I've been experimenting with the structure of my plot quite a bit. It's been through phases, but I think I have settled on a form. The prologue will be told from first person POV by a girl named Teagan, but the rest of the book (starting app. 4 months earlier) will be told in first person POV by a girl named Madeleine. There are two plots that are major, the first of which is Madeleine's relationship w/ a girl named Marli, and the second of which killing a Shapeshifter who killed Madeleine's family. Does this plot structure work? Thoughts?
There have been some threads recently about prologues. I've been strongly advised from one or two people in the business to hide my prologue by making it a part of my first chapter and clearly showing a connection between the opening events and the later events. That said, if you are showing something from the future, why? A lot of horror novels start off with a bit about the monster killing someone as a promise about what's coming, because horror can have a slow build otherwise. Do you think your story will have too slow of a build?
That said, if you are showing something from the future, why? I was originally going to have the story told from both Teagan and Madeleine's POV through the whole book, with Teagan telling it from her brother's death onward, and Madeleine telling it from the day she met Marli onward, with Madeleine's timeline being relationshipy/mental health stuff , and Teagan's being fantasy/urban, but I thought that would be weird because Madeleine's timeline would start 4ish months before Teagan's. I also like Madeleine's voice and storyline better (I think I'm better at dealing with relationship stuff and mental health stuff then fantasy stuff). A lot of horror novels start off with a bit about the monster killing someone as a promise about what's coming, because horror can have a slow build otherwise. Do you think your story will have too slow of a build? Since the plot before Caleb's death is sort of 'girl 1 who hunts monsters and girl 2 who also hunts monsters meat because they hunt monsters and they have romance struggles and struggles with their mental health' I don't think that it will be a slow build to the prologue. I do think that by the end of Chapter 1 you will get that the Shapeshifter who killed Madeleine's family is the same one that killed Teagan's brother in the prologue. Is that enough?
If chapter one is engaging, then you should ask yourself what you are gaining with a prologue about a future event.
