Prologue or "hook" first?

Discussion in 'Plot Development' started by Flying Geese, Aug 31, 2013.

  1. Burlbird

    Burlbird Contributor Contributor

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    @Flying Geese A propos page turning, yeah, I've noticed it goes pretty much against the global idea that "spoilers are bad", which I noticed some people are more and more turning into a kind of a moral law - if they see you turning the pages randomly or playing a fracture of a scene from the mid of a movie, they make a sour face and say "How can you do that?!" ...and Ganesh help you if you start talking about a book they haven't read or a movie they didn't see: they go all berserk, pluging their ears and singing "La-la-la" :)

    A nice article on this: badassdigest.com/2013/06/05/film-crit-hulk-smash-hulk-vs.-spoilers-and-the-4-levels-of-how-we-consume-a/
    Hulk is a great guy, btw, with some great (and I think relevant) articles, and he deliberately writes with all caps, uses bad grammar and refers to himself in third person...

    @jannert ...yeah, no title... Maybe it's the very word, "Prologue" that puts down so many readers? Like kids that hate broccoli and hate you if you buy them a picture-book about healthy food :D
     
    Last edited: Oct 4, 2013
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  2. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    Yes, but you'd (sometimes) be wrong! :)

    Interestingly, my Prologue was the LAST chapter I wrote. Why? Because several of my beta readers asked for it, after reading my first draft. They said the information (presented as a scene with plenty of dialogue, suspense, etc) was something they would have wanted to know at the start of the story, because it had such influence on the story. My revealing the event in 'bits' throughout the story didn't work, because it created a mystery about the situation. What I wanted was for the reader to see how my protagonist was coping with a past secret, not having readers wondering what it was.

    My beta readers ALL loved the solution. And the beta readers I've had since have all been very happy to read on, after reading the Prologue. In fact, I usually send them the Prologue on its own, and ask them if they want to read on afterwards. They all do.
     
    Last edited: Oct 4, 2013
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  3. Flying Geese

    Flying Geese Senior Member

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    Well said Jannert. This is what I have thought the entire time. I understand the whole "Spread the backstory out in sprinkles" idea. Really I do. But my prologue has such influence on the story - it literally explains the how the war actually began, and who the good guys will be fighting. Perhaps it is taboo for me to write a prologue making no mention of the MC, but it's just right for this book. The prologue (which I changed from an infodump to an actual scene) may be boring to people, but it is what it is. It is my personal belief that not every story can have a blatant hook at the beginning. Not if you want to tell it right, anyway.

    If someone decided that in my 3/4 page long prologue that my book is boring then it will be their loss.
     
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  4. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    You stick to your guns and do what feels right to you. If you do it well, it will feel right to your readers too, if they can get over being initially prejudiced at the idea of a prologue.

    Don't make your prologue boring, though, make it really interesting. See what you can do with point of view here. If you can filter your information about the war's beginning through the eyes of a character, that might be the best route. Then it's not an infodump, because the character can react to it, give his/her opinion of the events, etc. It becomes a story in itself.

    Incidentally, one of my beta readers who read after my initial draft, and before this 'final one' I'm editing now, said: "oh, I never read prologues." I said, fine, just skip it then. She read it. The whole book, straight through. She even read the epilogue. Funny how people never skip epilogues.
     
  5. Burlbird

    Burlbird Contributor Contributor

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    @jannert
    so true...
     
  6. Steerpike

    Steerpike Felis amatus Contributor

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    I think people should always follow their vision for a story. I'm just stating my own preferences. The problem with putting essential information in a story is that a number of people do skip them, so if that's the only place the information is to be found, the story will 'appear' to suffer. Ultimately, that's the reader's fault as well as (in my view) the author's, but someone reading the novel and posting a review or telling friends about it is only going to have their own perspective to go on.

    I read some advice from an editor saying never to put information essential to story into the prologue precisely because a lot of readers skip them, but I guess the reasonable question to ask at that point is whether the prologue is needed at all if there is nothing essential in it.

    At any rate, all i can speak of is my own personal preference. I'm must more likely to put a book with a prologue back on the shelf and buy something else, and if the prologue doesn't grab my attention pretty quickly and engage me as a reader, I'm very likely to skip it and see if the author does a better job with chapter one. I've read a few books where the prologue was really poorly done (you could tell it was there just to provide backstory and information), but chapter one was well done. I suspect the author of those books lost readers who picked up the book in the store, opened to the prologue, saw how dull it was, and simply put the book back on the shelf.

    Ultimately, however, you have to follow your vision. If you feel strongly about the prologue, then include it.
     
  7. Steerpike

    Steerpike Felis amatus Contributor

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    If I've made it to the epilogue, then I like the book and I'm invested in the story and characters. When I pick up your book in the store and haven't read a single word, and come across the prologue, it is much easier to just put the book back or skip the prologue. I haven't invested anything in the book yet.
     
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  8. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    Fair enough. But I'm not calling my Prologue "Chapter One", just to fool you into buying my book either! I do think you're missing out on lots of good stuff by refusing to ever read a prologue because you think you know what it'll be like. Some are excellent starts to a story. But we've all got our own way of walking! :)
     
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  9. Steerpike

    Steerpike Felis amatus Contributor

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    Oh, I read them. I read a lot of science fiction and fantasy, and in the latter in particular prologues are quite common. I'm just saying that a prologue makes me less likely to buy a book, all other things being equal, and that if it seems poorly done I have no problems skipping it. But it's not like I never read them at all, or that I haven't come across good ones. I remember years ago reading Guy Gavriel Kay's book Tigana and thinking the prologue was very nicely done.
     
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  10. PaleWriter

    PaleWriter Member

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    I'm of a somewhat different opinion about prologues... and epilogues. Oft times descriptions of books on the back cover or inside fly are insufficient to pique my interest sufficiently. A short read of the prologue may hook me. Epilogues, on the other hand, I seldom read. For me, the story is finished (or not) in the last chapter.
    I could care less about happily ever after. When conflict ends, so does the story. My opinion.
     
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  11. Steerpike

    Steerpike Felis amatus Contributor

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    I don't read the inside jackets or back covers of books before buying them, so I can only go by what the first few pages of the book do for me. I like epilogues well enough if they tie up some loose ends about characters I care about, even if the main conflict of the story has been resolved.
     
  12. JayG

    JayG Banned Contributor

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    • I read something the other day that said a bestselling book had been rejected well over 100 times

    Very true, but it's a serious mistake to use the logic that says, "I was rejected 100 times so I'm just like her." ;) The vast majority of bestselling books weren't.

    • yet the communities rate the stories with words like: "unforgettable" "riveting" "Masterpiece"

    But the communities are reading it free. I've had 385 people download Water Dance since it's release a month ago. And on Smashwords and the Barnes and Nobel Site there are some really nice reviews from people who know nothing about me other then what the prose for Water Dance was like. That's warming. But Jennie's Song has been out a week and sales are less than wonderful. So...

    When people pay for your work and then recommend that others do the same, then it counts.
     
  13. Flying Geese

    Flying Geese Senior Member

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    No, no, you misunderstand. The story i was talking about was bashed by multiple big name critics and it was praised by almost 100% of the community. It wasn't a free work either. Everyone paid for it.
     
  14. Renee J

    Renee J Senior Member

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    I have a prologue in my book. The prologue shows a man at a hospital, upset that his daughter was almost killed by a car. She was saved by a man who dies in the accident. The rest of the book is about the main character's grief for her husband - the man who saved the girl's life.

    I wanted to show the father at the hospital, because he becomes my other main character. Also, this scene drives his actions for the next half of the book. This just felt more like a prologue.
     
  15. Tesoro

    Tesoro Contributor Contributor

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    I think if you can put the hook in the prologue, then do. Otherwise skip the prologue. The story wll probably better without it. you can often give the same info a little at a time, throughout the story.
     

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