Epilogues

[allmywires]

I know I started a thread called 'Prologues' a while back...here's it's follow-up.

So, are they even necessary? I wrote one that I was fairly proud of but now am thinking of scrapping it. The end of the story should be the END, right? So are epilogues just when the writer is too lazy to fill in the gaps between that and the end? Surely you should have finished your book to a good enough degree that a prologue is not necessary? In my case, it's a happily-ever-after that I like as the author, but wonder if I should keep the end as it is - where everything is kind of sorted but kind of not, and you can make up your own mind as to whether they 'make' it or not. Is it just, for want of a better word, fan-service to yourself, as the author? Or is it satisfaction for when you've written a less-than-satisfactory ending?

 

[Brian G Turner]

Prologues and Epilogues are devices IMO - not essential, but can be useful for opening/closing a story - especially from alternative POVs, or to deal with a leap in time.

An epilogue doesn't need to close the story any more than the chapter end, I would have thought - I would expect it to provide context, rather than anything else.

 

[HareBrain]

I think they're most useful when they lead in to the next book in a series. I haven't read the Harry Potter example, but from what I heard it felt like a mistake. Just because readers want a tying up of all the loose ends doesn't mean they should be given it. Sometimes it's more satisfying in the long term to be left wanting more.

 

[Montero]

I sometimes like them. I think the ones I like best fill out something that would have slowed down the main ending and maybe hint at things to come, or that could come. (Which may or may not ever be a book - it might be a tiny idea the author likes which is insufficient in itself to be another book.)

 

[Hex]

So, I detest prologues but I really like epilogues...

I liked the Harry Potter one because I loved the characters and I needed to know they'd be all right. Similarly with the one at the end of the Hunger Games trilogy (I can't remember if it was formally an epilogue, but it did all the same epiloguey stuff). But I'm a comfort reader and I like the ends tied up if I can get that (whether it's good for me or not )

I normally have an epilogue(*) because there are things that don't fit in the main part of the story but I want to reader to know, and it's sort of about looking forward to the next bit, whether it's a bit I'm going to write or the next step in the characters' lives.


(*) = both times, I have written an epilogue

 

[allmywires]

Just because readers want a tying up of all the loose ends doesn't mean they should be given it. Sometimes it's more satisfying in the long term to be left wanting more.

I liked the Harry Potter one because I loved the characters and I needed to know they'd be all right. ... But I'm a comfort reader and I like the ends tied up if I can get that (whether it's good for me or not )

I think this is the main conflict I guess - I would assume that in a love story, an epilogue where they're married with 2.5 children is satisfying. But then...it's the balance between whether it's good for the story for you to add that (in a romance I guess it's a given) or whether you think that after the inter-galactic battle for the very fate of the universe, or whatever, it's just that your titular characters deserve a slice of happiness. I guess what I'm trying to say is, is an epilogue there to make sure your character is 'all right' at the end? Do most readers need that? Because how many people read a book and end up thinking about it afterwards, really?

 

[Abernovo]

Epilogues, for me, serve two purposes. The first is to tie up loose ends (there are some people who can tell you that I hate books with too many loose ends ). In this, they can be quite useful to close off, or create, possibilities for further stories in the series. And they can answer that annoying question, but what happened to....

The other is a short chapter at the end to round the story off, in a similar way to the Harry Potter epilogue, as mentioned by Hex. There were no real loose ends to tie off, but I think many of us wanted to know that the characters ended up okay.

 

[prizzley]

Aren't epilogues rarer than hen's teeth? And doesn't that say it all?

 

[alchemist]

Whether you call it a chapter or an epilogue doesn't really matter. But the reader wants some sort of closure. Maybe not all the threads but the main ones, at least.

An ambiguous ending is okay up to a point, but some books I've read, i felt the writer raised all these fantastic questions but didn't know how to answer them.

 

[TheTomG]

Not sure whether I think they are necessary or not. My initial thought is that they can be good to tidy up questions that don't emerge during the "final battle" - usually there is some great conflict resolved at the end of the book, but being a great conflict there may be more trivial things it doesn't answer.

Then I thought of the Harry Potter one, which I disliked a lot. The reason there is something that I often find myself thinking "..and they had this EPIC adventure and it was awesome! And then nothing interesting ever happened to them again."

Kind of a let down. I prefer to be left wondering, did something else crop up, or not? I don't want to be told that nothing else really did happen and it was business as usual for the rest of their lives.

In the case of Harry Potter though, that may have been deliberate, as I think the purpose may have been to eliminate folks looking for further Harry Potter books.

Now I had an epilogue of sorts - it's post great conflict, but there's no lapse in time however; it's just the character walking home and reflecting on the lessons he has taken out of it, so it's definitely after the peak of the story, but it is also important. I don't think I explicitly called it an epilogue though, though I feel that I could have. However, I left it as just another (short) chapter.

So, there are my thoughts on epilogues!

 

[A. S. Behsam]

I have prefaces for each of my stories. But epilogues... in my opinion the story has to specifically require an epilogue to get one; it should never be forced.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I like 'em, especially if they set up the next book. I also think you can finish the actual book on the big action, and then give the happy ever after (or miserable ever after if that's your bag), or the hanging hook in the epilogue. But I like prologues too.

 

[Mouse]

I like an open end. So there.

I don't mind epilogues though. Don't have to read them, do you?

 

[Venusian Broon]

I like a well thought out epilogue, especially if it is ambigious. Always leave 'em wanting more, with a few questions, I say.

What I really don't like at the end of a novel is a huge wad of appendices.

 

[Phyrebrat]

For me it's a non-issue. If someone changed the word Epilogue at the head of the page, to 'Chapter 'x'' I doubt if anyone would say Hold on just a heavens-to-betsy-minute*; that's an epilogue, not a chapter! and despite the official or technical differences, I don't care.

We read time and again of advice that directs you to start the novel at the originating action, so to my mind there's no need for a prologue, but I'll read it quite happily if it's there.

If I'm enjoying the book, I'm delighted to have more - whatever it's called... as long as they don't start including appendices of "deleted scenes" like DVDs/Blue-Rays I don't mind. (ooh, just saw your post, Venusian Bloom; missed the appendix comment on my first read-through - Have you read House of Leaves, by any chance? That book would be a lot easer on an e-reader; more footnotes and appendices that Jonathan Strange!)

pH

*Not least because I doubt many people even use that phrase outside of Garfield

 

[Venusian Broon]

I see what your saying phyrebrat, however although I can't quite put my finger on how I would exactly characterise the prologue/epilogue of a novel*, it has to me to be at least 'one step away' from the main story to qualify.

So in practical terms, if you wanted to, you could exclude both parts and it wouldn't impact the main plot at all. It's not just another chapter. However this definition suggests that they are merely ornate and superfluous and should be got rid of, so I'd have add a proviso that it has to add something significant or extra to the whole body of work.




* I possibly need some form of refreshment that is now being enjoyed by those in the 'crap book' thread.

p.s. yes, I think I probably do need to read House of Leaves, but unfortunately it has been one of those books that I've never got hold of and lies in my 'probably really should read' imaginary pile.

 

[Warren_Paul]

The way I see it, true epilogues typically don't come about until the very end of the series. There are authors who use them as the name for the final chapter, in order to carry over into the next book, but I've always thought they were intended to be the final wrap up of the however many books long story. In the end, if a book is halfway through a series and has an epilogue, it's really just another chapter with a fancy name.

Of course if you're writing a standalone book then it would have an epilogue if you so choose to write one.

 

[allmywires]

The way I see it, true epilogues typically don't come about until the very end of the series. There are authors who use them as the name for the final chapter, in order to carry over into the next book, but I've always thought they were intended to be the final wrap up of the however many books long story. In the end, if a book is halfway through a series and has an epilogue, it's really just another chapter with a fancy name.

That's how I feel about them I think -- otherwise it's just a chapter with a time-skip. It's a wrapping-up thing. I need to decide whether my readers are/will be (wherever these fictitious beings are) greedy or not.

 

[Gumboot]

I have a framing sort of narrative to my series, which act as glimpses into long-past historical events, linking those to the main narrative, revealing information that is outside the close 3rd person perspective of the main narrative. Each of these framing chapters begins in a historic past, with a second half "linking" to the main narrative. I use the prologue and epilogue function to distinguish them from the main narrative. Like so:

Prologue
Volume 1
Entr'acte 1

Entr'acte 1 (repeated)
Volume 2
Entr'acte 2

Entr'acte 2 (repeated)
Volume 3
Entr'acte 3

Entr'acte 3 (repeated)
Volume 4
Epilogue