reader is at the end of their journey.

That isn't to say prologues in books 2 and 3 can't be effective though!

Wow, what a load of drivel. Hope it helps.

 

[crayfish]

Thanks for the input, not drivel by any means!

I should probably give a little more background as to why I wanted to write a prologue. One of the key themes to the main character is loss. She loses her father at age 11 and then suffers another loss later in life, I wanted the reader to "live through" that experience rather than being told about it in a historical sense. Plus, the nature and circumstances of her fathers death are very relevant to the latter story.

I'll give it some more thought though, thanks!

 

[RoninJedi84]

This is actually something I'm struggling with myself at the moment, the in my story, the prologue performs the task of introducing the antagonist, his powers, and the unearthly threat he represents. I haven't made up my mind if I'll keep it in or not, as I'm not much of a fan of prologues personally. The question I keep asking myself is, does it make sense? Does it add anything to the story?

For me, the problem is doing the prologue gives the reader some information the protagonist isn't privy to yet, but is that more effective than giving the same details later through dialogue? Frankly, I don't know yet.

After reading the summary of the childhood events, though, I agree with wanting the reader to live through them rather than just telling them later. To me, something happening here and now matters more than something from 20 years ago.

 

[alchemist]

In mine, the main events occur in about three weeks. the prologue happens four years before that, and the epilogue will probably be four months after the main events. I think I had to have a prologue. It emphasises the change in timeframe.
I think calling yours a prologue is very appropriate.

 

[ML Hamilton]

Crayfish,

I'm new to this site, but I saw your thread and found it interesting. When I was writing my novel, I had a prologue. Many of my author friends who edited for me told me that a publisher would never read my novel if it had a prologue, so I debated taking it out. My prologue does exactly what yours does and separates a large time gap. It truly is a prologue and not a chapter one.

Everyone told me to change the prologue to chapter one, but I just couldn't do it. I stuck with my feelings about it and I did find a publisher, who had absolutely no problem with there being a prologue. I say, stand by it.

 

[chrispenycate]

But make sure that, if you call it a prologue, the story will stand without it. There is a small but not ignorable minority of readers who will automatically skip a prologue, as if it were the author's acknowledgements or something, and then get upset when they don't understand what's going on. Your fault, obviously.

 

[J Riff]

Those silly prologue-skippers, when will they learn?
Certainly people will skip an introduction- which may be written by someone else besides the author- but if the actual text starts with the word Prologue:- then anyone who skips it is to blame. If they get confused they can go back and read it later.
Can't imagine a publisher having issues w/ a prologue if it is necessary to the story.

Howdy and welcome ML. Wander into the introductions thread if you find time, and say hello all official-like.

 

[R M Tobias]

My two cents.

Start with chapter 1 and then later add in the 'prologue'

You can break it up and filter it in over the chapters or have it as a dream sequence, memory recollection, conversation. something like that.

I like prologues and generally read them but I think they work better when they do not involve the main character, if you know what I mean.

 

[AngryReader]

...the actual text starts with the word Prologue...

I doubt that is a universally held definition even in the humanities, and even if it were, outside the humanities almost no one would know that. You're saying, among other people, that if people skip the prologue it's their own fault if they don't understand something later in the story, presumably something critical to the story. You know that some people will skip the prologue, and you are the one writing the story. I would argue if someone does not follow something in your story because you put critical detail in the prologue you shoulder the most 'blame'. You had the knowledge that the confusion may occur, and the power to do something about it.

Whatever you write crayfish, I think the most effective strategy to communicate your story would be ensure that all the of the critical elements of your story are under chapter headings. You should assume your prologue will be skipped. They may be "wrong" for skipping it, but their wrongness doesn't increase your sales.

 

[HareBrain]

You know that some people will skip the prologue, and you are the one writing the story. I would argue if someone does not follow something in your story because you put critical detail in the prologue you shoulder the most 'blame'. You had the knowledge that the confusion may occur, and the power to do something about it.

Makers of TV programmes know that some viewers will watch the programme whilst also surfing the internet, texting, whatever. Is it therefore incumbent on them to make their shows as easy-to-follow as possible to accommodate the reduced attention of these people?

Anyway, I hope to get round the problem in mine by not calling it a prologue.

 

[AngryReader]

Is it therefore incumbent on them to make their shows as easy-to-follow as possible to accommodate the reduced attention of these people?

The application of responsibility in this case is a little silly I think. But if they want to be as commercially successful as possible they will mitigate manageable problem. Most importantly, they will create a product that is saleable to as large as audience as is feasible. To do that requires some 'tending to the mean', work towards telling the story to the middle ground of a potential audience(the largest). It would allow a storyteller to get their story across to the largest audience most of the time if they wrote with the assumption people skipped the prologue.

This is not a question of right, wrong, should or should not. It is a question of what gets you the most of what you want, in this case circulation.

 

[Ursa major]

Whatever the first significant block of text is called - "Prologue", "Chapter One",nothing at all**, etc. - it's purpose ought to be to draw the reader in. And if one wants to draw in those who skip anything entitled "Prologue", one had better make sure Chapter One also draws the reader in.

And yes, I know: all the chapters ought to be written so as to draw the reader in.

The issue ought really to be about the content, not what heading one gives it. So if the purpose of a proposed prologue is to give the readers an infodump about one's principal character, one might want to consider R M Tobias's suggestion of placing the various parts of the prologue text in relevant place through the main body of the novel.

In the specific case of crayfish's prologue, the subjects could provide just the sort of intro the book needs, particularly if their focus is the drama (which can also be used to inform the reader) rather than an info dump, which is unlikely to be dramatic.


(Oh and my WiPs have prologues, though they aren't called this: they're merely the first of a series of named collection of chapters; it so happens that these first section only contain the one chapter. By the way, all my chapters have titles, none of which contain the word, Chapter.)



** - For those books where there are no chapters as such.

 

[Boneman]

The book that I work on (when I have writer's block with my major opus) has a heroine aged 6 in chapter one and then she's 21 in chapter 2. I did try it as a prologue, but it was a straight continuation of the story, with relevant things in chapter 1 being highlighted in chapter 2, so it seemed unnecessary.

I will admit I'm not a fan of prologues that tell us something that won't be relevant until a third of the way through the book... mainly because I've either forgotten or didn't engage with the characters enough in a short prologue. So if it's a direct continuation of a character, and especially a pov, then it would work as either. I'm convinced your agent/editor/publisher will guide you...

Good luck with it.

 

[J Riff]

I was agitating about this, only because I just picked up The Woman in White, by Wilkie Collins, one of the great mystery thrillers in the language.
There is no prologue.
There is however, a ten-page introduction by the editor.
Then, 2 pages of suggested reading. Title page. Dedication page.
2-page Preface to the Second Edition.
One page Preamble!
Then finally,- The story begun by (a character)
Six asides before the story really starts on page 34.

P R E A M B L E ! aye, that's for me. None of yer fancy prologues 'ere!

 

[ctg]

I write a prologue to tie in the readers mind to the main character(s), but I could be calling it as well the first chapter. However, if I write it to be a prologue I try to make it sound like a set up for the backstory rather than just another chapter in the long string of chapters.

In style wise you could be writing it from the pure narrator POV or from the 1st person if rest of the book is written in 3rd. So, if you are writing in a prologue, make sure that it stands out from the others and that it has a reason to be there.

 

[Jake Reynolds]

It all comes down to what suits the story. After much thought, I decided they didn't fit in, because the finale of my book centres on one of the main characters remembering something from her childhood. Since I had already shown this scene to the reader, the ending would have had far less impact.

Another example, in my wip I have a childhood friend of one of the main characters. Now, in the prologue (when they were children) you didn't really know him from a bar of soap. The camp they were in as boys was attacked, and he was the only child that actually killed one of their attackers, standing over his mother's body. However, in a prologue he is nothing more than a name and another example of the chaotic violence of the attack.

Now, with the prologue removed, we meet him as an adult. We learn that he is quite violently enthusiastic about hunting down their enemies. He is also mentioned as the novel progresses, and the main character learns more about his friend's dealings and the sort of folk he does business with (not very nice people, for the most part), all to advance their cause.

In doing the prologue scene as a trimmed down memory sequence though, the fact that he was the only child who killed a full grown man in the attack has far more impact now that the reader knows who he is, in that it explains why he does what he does. In short, the information once the reader knows him is more meaningful than when he was just another name on a page.

Ultimately it comes down to what you feel is right. As with everything there is no right way or wrong way. We must all aim to write the best books we can, and if we win the lottery and get published then that's a bonus.

 

[Boneman]

Ultimately it comes down to what you feel is right. As with everything there is no right way or wrong way. We must all aim to write the best books we can, and if we win the lottery and get published then that's a bonus.

I think it's easier to win the lottery...