So some people hate these, I get it. Sometimes they are info dumps to the extreme or vague as crap. The backstory that could be easily introduced in little chunks through out the story if done right. But what about style? Is it okay to tell a folk lore tale as an introduction to the world theme without it being an eye roller? A creative story within a story concept? It wouldn't be vague because it would pertain to the story but the idea would be a way to get the reader to think more of the individual events of the world as a whole as well as the characters. No info dumping, no backstory on mc's. Just pure style. What are your thoughts? Example for you: Any of you guys play video games where you pick up folk tales or lore in them and it adds to the history of the world? Or even adds depth the universe? Skyrim would be a good example of this with its numerous skill books and history books in the game. One book you can pick up tells a tale of the Gauldur Legend (I hope I spelled that right) a horrifying murder of three brothers for the potential power of an amulet. http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Forbidden_Legend This aside it still pertains to the plot and the theme in my story (my folk tale) but is it tacky and clunky in that sort of I hate prologues way? I thought to tell it around a campfire introduction so it would blend into the opening story. That or just write it as if you're reading a book. Thoughts? (This pertains to my main series)
The thing about prologues is that it all depends on delivery. What do you want to impart on the readers? What do you think is necessary? There's a difference between informing and info-dumping. Informing generally means the information you provide is crucial to understanding the story you set the readers in. Info-dumping on the other hand typically just hands the reader information without any real significance. For example, telling the readers gods rule the world is informing. That is important to the story. Telling the readers what those gods are leans towards info-dumping, and telling the readers about a god you only mention in one sentence of your entire book is just plain-bad planning on your part. I tend to find when writing prologues that if it isn't anything important, don't include it. Otherwise you can lay out the rest of the details as you go along the story.
I'd have to see it actually happening to make a judgement. However, @Operative13 hit it on the nail here. I'd refine that to say 'the information you provide is crucial for the reader to know before the present-day story begins.' In other words, a good prologue provides a framework for the story, and sends the reader's attention in a certain direction. It should not (usually) be your notes for the story and or the extraneous details of how your world works. The notion of using a fairy/folk tale as a prologue? Well, why not? Make it an interesting tale in its own right. If you need to know how well-told folk tales grab people's attention, read a few collections of them to get a feel for how the bare bones of a myth or story get filled out in the hands of master storytellers. Give it a try. You won't know if it's working or not as a prologue until you get your entire story completed. If it's not working, you can either change it or remove it during the edit. Don't let nervousness about prologuery hold you back at this stage.
On one hand, there's no inherent reason why prologues can't work. On the other hand, I've only ever seen one work, and that one could just as easily have been Chapter One.
Ick no kidding not what I'm going for. I'm more telling a story. I kind of get the sense you didn't understand what I was saying? Here's a tiny snippet. The aroma of delicious food wafted into the air, and the Hall of the Gods was busy and boisterous. Loud sounds of mugs slamming on tables while one man guzzled his drink as fast as he could. Showing off for the crowd he slammed the mug down and raised his hands in victory spit flying from his mouth as he yelled. The men cheered him on in a frenzy. Across the room, in another scene, women were laying on decorative pillows of many vibrant colors while drinking wine, talking, laughing, and fooling around with some of the other men. And then there was (placeholder), the God of Beauty, busy contemplating to himself over his plate of food. Life was predictable and boring. All the Gods did was eat, drink, sleep, fornicate, and party. There had to be something more entertaining than this. He needed a change of pace. Something fun, that had meaning to it. Something unpredictable… A challenge. Just story telling. Kind of like chapter 1 in a book but chapter 0 lol. That's what I was thinking it could add color and style. EDT: That snippet obviously needs work but its a better start than what was originally planned.
This is fine. You're basically leading the reader off on a little side trip before you dive deep down into the main plot. It's like an appetizer to the main course. You're enticing the reader to invest in your story once you go down the main path. I know some writers like to dig in to the main course and ignore all the side stuff. Others like to layer their stories with bits and pieces to enhance the experience. Just like anything else, Prologues are a tool for the writers. In the hands of a competent writer, they can be an asset, much like any other writer's tool. You can choose to use it or not, but keep an open mind whether you think it could make your story stand out.
Get it all written, and see what's what. Don't get hung up on this issue just now. If it works, it will work. If it doesn't, you can change it. Until you actually publish your work or get it accepted for publication, nothing is set in stone. So don't be afraid to screw up. Take a chance on something that looks good and feels right to you. Anything you write can be changed later on, if need be.
This says it all. I think more writers are undone by worrying about what they can or can't do before they actually do it than any other single factor in writing. Get it written, then worry about ideal form later. In the work I am pitching, I included a prologue at the insistence of an editor I hired to review the work because it was the only way to get around a problem posed by the method I had chosen to tell the story. I think it worked extremely well (my failure to thus far sell it to traditional publishing notwithstanding). So, my advice, in chorus with @jannert's, is to write it the way you think it will work, because that's the only way you'll know for certain if it does. Best of luck!
Personally I've never understood this weird hate that prologues get among writers. Prologues are just like any other things in writing, tools in a writer's tool box, whether or not they work in a story depends on how their used, but by themselves there's nothing wrong with them. In your case I think a prologue works just fine, a fairy tale that pertains to the story, as a prologue? It's an interesting idea actually and can work really well, depending on how you go about implementing it. So as other's have already said in this thread, go write it the way you want it, see how it turns out and then decide whether it works for your story or not. Also if you need an example of a prologue done write, I recommend checking out Brandon Sanderson's works. Every book I've ever read oh him, has had a prologue, and in some cases an epilogue as well. And they all work very well. Hell, 'Way of Kings', the first book in his Stormlight Archive series has two prologues, the first being the prologue to the whole series and the second the prologue to the book at hand.
This is going to be of no help whatsoever, but personally I've never understood what the purpose of a prologue is. I nearly always skip them and always find myself wondering why the prologue can't just be chapter one?
I can say I have played nearly every game Bethesda has developed or produced, and have rarely paid attention to what is in any book, computer screen, etc. To me, Skyrim, Oblivion, etc are just fantasy tropes & I don't need any backstory to have fun. As far as prologues go, it is 50/50 for me. Ofen I find them dry and get bored after a page or so & just start the book. I can't think of anything I have read where I was confused because I didn't read backstory. A lot of times I think of a prologue as a bonus chapter for those that like that sort of thing.
I only wrote one once and wound up ditching it in the second draft. There was nothing in it that couldn't be better included as exposition in the main book, so I killed that darling fairly easily. That said, I've red books with ones that worked well for me, so I don't really have a hate for them in general as a reader or a writer, I just know that I don't do them well.
The only prolog I've written was in first person. The story was written in third person. The effect I was going for was like a voice-over intro before the story began.
My advice is that whether you prologue or not, don't call it a prologue. Call it chapter 1. And if it's not connected enough to the immediate plot to be chapter 1 then cut it. You need to start strong.
I have to disagree with this. Prologues, used properly, serve a different purpose to a chapter 1. They're not interchangeable. And there are plenty of reasons for a writer to want to use them in their book. A prologue implies something that is important to the plot in some way but doesn't fit into the the main body of narrative. Sometimes it's events occurring a certain amount of time before the main story (or in some cases after), sometimes it's set in a location other than the main setting of the novel, and sometimes it's told from a POV that is not one of the regular POVs of the book. For example in A Song of Ice and Fire, every book begins with a prologue narrated through the POV of a minor character who usually ends up dead by the end of the chapter. These prologues all contain important information and revelations for the book/series but they won't work as chapter 1 in part because the POVs are one off characters.
You should call them chapter 1 anyway. Because you would not believe just how militant the anti-prologue lobby are.
Would it be acceptable to have chapter 1 start somewhere else on another thought to open the main story. Change scenes in chapter 2. Like a prologue? Becuase honestly a chapter start is an effective way to change the scene.
Just because there are some people who stubbornly and irrationally hate prologues doesn't mean I'm not gonna use them. They're useful tools that have their places in writing. Same goes for epilogues. I don't have a prologue in my current WIP but I do have an epilogue. And I'm probably gonna include prologues in future books in the series if I feel they're needed. I don't mean to be rude but if someone's not gonna read my book just because it has a prologue then I'm better of without them as an audience, I won't change my book for them. I apologise if I'm coming across aggressive, that's not my intention. It's just that this is something that bothers me a lot, an irrational aversion based on flawed perceptions of prologues.
You are free to do whatever you think best would help with your story. Ultimately, it is the writer itself who has to decide how best to organize the story. Keep in mind however that Prologues and Chapters are not interchangeable, no matter how many others believe it to be. As the meaning of the word "prologue" states, it is something to be said "before" the story. Say you want to incorporate your little story-within-a-story. If you can't find a way to squeeze it within the context of your writing without detracting from it, I'd suggesting leaving it as its separate entity - which a prologue could help with - or cut it out entirely. Rule of Thumb: Do whatever works.
You don't need to tell me man, I am absolutely on your side. But when there's agents and publishers saying they just won't touch a book that has 'prologue' at the top of the first page then there's only so much you can do. These are the kind of things that feel like a big deal now but in three years time you'll wonder why you cared so much. In the end it comes down to would I rather get published or not.
Of course it is. But it's also perfectly fine to use a prologue, You won't know which one works best until you actually write it.
Publishing agents don't care about prologues because it inherently doesn't tell them how good the story is. That's what Chapter 1 is for. But we're not here to talk about our opinions on prologues.
You say that but... Seriously... I am not kidding just how militant how some people are about this. If you go back about a year on these forums you will see me making your exact argument. And I believe every word. Because it's fucking bullshit that anyone would judge a book for having a prologue. But that doesn't change the fact that some people do. And I'm not kidding either that if you just change the name to Chapter 1, that's all you have to do. I know it's fucking insane. I know that it makes it sound like the publishing industry is run by a man with a desk full of bees. But that's what it is man. And in the end you will toe their line or you will labour in obscurity. And nothing you can say or do or any argument you can make will fix how broken this is. It's farcically appalling. But it's what there is.
I hear what you're saying but there are plenty of popular ,best-selling authors using prologues on a frequent basis and their perfectly fine. Brandon Sanderson and George R R Martin are just two examples. I don't understand how anyone can judge a book based on the mere existence of a prologue, that by itself tells you absolutely nothing about the quality of the story. This whole thing is just baffling to me.
It's more to do with publishing agents meeting deadlines than how you structure your story. A lot of companies will say to ditch anything with prologue in it as a time saver for publishers. They get hundreds of submissions and they have to choose the golden handful to send back to their superiors. That's why they say you have to become an established author before a publisher even lets you fiddle around with your book. Some people have turned to self-publishing in response, but that's a whole other topic for later. Better get back on track before we derail this topic any further and convert it into a debate jungle.
