This is my second WIP with a prologue, so obviously I like them. I know some people and agents dont like prologues at all, too..... I dont use them as info dumps, but rather to set the mood/tone of the book. with that said, this particular prologue, I'm wondering if I should cut it. But if I cut it, how would I incorporate the information into the rest of the novel (ETA: without being bogged down by flashbacks)? Spoiler: Prologue summary: the soldier, Elias, hides away in a dark alley with the girl he saved from being hanged earlier that day. she is badly beaten and bloodied and he contemplates how to get them both out of the city. He became a traitor by saving her and killing two of his fellow soldiers who guarded her, so the city is teeming with soldiers and holy men and "good Samaritans" who are stoning people in the street suspected of harboring them, burning and looting business with ties to the girl. There is a commotion outside of the alley he is hiding in and he leaves the girl to take a look. he witnesses holy men beating a man while the soldiers search and destroy his home. his wife sobs on her knees and she pleads for mercy. the holy men accuse them of being bewitched by the girl Elias is hiding. They say that people have seen this couple on numerous occasions talking to the girl and expressed interest in taking her into their homes. The woman pleads she didnt know the girl was bewitched. she says the reason why they talked to the girl was because she was an orphan from the convent and that they love the Holy Man and give back to the convent in whatever way they can. The are accused of lying and are hauled off. When Elias returns to the girl, she asks him why he's risking his life for her, and he tells her that he's stood by long enough while the Holy Man hurt the people he was supposed to serve. He said it was his fault that she was beaten because it was him that took her to the Holy Man's room (her injuries and this admission implies that she had been brutally assaulted by the Holy Man). He vows to atone for what he's done by getting her out of the city and to safety. And she says "you'll be saving a murderer" implying that she killed the Holy Man The first chapter begins 18 years later in a completely different location miles and miles away, and with different people (my MC whos a young woman wanting to leave her cushy island paradise life, her over protective father who is a pirate, his crew, a rival/love interest, etc.). To give a bit more information, my MC has an "imaginary friend" that she's been speaking to since she was a child who is the lost soul of the girl in the prologue (she find this out as well as the identity of the girl much, much later). The soul/spirt of the girl is gradually growing more and more hostile the closer my MC gets to the mainland and certain things, for example, my MC sees one of the holy men for the first time, and wigs out, but doesnt know why. She sees a soldier for the first time and gets scared, and doesnt know why. She sees a statue of the Holy Man and falls unconscious and has this nightmare of his beating her and assaulting her. she doesnt realize that all of this is coming from the spirit that attached itself to her. Through flashbacks and incidents like the ones above, my MC starts to figure out whats going on and what happened to the girl before and after she left the city and the realization that the Holy Man that the girl supposedly killed that day is still alive. My MC also finds out that the soldier, Elias, who saved the girl in the prologue is her father (the pirate guy) who had taken on a new identity after escaping the city with the girl. I've cut down the prologue IMMENSLY! it was super long before (it is 2 full pages now), with an infodump about the Holy Man and why he was in the city and the girl (*she's 16-17 at the time) wanting to pledge herself to the convent as a nun. I even went into how exactly she ended up in the Holy Man's room, and how the soldier rescues her, even introducing another character that would come up in my MC's life later on. I cut all of that and kind of incorporated it into the rest of the chapters in the form of flashback and feelings (my MC gets a bad feeling looking at this one guy and feels like she knows him from somewhere and the spirit freaks out when he touches her, kind of thing). Do I leave the prologue how it is NOW or would I be losing nothing if I cut it and made this scene a flashback later on?
3rd person. Elias is still in the story. He's my MC's father and is now a pirate. He's a very active part of my MC's life and though it isnt revealed exactly who he is until a few chapters later, my MC finds out he's hiding something from her and that he may not be who he says he is (i.e. not a pirate, not "Flynn Allen" and not her real father)
It's hard to say, revealing it as a recurring dream later sounds too cliche but that's often how films do it. A true flashback might work but I'm not a fan of very brief flashbacks. You could have her inspect a wound she still has from the beating and use that to discuss the traumatic past but I don't know if that would allow a full enough account of the events you want to cover (near execution, rescue, etc.). But it might be enough to raise the question "so what happened to that soldier?" but that may give it away too easily. Sorry, I know none of this helps. I guess it depends on whether you want a full account of the rescue or just hint at it. You could do the latter and then at the full reveal that the 'father' is the soldier, the father confesses and explains everything to the daughter "I couldn't let them hang an innocent girl but I knew my life was over if I disobeyed..."
