How long before I need to introduce the fantasy?

[AnyaKimlin]

I know I've asked this before but it was about a different story. The other one I solved by putting in a prologue. I suspect it might be my only solution here.

This one is I'm not sure what kind of fantasy - possibly urban/contemporary. My big issue is my main character is not my magic character and the magic only comes in once he starts to investigate his brother's disappearance and the death of a little girl that happened forty years ago.

I've got two families - the Creams and the Blacks. In about 1690 someone stole nine of fairy kings diamonds (I figured there were enough legends about why the Nine of Diamonds became the Curse of Scotland that one more wouldn't hurt) and he demanded certain conditions from the Cream family (landed gentry) who he believed stole them, including the sacrifice of their youngest child every fourth generation. I've managed to tie it into the Tay Bridge Disaster, Glasgow Banking Collapse and the Highland Famine. There are things involving demon possession & Witchcraft with the family.

The Blacks are baliffs, sherriffs, police officers etc that originally worked for a rival landed family and it was their job to "rescue" the child in danger so the Cream family will remain cursed.

Flash forward to 2013 and Ian Black is a retired police officer who knows nothing about this, initially. His ex wife slept around a bit and he knows two of his children are really his brothers. What he doesn't know is the head of the Cream family fathered another of his sons. His son is the youngest and the one supposed to be sacrificed.

The only "magiclike" characters on Ian's side of the battle are his missing brother the Roman Catholic Priest and the son who is a hippy type & artist.

I can't seem to make it seem like more than a mystery before chapter seven when he finds his father's diary with the family legends in it. There is plenty going on in the previous chapters which all at present appear to have a rational explanation.

Would you as a fantasy reader be satisfied if I just included a prologue based on the original events ? I'm just hoping posting it might shake some ideas loose.

 

[Mouse]

Two of his children are really his brothers?! I can't work that one out.

I wouldn't bother with a prologue. Chapter seven seems fine to me, if that's when the 'fantasy' stuff starts to come in. But then, I'm quite fantasy-lite anyway and wouldn't bother me if it didn't come in until even further down the line. Can you not put in strange happenings before then? Little hints of odd occurrences?

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I'd probably want a few hints. They wouldn't need to be huge, but enough to make me feel it's a fantasy book.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

Springs, would it be easier to take if you had the prologue with the beginning of events and you understood he just didn't know about it yet?

The only things I've managed to squeeze in are a sense of unease/fear that he feels he is being followed by doesn't know why and a joke about the great-grandson being a demon child. I'm not sure it is enough. The big problem is that there actually isn't any fantasy in the first few chapters - fantastical beings are responsible for the happenings but he doesn't know that yet. I'm reluctant to add the head of the Cream family as another POV character but it would bring in the fantasy quicker.

I love writing complicated families. Basically his brother (identical twin) got the girl next door pregnant then ran off to the seminary. My MC then married her as it was 1964 and she was terrified. Years later the brother has a one night stand with my MCs then wife and conceived another child.

MC knew the child wasn't his because he was away when the child was conceived. Years later he got a DNA test done and it came back that there was a 99% probability that he was the father. Which meant the most likely candidate for father was his brother.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Um, maybe. But prologues aren't especially popular so I'm sort of loathe to say yes, do that.

 

[Gordian Knot]

From the OP: There is plenty going on in the previous chapters which all at present appear to have a rational explanation.

Seems to me this sentence is your solution. With the emphasis on appear to have rational explanations. And by that I mean it all depends on how you write these chapters. If, instead of appear, you word it such that "it appears this way, BUT". Putting in a wee bit of language so that the reader can imagine other interpretations on their own that not everything is as straight forward as it seems.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

The trouble I'm having is it is limited. I'm not sure how to make it "appear" different to the reader because it is how it "appears" to the character - does that make sense. You're right though I am probably missing something stupidly simple.

I guess if someone knows they've bought a fantasy book then the fact he is being followed, his grandaughter-in-law is going nuts and his brother is a priest might be enough to hint at paranormal at least? Maybe I'm worrying about something that is already present. If I buy a murder-mystery I would make different assumptions to if I'd picked a fantasy book.

 

[Montero]

There is also ye olde cryptic rhyme/manuscript to refer to just before Chapter 1. Not a prologue but a hint. If you like that sort of thing.

You could give savvy readers a hint by Black having a bit of a scoff about faeries and things that go bump in the night - 'cos everyone knows saying that is just asking for it.

BTW - Black is OK as a name to me, but not "Cream".

I like your tie in to historical events.

In answer to your original question I'd say I'd be OK with it providing the back cover made it really clear there was some fantasy turning up pretty soon.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

I do mention the Gruffalo twice lol

I might change names but I might keep them - the two original characters were named after serial killers because that is what I thought they were going to be.

 

[Ursa major]

Not all of us are against prologues, so you shouldn't entirely rule out letting the reader know that there's magic in your story in a prologue.


But if you're worried about readers thinking that what looks like a non-SFF book actually contains magic, consider that most readers would first encounter the novel in the SFF section of a bookshop, a book-selling website, or a library. In those circumstances, they'd probably be wondering more about why the magic hadn't yet appeared than its appearance later on in the story. They might even have read the blurb on the cover. (And a potential agent or editor would have seen the genre on the title page of your manuscript.)

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Two of his children are really his brothers?! I can't work that one out.

Basically his brother (identical twin) got the girl next door pregnant then ran off to the seminary. My MC then married her as it was 1964 and she was terrified. Years later the brother has a one night stand with my MCs then wife and conceived another child.

MC knew the child wasn't his because he was away when the child was conceived. Years later he got a DNA test done and it came back that there was a 99% probability that he was the father. Which meant the most likely candidate for father was his brother.

Ahh, the importance of apostrophes.

I was assuming if two of his children were really his brothers, his wife must have slept with his father a couple of times. But if two of his children are really his brother's, then his wife slept with his brother. As you say.

I think I would go with the prologue to explain something of the backstory, and then when you show the things that are happening to him, like being followed, and the jokes, even though he doesn't know why, the reader does. It makes us part of the "in" crowd, waiting for him to figure it out. I don't object to prologues -- I figure if that's where the book starts, that's where you start reading. Unless it turns out to be more of a foreword, where the author rambles about his inspirations and thanks everyone in the known universe -- I skip those. If it looks like part of the book, I read it. That's what it's there for. My problem with one WIP is that I have about five prologues so far, and no clear idea which one is actually a prologue and which are going to go somewhere else.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

Yes I realised the apostrophe issue when I was cooking dinner -- sorry.

I think maybe I'm worrying about nothing but when I put up the first chapter of another book the lack of fantasy was commented on and the fantasy in that book was much more strongly hinted at and introduced much quicker.

I'll write the book then decide but I think the prologue would give me more freedom to write the rest of the book the way it wants to be written.

 

[Glitch]

I'm not against the prologue idea. As others have said, the reader will probably know it's a fantasy story before they start.

 

[Mouse]

I did think, after I'd logged out and pondered it, that maybe the wife had been sleeping with his dad. Brother's kids makes more sense though! I get it now.

 

[Broamalia]

I fall mostly into the 'no prologue' camp. It so often gives me a sort of flippant feeling, as if the narrative doesn't take itself seriously. Or worse, when it seems to take itself too seriously... the tone is important, and the pacing seems easy to miss-manage.

I most often prefer stories that open up gradually, dropping subtle touches here and there--hints that may not directly pertain to the main plot, but that create a magical/foreboding/mystical/non-literal atmosphere. The magic can wait till the 7th chapter, i think, but as long as you give the reader something, some... thing, on the wing. Some clue to whet their appetite, some carrot to lure them forward.

Also, make the payoff good. If you leave the reader waiting for a while before you scratch their ssf itch, they will need an extra good scratching and they wont be happy if the scratch isn't long enough, or if your fingernails are too short.

All that being said, if the prologue must be, then so be it. Sometimes its just the only thing that works.