I'm in the midst of writing a Star Wars fan-fiction and have a question about perspectives. Is it considered acceptable to have a short intro or prologue in third person, while the rest of the story is told in first? I like the intro I have; it's like a shoutout to Alan Dean Foster's A New Hope. However, I've no idea what a professional editor would think. Please help.
Personally, I think it's fine. Just try it and see how it works. If it doesn't work, prologues are pretty easy to re-write.
Now from a Star Wars perspective, I think it would be completely fine, as well, considering the movies generally start off with a Darth Vader did thus-an-such or, you know? It's basically a prologue they've got going on at the beginning anyway- and it's generally in third person.
I'm wondering why you're worrying about what a professional editor would think. Fanfiction isn't saleable, and writing unsolicited works in hopes of getting it published as part of the Expanded Universe isn't likely to happen. The EU writers were all hired to write specific stories rather than submitting stories to become canon.
To answer your question, yes it is acceptable, and it's a very common technique in some genres, especially sci-fi and fantasy.
"Form" and "convention" are pretty useless terms in writing the story proper, actually. As a general rule.
So you've never seen it before? Fantastic. Every great literary convention started as something you've never seen before. Or everybody had seen it before and not like that.
Early drafts in particular are just for getting the story out. Tell the story how the story wants to be written, forgetting everything about form and convention. As you edit you might go back to something more conventional, but it'll still end up more unique if you threw out what you were "supposed to do" in the early drafts because then your story has a heart.
Following form and convention will get you a half decent, average story. Writing without form and convention, at least for a draft, will get you your story, and that will always be better than what you get if you simply follow form and convention.
Yes, you should follow form and convention for, say, editor's specs and query letters. But for the prose itself, the narrative? Don't. You'll be a better writer for it.
A writer is a world trapped in a person— Victor Hugo
Ink is blood. Paper is bandages. The wounded press books to their heart to know they're not alone.
The 5th Wave trilogy by Rick Yancey, which is a NY Times best seller and has a movie coming out in January btw, has prologues at the beginning of each book which is written in third-person (and in a very different style than the rest of the book) while the rest of the book is pretty much in 1st person.
So, it's totally fine and even if it isn't traditional... So what? An even better reason to do it in my opinion. Best of luck!
Hear me out, there's so much more to life than what you're feeling now. Someday you'll look back on all these days, and all this pain is gonna be invisible. - Hunter Hayes
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