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| What is past is prologue. -- William Shakespeare |
The first chapter of my WIP
isn’t the first chapter at all. It turned
out to be a prologue instead. The first
2,153 words account for events that happened 42 years before the protagonist
enters the scene in chapter one. Most of
the advice given to unpublished writers is to omit the prologue if we want to
avoid the slush pile. The mere mention
of the slush pile evokes shivers in most writers, me included.
From what I understand,
prologues have gone “out of style”, and to write one now-a-days is just as bad
as using clichés. One of the reasons is
that the information given in the prologue can just as easily be incorporated
into the story. Another reason is that writers
who use them only do so as a form of padding to add word count, and when
removed do not affect the story at all.
The genre I’m working with
is Fantasy and it’s important to explain what happened in the past, so that it’s
clear to the reader why the protagonist experiences certain events in her
timeline. Although still viewed critically
by agents, rules over prologues are a bit more relaxed in the Fantasy and
Science Fiction genres. Agents and
publishers understand that with all the world building taking place, which of
course differs so greatly from our reality, readers would get lost without
proper explanation.
Even so, I’ve been rethinking
my prologue and trying to find ways of cutting it out, by having another
character explain the back story in dialogue.
But it’s not so easy to do without the information dump being an obvious
information dump. The prologue does
provide a lot of background info that is definitely important to the story but
it’s not all of it. I already planned on
having a character provide the extra info and if I were to cut out the prologue
that would be too much info dumping.
I’m
still working on my first draft so I have some time to decide whether to cut
out the prologue or not. But I’m really
attached to it, so I hope it survives the re-write.
I've heard the same advice, but it varies. I'm still seeing new novels coming out with prologues and if there's one genre that you could get away with it, it's fantasy. If you took away the backstory you want to add as a prologue, will it affect your story majorly, or could you insert snippets of backstory into the story? It's a hard one...
ReplyDeleteI believe that if I removed the prologue it would affect the story. However, if it survives the rewrite then perhaps the end result will be more compelling.
DeleteI agree with Tania above, Fantasy is definitely the genre where a prologue might be considered necessary. The way i look at it is if you've tried to get rid of it, and you can't then you probably need it :-)
ReplyDeleteYes, I've tried. So far, the story needs it and I don't see any other way around it. If I employ snippets of info in later dialog, it will bog down the story.
DeleteI write sci-fi and fantasy. My first novel had a prologue. It doesn't any more. None of my stories since have used them.
ReplyDeleteMaybe it really is chapter one? If it's that essential, then perhaps it is. With that said, I still see prologues in fantasy. Once in a blue moon in sci-fi these days.
Thanks for your feedback. The prologue is in another POV and is set in the past. Chapter one begins with present day from the MC's POV.
ReplyDeleteI'm with Sarah. Try to get rid of it by making it part of the story, if your tale doesn't work without it, then perhaps the prologue belongs in it.
ReplyDeleteI can tell you that I was about 20K words deep into my WIP when I realized that my seventh chapter was the beginning of my tale. I was kind of mad for a bit, then I realized that some of the backstory made great flashback, while other bits were just things I needed to know about the world and characters.
I would say write and see, my luv.
After 20K, that must have been really frustrating.
ReplyDeleteWhat I’m learning is that as writers, there are things we must know about the story because we’re writing it. But the reader doesn’t need three chapters of background in order to understand what’s going on.
So, I’ll have to go over the prologue and see if it’s info that I need to know so that I can write a more cohesive story, or if it’s info that the reader needs to know.
Exactly.
DeleteCarmen, my advice is to cut the prolouge to about 500 words and then put the rest in novel with flashbacks. I have a 300 words prolouge in my novel but I don't send it with queries. I send chapter 1 instead, and if an agent/publisher will accept my novel, we'll talk about the prolouge. My novel is finished and I'm doing many queries and it's very competitive out there and you don't want to give the agent any reason to be unhappy. If you feel that you must send the prolouge with the first chapter than try to cut it to about 150 words, so the agent will see on your first page the prolouge and the start of chapter 1. Best wishes.
ReplyDeleteThat’s a good idea. If I keep the prologue I will only send chapter 1 when I query. Thanks for the tip. Good luck with your queries.
ReplyDeleteI just read today the first pages of "The Hunger Games" to see how the author dealt with the prologue. In her book there is a setting of a new world, but instead of having a prologue to explain the new world .. she starts with the story, and then gives iformation about the new world as the story is moving along.I guess that's the best way to do it. Take a look how she does it. Best wishes.
ReplyDeleteInteresting! Since prologue styles vary, I'll have to do more research on them. Thanks!
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