Prologue(s) - A great place for an argument.

Discussion in 'Plot Development' started by doggiedude, Apr 23, 2016.

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  1. GingerCoffee

    GingerCoffee Web Surfer Girl Contributor

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    Because it changes the connotation. For whatever reason 'prologue' has different connotations to different people. As a writer, I want the reader to read the connotation I intend them to read and if titling a chapter a prologue results in the reader immediately hearing a different connotation than I intended, then I failed.
     
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  2. LostThePlot

    LostThePlot Naysmith Contributor

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    If you don't want books of any specific type why not tell the submitter that you won't look at them?

    That's the problem here. Not that they set arbitrary criteria (that's up to them) it's that they are utterly opaque about it. They say 'we'll only look at things formatted like this' so why not say 'we don't want to look at anything with a prologue?' Because then people wouldn't send them to you! And you wouldn't have to waste any time at all!
     
  3. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    That's fine, as I said. You can do whatever you like. You're the writer.

    However, if I were to read your story without a prologue, I will probably expect that Chapter One will lead directly to Chapter Two. If it doesn't, and there is a huge time gap I didn't forsee, then I'm going to be yanked out of the story. I will probably climb back on board, but I'll be wary.

    We can't always guarantee how a reader will read our stories, or what they will take from them. Feedback helps, of course, but even that is finite.
     
    Last edited: Apr 24, 2016
  4. Steerpike

    Steerpike Felis amatus Contributor

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    @jannert does it not have the same effect if it's a prologue then chapter one? You still have the same interruption in the story.
     
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  5. GingerCoffee

    GingerCoffee Web Surfer Girl Contributor

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    My story jumps between two timelines anyway, parallel stories that catch up to each other midway through the book.

    But I don't have this dilemma. My prologue functions more like a quote you might start a story with – it's not part of the story, rather it serves the purpose of introducing the story conflict. Since it's only two paragraphs, it doesn't need a title.
     
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  6. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    It's not the interruption, it's the expectation. If it's a Prologue, a reader will expect an interruption.

    In any case, it's up to the writer to choose how they want to tell the tale. It's up to the reader how they want to take it.

    I think I'm done here. It's 10pm and I'm away to my bed. :sleepy:
     
  7. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    Yes, I've seen that done very effectively.
     
  8. NigeTheHat

    NigeTheHat Contributor Contributor

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    There's an entire thread of people here discussing how to get past this particular filter. Call it Chapter 1. Put the time above it. But still use the exact same text you were going to use when you were calling it a prologue.

    Agents, I'd guess, don't care whether you've called that first bit of info-dumping a prologue or not. They care that you're the kind of writer who thought it was a good idea to begin with.

    As soon as you start advertising that kind of thing in your submission guidelines, everyone who submits to you is going to be thinking about how to get around it with a loophole, rather than thinking maybe they should rework their MS into something more like what the agent wants. The filter's there to save time. Some - like 'submit in this specific format' - are a good way of telling if the person submitting to you is capable of understanding basic instructions. Some work better when they're opaque.
     
  9. Tenderiser

    Tenderiser Not a man or BayView

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    I don't follow this argument for several reasons:

    1. You're going to be jolted by a time leap no matter how it's labelled: whether it's by date, by a change of chapter, or by prologue to chapter 1. You HAVE to be jolted because you'll need to make a mental readjustment to age the characters X number of years. It's not a bad thing--it's necessary.

    2. Plenty of books have more than one leap of time especially in historical fiction, family sagas, or books like Pillars of the Earth which span 50 years. Are you saying they should have Prologue 1, Prologue 2, Prologue 3, then Chapter 1, or else you'll be "wary" of them?

    3. Do all the books you read follow one day after another? I'm going to take a leap and suggest not. In which case, the first thing you do in EVERY chapter is process how much time has passed and where the characters are now. If you're yanked each time that's a shame, but it's nothing to do with how chapters are named or numbered.

    4. If we've done our jobs right, readers will be so immersed in each chapter that they'll forget what the hell it was labelled in the first place (unless they're prologue haters and haven't even started reading...) so, again, a yank is going to happen whatever you've called the prologue. If readers really do see it and ready themselves for a leap, what they're going to be doing is thinking "don't get attached, this character will disappear when the real story starts." I don't want anyone thinking that when they read the opening of my books!

    The fact is, there are solid reasons NOT to include a prologue--most notably, that many readers skip them. So far in this thread I haven't seen any good reasons to include a prologue. For practical reasons, I don't understand why anyone would want one?
     
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  10. Steerpike

    Steerpike Felis amatus Contributor

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    I will skip prologues, or more likely just not buy the book. That's just me, though. I tend not the like them. If there's something I really want to read I may go for it, but I buy most books through browsing, by authors I've never heard of before, and for those purchases a prologue is quite likely to make me move onto the next book.
     
  11. LostThePlot

    LostThePlot Naysmith Contributor

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    So instead of advertising themselves that they won't look at anything with a prologue, they decide unilaterally that as a writer they can't make money off anyone who would even think of that, who hasn't spent time on forums and reading lots of articles written by agents to find out this bizarre and arbitrary decision?

    You can't have it both ways. Either they need their rules to be obfuscated to ensure that people don't game the system but you can't argue for that a few posts after you literally told me I needed to game the system. And that's why this is absurd. We know about this apparent problem. I mean, I didn't know about it until I saw this thread but apparently this is a well known thing right? So if it's well known then clearly this doesn't work as a filter anymore because anyone can just google this thread and change their manuscript in just a few seconds.

    My whole point is not that I think the world doesn't work this way; it's that this is fucking ludicrous. This is supposed to be a business, not joining the Freemasons. Playing a game of hidden information on top of actually creating a good book serves no purpose whatsoever; it's directly counter to the objective of finding books that will make you money. It does nothing to separate dedicated writers with good books from dedicated writers with bad books at all; we both have access to the same information, we can both game the system equally. You still have to sit and read a huge amount of crap.

    Basing on anything other than 'Do I think this will make money?' is counter to the objective of making money. Surely that's what agents want, right? To make money? This ensures that you will miss opportunities to make money while doing nothing to remove the problem of wading through crap. If they just want to reduce the slush pile then why have a rule at all? Why not just scan titles until something stands out? Why not flip a coin to see if you read it or not? Why not do anything except use a semi-opaque system that allows for people to game it but kinda not quite as much as we'd like. This serves neither agents nor writers. Agents miss the chance to make money. Writers have to waste their time adhering to special hidden rules that serve no purpose but to prove they believe in their work enough to waste their time.

    In any other industry if I come to you and say 'Hey I think this will make money!' then your answer is going to be 'I don't believe this will make me money, sorry' not 'We only listen to business propositions on a Thursday in moths with an R in them.' And when I come back on a Thursday in a month with an R you don't then say 'Oh I'm sorry you called the first section of your business proposal an 'introduction', we're only interested in business propositions that start with an 'Abstract''. You certainly wouldn't just sit silently in your office for months and eventually randomly shout 'No!' with no explanation of which rules I violated, or if you have any opinion at all on if I can make money with my idea.

    You wouldn't do that because that is FUCKING INSANE.
     
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  12. Steerpike

    Steerpike Felis amatus Contributor

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    I think it's more just a byproduct of the volume of submissions and efficiency than anything intended to be harmful. They get a lot of submissions. More they could make money on than they can take. They need to weed some out.

    As for writers being informed, I suppose there is something to the idea that you should know the process and your target market extremely well before going into it. That's how other businesses work. The idea that you can write somethign and just submit without knowing this stuff seems odd to me. If you're trying to make a business of writing, do your due diligence.
     
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  13. NigeTheHat

    NigeTheHat Contributor Contributor

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    Oh, honey. I work in advertising, I can argue anything I like :D

    When it becomes so widely known that everyone's trying to get round it, then yes, it won't be much use any more as a filter. But it's not that widely known yet - as you said, you didn't know about it.

    They don't care if they miss opportunities to make money. There's more opportunities to make money on books than they will ever be able to take. They can afford to lose some, because they don't need all of them - they just need enough. The best business model for them is one that lets them catch enough of the good ones in a reasonable amount of time.

    They have rules rather than flipping a coin because flipping a coin is random. Rules aren't. I'd assume the agents that have a 'no prologues' rule have found that books with a prologue, on average, aren't worth their time. Agents are playing odds. They've learnt that certain things are correlated more with books they can't sell than books they can. That's all it is. And it's sensible. It makes sense for agents to be able to filter manuscripts, and it makes sense for them not to broadcast the ways they do it. Makes our lives harder, for sure. But I'd do exactly the same in their position.
     
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  14. Steerpike

    Steerpike Felis amatus Contributor

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    @NigeTheHat yep. They're willing to take the risk of missing a good book for the sake of having a way to get through their stack of submissions. Editors who take that view have probably found most prologues to be poorly done.
     
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  15. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    And yet ...books with prologues still get published AND read ...ach well, I give up. I've more or less said my piece.
     
  16. LostThePlot

    LostThePlot Naysmith Contributor

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    But again; any book of any form in the slush pile will on average be a bad book. Books with number chapters, books with that use the word 'just' too much, books set in the distant past and the far future.

    What makes prologues special here?

    It turns out, honey, I work in marketing too.
     
  17. Tenderiser

    Tenderiser Not a man or BayView

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    I don't understand how this can be so hard to grasp. Eliminating books with chapters or any other feature that pretty much all books have is ridiculous for such obvious reasons that I don't believe you really need it pointed out.

    But prologues aren't ubiquitous and they're an instant red flag that this book is going to be Not Good.

    It's really, really simple.
     
  18. LostThePlot

    LostThePlot Naysmith Contributor

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    No it's not at all. A prologue is no more an indication of quality than numbered chapters. Numbered chapters certainly aren't universal, numbered chapters certainly aren't required to be successful (Terry Pratchett says hi) and they certainly don't give you any indication as to the quality of the writing involved. They make no difference to the actual content of the book. And so, logically, we don't see agents saying 'Well I just won't read anything that doesn't have numbered chapters'. Because there's no reason to do so.

    So why are you and Nigel so set on arguing that this pogrom against prologues is something grounded in logic rather than in arbitrary bullshit. It is clearly not based in logic. It's clearly something that people have picked up without thinking too hard about it.

    It's hurts my brain somewhat to see people agreeing that a system is ludicrous but arguing that it's logical too.
     
  19. Tenderiser

    Tenderiser Not a man or BayView

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    But they are, because the people reading the slush pile are telling us that they are. Do you not understand that we only read the published prologues that have made it through several rounds of editing--the prologues that have earned their place in the book? Do you not see that the people reading the slush pile have noticed such a strong correlation between prologues and terrible MSs that they're confident enough tossing out a book as soon as they see it has a prologue?

    They are very obviously an indication of quality, or you wouldn't get so many industry professionals advising us not to use them.
     
  20. Feo Takahari

    Feo Takahari Senior Member

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    I'm coming at this from a different perspective, so I'll need to give a bit of context.

    My stories are often complicated relative to their word count, so I often have a character who stands outside the main plot and acts as a Greek chorus. They evaluate what's happened, create theories (not always accurate), and let the reader know where the plot currently stands. I've used this technique enough times that I'm fairly confident it works and I know how to do it well.

    I typically call these scenes things like "Sunday night" or "5:22 P.M.", but if I were to put an actual label on them, they're prologues, interlogues, and epilogues. They're structurally and stylistically different from the rest of the story, and even though I mark them the same way as regular chapters, I'm confident that my readers can tell they're something different.

    I guess my question is, why should I try to convince my readers what they're reading isn't a prologue? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but if they think prologues stink, my "Sunday night" or "5:22 P.M." probably isn't going to smell particularly rosy. Is it really necessary to pull an elaborate dance and pretend I'm writing an "opening" or an "introductory chapter" when it's obviously a prologue?
     
  21. Tenderiser

    Tenderiser Not a man or BayView

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    I don't understand why anyone would put the word "Prologue" in their novel knowing that it's going to turn off some readers and be skipped by others. For me, this is an absolute no brainer.
     
  22. Sack-a-Doo!

    Sack-a-Doo! Contributor Contributor

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    Please don't get me wrong. I'm not against prologues.

    And I think it's fair game to get a reader curious about anything to do with a story, whether it's future events, past events or something happening down the street at the same time. Get them curious in whatever way best serves the story and they will continue reading... I think. :rolleyes:
     
    Last edited: Apr 26, 2016
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  23. Sack-a-Doo!

    Sack-a-Doo! Contributor Contributor

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    And this is a great argument for flashbacks which can be done quite handily using Swain's sequel concept.
     
  24. Feo Takahari

    Feo Takahari Senior Member

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    Like I said, they aren't labeled "prologue" so far. They're just really obviously prologues.
     
  25. Sack-a-Doo!

    Sack-a-Doo! Contributor Contributor

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    I have yet to be represented as a writer, but...

    When I was a musician, our agent always had work for us (this was in the 1970s and 80s in Calgary, Alberta). We could pick and choose which gigs we wanted after the agent came and heard us to make sure we had some clue how to play our instruments and that we could tell the front of the stage from the back.

    When I was an actor (in Vancouver during the 1980s) it was a bit different. We were expected to go out for every audition that came along unless we had a damned good reason not to.

    Looking around at those markets these days, I doubt the actor/agent relationship has changed much, but the musician/agent dynamic certainly has.
     
    Last edited: Apr 25, 2016

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