Are there any tried and true rules about prologues?

[wordranger]

Are there any unwritten rules out there about prologues?
Personally, I love them. I know people have different opinions, but I love the way a good prologue sets up a story.

Here’s my question…

I have a prologue that I absolutely love. It happens in the future, and then the story starts 11 years earlier in chapter one. Here is my quandary…

The scene in my prologue doesn’t even happen in my novel. The reason is this… I started writing my story, and before I knew it, it was 1,113 pages long. Needless to say, I had to chop it up into 4 different novels, which was actually fairly easy to do since each one lead up to a “big bang” at the end naturally. The scene from my original prologue, though, doesn’t happen until the end of the third novel in the series. Is this okay?

As everyone is suggesting, I wanted to query book one on its own merit, and not as the start of the series, so do I need to can this prologue? Should I save it and re-incarnate it as the prologue to the third novel?

What do you think?

[smasover]

I don't suppose there are any rules about writing that apply universally. Nathan's opinion is a matter of record. Worth reading, I think...

[Margo]

I hate 99% of prologues, so my first instinct is to say cut it. However, I did read what I'd consider a very good rule of thumb (on the BookEnds blog perhaps? Can't recall). If the prologue is just a way to sneak backstory into the first 50 pages, cut it. If you really could work the events of the prologue in after the first 50 pages as pertinent backstory a few sentences at a time, only when pertinent, cut it. If not...cut it anyway. Oh, sorry, that last part is me again. :)

[polymath]

My self-imposed rule about writing rules is there are none. Writing rules are the externally imposed limitations outsiders place on writers from preconceived notions about right and wrong ways to write. For every so-called rule flitting about the writing grapevine there's numerous well-executed exceptions in widely acclaimed works of literature. And as soon as someone propogates a new rule, some writer will come along and artfully contravene it. It's the nature of writers to do as they choose, and often choose to disprove some silly, self-serving notions of what's acceptable and what's unacceptable.

Handy principles for prologues is another matter.

As I know prologues, they're prefatory commentary from the narrative point of view of a narrative's narrator. They are not always labeled or set off separately from the first, opening chapter. The opening paragraph of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice is a prologue. The opening lines of Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities is a prologue.

The purpose of a prologue is to set up the opening introductions necessary to understand the main dramatic action. Always in the narrative point of view of the narrator, prompting readers the narrator will be the reader surrogate, who readers develop closest rapport with throughout the narrative. The narrator is overt, meaning the narrator expresses commentary, takes an attitude toward the topic and/or theme of the narrative, usually a subjective attitude open to interpretation, unreliableness, and bias.

On the other hand, what's given seems to me is an opening scene from a nonlinear timeline labeled as a prologue. It is in my sense of prefatory commentary a prelude, albeit a nonlinear timeline. Preludes are in the same narrative point of view as the main narrative, meaning they are often in scene reported by a covert narrator all but absent from the narrative setting, unless by a first-person narrator who's also the observing viewpoint character and/or protagonist and/or main character. Then the prelude is still reported in the same narrative point of view as the main action.

The subjective/objective axis of attitude comes into play, with first person by default being more likely than not subjective, and a fully covert third-person narrator more likely than not objective, meaning trustworthy, reliable, and unbiased. A third-person covert narrator is the journalistic objective reporter narrator absent altogether from a narrative's setting in favor of a viewpoint character's perceptions, actions, cognitions, conversations, etc., reported by an invisible third-person narrator.

The Harry Potter saga has a fully covert third-person narrator with a linear timeline prelude opening first chapter. Donna Tart's The Secret History opens with a nonlinear timeline prelude in the first-person narrator's perceptions of events the narrative wraps back around to about a third of the way into the main action. Charles Frazier's Thirteen Moons, first-person narrator, opens with a book-end frame story prelude in the first chapter. The first chapter's end sets up a recollection transition to the second chapter, which starts at the beginning of the narrator-viewpoint character-protagonist-main character's life. The narrative timeline catches back up to the opening in the ending. Stephenie Myers' Twilight, first-person narrator, opens with a nonlinear timeline prelude labeled a preface chapter. The narrative's timeline catches back up about three-quarters of the way through just prior to the final crisis of the novel.

Oh, and I left out Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, third-person, covert narrator, opening paragraphs are a linear timeline prelude transitioning smoothy from Santiago's cognitive introspection to action in his external perceptions.

Summary, prologue: opening commentary from the narrator's point of view for closest rapport with narrator as reader surrogate.
Prelude: same narrative point of view as the main narrative, but from character viewpoints for closest rapport with a main character as reader surrogate.

[Beethovenfan]

I like prologues. But, as was mentioned earlier, they have to be more than just backstory. Also, they MUST tie in with what the book is about. If the prologue doesn't really fit in with book one, then I say move it to book three for sure. Otherwise the reader may be left wondering why it was included in the first place.

[maybegenius]

As smasover said, there aren't really unbreakable rules when it comes to writing, and prologues are one of them. And as Margo mentioned, a high percentage of prologues aren't necessary. The general rule of thumb I often hear is: only when absolutely necessary for the story at hand. If a prologue's intention is to be a backstory info dump, a "false action beginning" (a scene from later in the novel with more action to "make up" for a slow beginning), or just the author's way of talking directly at the audience to tell them something, then it can likely be cut. And most prologues are used in these ways.

There are some good uses for prologues: to set up a world unfamiliar to the reader, "the first murder victim," to give us a glimpse of the past. They just have to be handled with a lot of care, and they have to be absolutely necessary for the READER, not the author. I recently cut the prologue out of my work. It was beautiful and I was totally in love with it, but it was jarring for the readers I showed it to. So it had to go.

In my personal opinion, without having more insight into your novels, this prologue probably won't work. Even series novels need to be their own smaller storyline in the overreaching arc of the series storyline, and if the prologue is related to the third novel, it won't make sense in the first and will likely confuse or annoy your readers. Ultimately, it's your call as the author - it's your baby.

Edited to add: WOW. Typos galore. This is why I shouldn't post before 6AM.

[Quill]

I hate 99% of prologues, so my first instinct is to say cut it. However, I did read what I'd consider a very good rule of thumb (on the BookEnds blog perhaps? Can't recall). If the prologue is just a way to sneak backstory into the first 50 pages, cut it. If you really could work the events of the prologue in after the first 50 pages as pertinent backstory a few sentences at a time, only when pertinent, cut it. If not...cut it anyway. Oh, sorry, that last part is me again. :)

That tears it. I'm putting a prologue AND a prelude in my WIP and renaming my MC Margo.


I'd say a good rule of thumb with a prologue is to KEEP IT SHORT.

[Margo]

That tears it. I'm putting a prologue AND a prelude in my WIP and renaming my MC Margo.

LOL. Don't forget to put it all in passive voice. With lots of said-bookisms and adverbs and at least two adjectives per noun. :P And alliteration, lots and lots of lovely alliteration.

[bcomet]

I am torn both ways.

I love prologues when they are provocative or work to set up a mood or a scene that propels the story or causes me to want to know more.
I also love poems or provocative lines or quotes that begin a piece. That can be like setting down the theme. (I don't like quotes at the top of every chapter though - once I'm into a story, I don't want to break, I want to keep going, not be pulled out again.)

Sometimes, in fantasy novels especially, I have to accept that the prologue can be a lesser of two evils or a necessary evil. It can serve to keep the reader from getting lost when the backstory or rules that precede the real story are laid out (and as drudgery-going as some prologues can get, it is often still a shorter or smoother method than dropping it in or flashing back). (And hey, the reader can skip over it and go back to it if they get interested later or if they get lost, kind of like those lists of fantasy characters and deamons––including every one-note character you see––the kinds of lists that annoy you, nag at you to read them, but can be helpful.)

The real concern, again, is not losing the reader either in the prologue or in the confusion without one or in the dropping of the info in later.

What I usually skip over is when someone is so in love with their world building that the prologue is more into that when I'm just not that into it. I don't always need to know what the whole trilogy was about. Let one book be a story in itself, whether I've read the first, the books in order, etc. I just need to know what is pertinent to the book in my hand.

I sometimes look at whether it is better (and shorter) to tell than to show in a prologue, i.e. get it done quick, tell it and then get on to the story.

It is something I wrestle with.

I try to imagine it as a movie with a compelling opening scene (or mood music as the opening credits roll) that works to set up the story.

It's cool to explore the different possibilities of structuring and restructuring a work. Like this discussion, it can be helpful and/or go in circles. In the end you have to trust yourself as a writer to tell the story you want in the way you want.

[J. T. SHEA]

Wordranger, I'm completing a three book series and will certainly be querying it as a series. As several commenters have rightly pointed out, there are no rules, only guidelines. And the advice about not querying a series applies mainly when the author has written only the first book.

As always, I would imagine myself as a reader of the work. How do you think a reader, professional or otherwise, would react to your prologue? I don't mind some abeyance and suspense, some advertising, as it were, for later books in a series. Clearly, some writers disagree.

BTW, while some commenters see some first chapters as prologues in disguise, I tend to go the other way. If I'm going to read a book at all, I read it all. I start where the author starts, and end where he/she ends. The chronological order and pace of the story, flashbacks and flash-forwards, summary versus detailed action, and so on, are all matters for the author. In that sense, all prologues and prefaces are first chapters.

Quill, I hear long prologues and preludes and protagonists called Margo are the Next Big Thing. But don't forget to add lots of sneaky impertinent backstory and at least three false action beginnings.

[Margo]

Quill, I hear long prologues and preludes and protagonists called Margo are the Next Big Thing. But don't forget to add lots of sneaky impertinent backstory and at least three false action beginnings.

I can see it now, a whole school of writing named after me, although it would be one I wouldn't want to read. The writing gods have a twisted sense of humor. :)