To prologue or not to prologue. That is the question.

It's not "Never use prologues" it's "To maximize the chances of you getting published then you should jump into the meat of the book".

And yes there are some books that are better served by having prologues, absolutely. But they are less likely to get published. It's not even a question of writing craft. It's a question of reality. And you can't beat them. They control everything that matters.

If you want to make it you have to stack up every little edge you can. Even if having a prologue decreases your chances by 0.5% that is too much because your chances are already really low. You can't give people a reason to say no. And no matter what you think and what I think, there are people who will say no because there is a prologue.

 

Sometimes it's good to have a prologue to get the reader "up to speed" on the events that have transpired before the story really begins, but other times it's better to just "jump right in" and feed the reader the plot points as the story goes on.

With Prologue: "Dear Diary, it has been six months since mum and dad vanished while driving home from the movies, I have been doing my best to get by but, being only 16 as I am, it can be a real struggle. I know the police have said that all the trails have gone cold, but I am still holding out that mum and dad are still alive, and I have taken it apon myself to find them..."

Without Prologue: Lucy bundled up her sweater and slipped on her mud boots before heading out into the chill winter air, it was but a short walk to the police station. Once inside she went to the desk to see if Officer McKay had found any new leads to the location of Lucy's parents, who had vanished six months prior.

"I'm sorry Lucy." Officer McKay said. "But just as I told you before, we haven't found any new clues to shed light on your parent's disappearance." Officer McKay bent down and placed a hand on Lucy's shoulder, trying to comfort the poor 16 year old. "Have you dusted for prints, done a foot-by-foot search of the woods, found any stray hairs?" Lucy asked. Officer McKay had to admire the girl's persistence, even if she didn't fully understand the situation.

 

I want to go on record on being opposed to this function for a prologue. Prologues are not for backstory.

 

I want to go on record saying that I do not agree with this mindset. Prologue can be a great way to introduce readers to a new world, especially of the story proper starts "In Media Res". I'm not saying you should put every bit of backstory in the prologue, but throw in a tidbit or two so the reader knows what kind of story they are in for. First impressions are important after all.

 

But you can surely have those first impressions in the story proper.

 

Vanilla. Because I said so.

 

I'm with you on this. Using prologues for exposition like this is not a good idea, it has the potential of turning the prologue into a big info dump. This is the sorta thing that gives prologues a bad reputation.

 

And everyone knows that chocolate is so much better

 

Perhaps, but that's not how I roll, or..write. I'm a proud prologuer. But I respect your opinion on this matter though.

Vanilla, duh! But I get what you are trying to say. It's just a sort of optional feature. Like fries with your burger.

 

....and as a random fact- 'would you like fries with that' was the greatest money making phrase for a few decades.

 

Do I get a chocolate bar for each slap?

 

If he's upped his game, otherwise his slaps are pretty vanilla

 

Interesting! I didn't know that!

 

I liked your non prolugue version

 

Agents and publishers really do care about prologues, and many of them DO think it tells them how good the story is: they get a manuscript with a prologue, it goes straight into the reject pile. This is a subject I'm interested in--I don't mind prologues as a reader, so I find the debate intriguing--and I've asked a few agents personally. They all said prologues herald Bad Things for what's to follow.

But the ones that do aren't going to be saying, "Oh, goody, a prologue! I'll buy this book because it has a prologue!" They'll be saying "Ugh, a prologue. Back on the shelf." Why would you handicap yourself that way?

Bestsellers can write drivel and get it published. Unpublished authors already have the odds stacked way against them, and including a prologue makes it even harder.

I say again - why handicap yourself this way?

 

Agents and Publishers are looking for one's writing skill and their ability to draw readers' attention. That's what get those books off the shelves, and what makes money for them in the end. Prologues rarely, if ever, reflect the actual writing quality of the entire book; partly because they are often written differently than the rest of the story, and partly because the writers themselves have a knack of abusing prologues to dump loads of information off the rack instead of easing the reader in. Every book has a learning curve, and the ones that are fairly easily to grasp whilst holding the readers' attention tend to stand up better to their competitors.

It's a fact that there is no such thing as a "Writing Market." Books aren't going to get cheaper or more expensive depending on how many books there are out in the market. They depend on the writing itself. A very tiny fraction of the writing community ever, if at all, make it past the sorter. Trying to push yourself against an agent publisher as a first-time writer without any sort of experience or connection is a newbie's mistake. It's the same for any other major company. You stand a much better chance trying to grow popularity with your story and gaining some reputation before you even attempt to reach out to professionals. They want to see a positive investment. That's the bottom line. Taking too many risks with too many new novels is not how you keep your company afloat. You always want to go with the ones that will sell for certain.

 

@Operative13 Publishers and agents say manuscripts with prologues are much more likely to be unpublishable than manuscripts without prologues. Correlation, not causation.

Again: why handicap yourself? Anybody who's done 10 minutes of googling knows that many agents and publishers advise against prologues. Knowing that, why on earth would you send them a manuscript with a prologue?

This isn't relevant for fiction. Non-fiction, yes, you need a platform. But fiction writers don't. The manuscript is all that matters for unpublished writers.

 

To look at it from another angle; think about the advice that you hear coming from the other side.

What does absolutely everyone say that your book needs to do in the first chapter? It needs to jump right into the plot and grab the readers attention, right? You need to come out of the gate and go "Bam, this is why you should care about my book". You need plot, you need something interesting that's happening right now that matters to the book in the first chapter. If that's happening in your prologue then you can just call it chapter 1 with no problems. If that's not happening in your prologue then you need to do something about that. Not because it's a prologue. But because, sorry dude, ain't no-one in the publishing business going to slog through your world building on the hopes that the plot will be something worth reading.

Going Postal by Terry Pratchett is a book with a prologue, one that sold very well. But man that is a bad prologue. Do you think for a second that that book would have ever got out the slush pile starting in such a cryptic and unhelpful way? But it's Pratchett, so we and the whole industry cut him a break. But I guarantee you that if you found an agent who knew nothing of discworld and submitted that to them then they'd laugh you out of the building. Not only is the first thing they read completely divorced from the plot and the themes, the book doesn't even need it at all. Everything else in the book makes sense without having read it. It tells you nothing of any real use, other than to give you some slight detail on what two characters you won't even know exist for ten chapters we doing before the plot happens. Look at objectively it's an awful prologue.

My point is that you need to remember where you are in the industry. Terry Pratchett (rest in peace brother) could have released a novel entirely in expressive dance and it would have sold well. In fact I almost kinda want to see that, just to see what he would have come up with. He had the clout to tell a publisher to fuck off and let him do what he wants. He's made them a million billion dollars over twenty five years with a really dedicated fan base and some hardcore name recognition. But that ain't you. You are on the bottom looking up.

You need to engage with the audience right now, within the first few pages. You need a big story beat right at the start. You can be slow burning, you can do world building, you just can't put it at the front of the book. You grab them, you give them a taste of what this book is going to be, you hook them with some action (whatever that means in your genres context) and then they are ready to slurp up anything else you want to tell them. You need to give them a strong enough story beat to want to see where this goes. And again; if your prologue is doing that you don't need to call it a prologue. And if your prologue isn't doing that then your problem isn't just that it's called a prologue, it's that it's not how people want a book to open.

I know that it's utterly busted how publishers would just turn down many amazing books because of prologues, or length, or lots of things that you can name ten books that are amazing that had all these things. But to an agent they have no idea how great your book might get, they have no idea if it'll be well written or even make sense. They have a lot of books to wade through. And they really do think that if you are someone sending them a prologue then you are someone who isn't serious about getting published. And that is totally wrong of them. Just the same as the fact that they would throw out a book for being 110k words is totally wrong of them. It says nothing about how good the book it. Nothing at all. But if you look to them like someone who won't follow their rules then it almost doesn't matter how good your book is. If you won't or can't toe the line in these really minor ways that mean very little then why should they think you can write a book that anyone else wants to read? If you can't play ball then it makes them wonder if this is actually a genreless mess that only you care about. After all, you won't do anything to try and be more attractive to anyone else.

And to be very clear, you have no idea how angry this makes me. Because it's the most disgusting thing in the world that some of the best novels ever written would be dismissed out of hand by today's agents. But ruminate on this for a second; todays agents would turn down Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky. And no matter who you are, you are not Dostoyevsky. They would turn him down. What the hell chance have you got if you won't play ball?

It's simply a matter of pragmatism. And yes it is frustrating. Yes it's awful. And yes, sometimes that means you're going to have to write another book. Join the club buddy. My first four books are close to unpublishable, at least as an unknown. No clear genre, no clear audience, no clear anything, weird stuff that most people don't want to read about. One day when I am famous then I am certain people will want to read them and think that they are great. But not now. Because you have to be able to play the game. Even if you self-publish, you can't get away with saying "No seriously, it gets good later on" or "But the writing makes up for it!". No, you need to write a book people want to read. And that means playing by their rules and not yours.

 

Thank you! You did, well thank you for the feedback. I made that up on the spot, it's not one of my stories, but maybe I should consider doing more with it? Without prologue, of course.

 

I would that's how idea's for my stories get started. Freewriting baby all the way!

 

Alrighty! But I wonder what I should do with this story nugget, play it safe and go for the ketchup of mystery, or take a chance and dunk it in the spicy mustard of strange happenings in a small town?

 

Can't it be both?
Mystery and strange happenings in the fantastical way or an everyday strange way?