I'm in the middle of my first short story. It's science fiction and takes place in the future. I would like to explain to the reader how the circumstances in the story came to be. I wanted to be clever about it by weaving the explanation into the story itself, however the main character, who is also the narrator, is somewhat inarticulate and wouldn't have any understanding of the complexities which led to the current state of the world. As far as I can tell a prologue, such as something you would read at the beginning of an H.G. Wells novel, would be the only way to go about this, but this is a short story, and I have yet to read a prologue in any of the ones I've read. What do you think?
Noooo! OK, OK, I'm not saying that it would always fail, but I think it's not a good idea. One thing to keep in mind is that your character often won't have to explain. For example, he doesn't have to explain that food was cheap and plentiful in his childhood and rare and expensive now; we can just see his hunger for something that he ate often in childhood and hasn't been able to afford for years. We don't need him to explain that he's part of a powerless class of people; we can see his nervousness and extreme politeness to people who are of a more powerful class. And so on.
Yeah I think you are right. There were parts of the story that I felt the reader would need some context for, but maybe not. It's hard to know for sure, but the more I think about it, the more anti-prologue I'm becoming. It sullies the structure of the story too, since it's the narrator telling it. Just who is this second omnipresent voice anyway and why doesn't it just tell the whole damn story? I guess it feels somewhat lazy to me to just explain things like some kind of a textbook. I made up my mind--no prologue. Thanks ChickenFreak.
I agree with CF. Short stories are different animals from novels, so a prologue shouldn't be used. There are exceptions, of course, but I would think they would be extremely rare.
I would think you could have a brief background description to set the stage without it being considered a prologue. However both ChickenFreak and shadowwalker have far more knowledge and experience with writing, so I maybe missing something about your OP.
To begin with, short stories don't have chapters, so a prologue is absurd. More important, never explain. Ever. Introduce what the reader MUST know within the framework of the story. It's good advice for a novel, but it is essential in a short story. Nothing goes into a short story except what is directly relevant and necessary to the story.
Yeah I know what you're saying and I agree with it. But it's hard to know what a reader might consider relevant, and even necessary, to understanding the story. The unique dilemma here is that the lead character (also the narrator) is not someone who would have a very good understanding of the various socioeconomic and political circumstances which have led to the future scenario I'm depicting. If they suddenly expressed a very learned and articulate understanding of these things, it just wouldn't make any sense. But I think I've figured a more clever way of doing it. I'll have the narrator occasionally make certain indirect implications and then let the reader make certain inferences, and if they're wrong, that may be ok.
