I used to use and write prologues like crazy, treating as a mere introduction or insight to the novel I’m about to write because I felt that just startling off with chapter one was just too crazy. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a little prologue to cushion it? No. I did a research on the pros and cons of writing a prologue so, I’m here to warn you against the dangers of a prologue.
Now, prologues when well-written (which they rarely are even amidst published or renowned authors) can have a great impact and make the readers have a EUREKA moment somewhere during the book. Yet the sad reality is, not many do.
So, below I will list the six deadly sins.
1. Do not under any circumstance use a prologue as an infodump platform for the novel.
Ok, so info dumps are bad enough. Is just basically a series of narrating sentences that spams for ages stating basically facts. No one wants that, but on top of that a prologue. I will say that here, most readers actually skip the prologue if the first sentence doesn’t attract them (I used to do this because I viewed prologues as some sort of boring preface into the novel.) So don’t use a prologue just to have this huge info dump on your character.
2. Don’t use the prologue as a tool to hook readers in.
If readers have a bad tendency to skip past prologues (Yup, it happens.), and the only point of your prologue is to hook the reader, then you have just effectively shot yourself in the foot. You must have a great hook in a prologue, but then you need to also have a hook in Chapter One. If you can merely move the prologue to Chapter One and it not upset the flow of the story, then that is a lot of pressure off your shoulders to be “doubly” interesting.
3. If your prologue really has nothing to do with the main story.
Ok, so the book is about space ships and people killing each other and you write a prologue about Easter Bunnies? (This is pretty self-explanatory)
4. So, that’s pretty long prologue there, sweetheart.
Prologues need to be short and sweet and to the point. Get too long and that is a warning flag that this prologue is being used to cover for sloppy writing.
5: If your prologue is über-condensed world-building…
World-building is generally one of those things, like backstory, that can and should be folded into the narrative. Sometimes it might be necessary to do a little world-building, but think “floating words in Star Wars.” The yellow floating words that drift off into space help the reader get grounded in the larger picture before the story begins. But note the floating words are not super-detailed Tolkien world-building. They are simple and, above all, brief.
6: Prologue = Introduction to chapter one.
I’ve read a lot of prologues on different writing sites where the author just writes a prologue that happens perhaps a decade or perhaps even several years before the actual event of chapter one. Because they think they can provide a background for the story. Now, there is nothing wrong with that but there are other ways to weave that information in. A prologue, is usually a short passage written as a critical element of the novel that cannot be written anywhere else in the novel. It also usually reveals a very important part later on in the novel, now this may or may not be true. But nearly all well-written prologues are not answered until the very end of the book.
Well, that brings an end to this prologue sin, these are just my mere humble opinions coupled with some internet hopping around sites. There are of course good things about prologues, though it is few against the dangers of it. These are just my experiences on prologues, and if anyone has anything to add or would like to say something against those points. Please feel free to!
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