I do have a prologue in my book and I love it because it works with the story and it is necessary to understand things that happen later, without knowing why at the beginning. Around the middle of the book you start understanding that the prologue was important when it comes up again. I am writing on different projects right know and 2 of 4 stories have a prologue because it fits and makes the story stronger. I love when it plays a bigger role and I love figuring it out what role that is as a reader. :) In my opinion a prologue should be as short as possible and the first chapter should at least be as interesting as the prologue for it to work. :)
I’m planning on doing this too. The prologue is about a mage being chased. The POV is from those chasing her. We learn who said mage is and later on, through flashbacks, we learn why she was chased.
You give such excellent advice. Even though I’m working on a book that requires a lot of world building with a rich history and complicated politics, I’m now convinced that I probably don’t need one.
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A prologue also can sometimes be necessary if your inciting incident occurs before the start of the main plot. If your antagonist did something that set things in motion, but your protagonist isn't going to find out about it until half way through the story, you might want you reader to know about it, so they're not wondering what the point of the story is.
Lately what I have been doing in place of a prologue is writing something very short. Something you will find yourself reading rather you like prologues or not. For example; for my best selling novel "Grizzly" I wrote a quote, " Today we found a brown bear that the locals call the Grizzly. We call it the bear that will not die." Merryweather Lewis of the famed Lewis and Clark expedition.
I want to include a prologue where a woman who: -Lived a hundred years ago -Created the continent my protagonists explore -Will come back to life later and be very important Shares her POV. This will explain thing like why she feels so strongly towards certain things when she comes back. I wanted to include a bit where she is young and a bit right before she creates the continent (yes, create, not find). I was going to do the same in my first chapter with a different character (I mean start when you and then skip to when adult, not create a continent and explain things for when she comes back to life). Then, I wouldn’t do it ever again. Is this too repetitive, too out of the ordinary, or completely fine?
I used a prologue in one of my books to add context for the book itself. In another one it provided an explanation for how my Time Machine apparatus started. In both cases they were short and they raised questions
My main series doesn't have prologues, but I do have one in one of my shorter projects, called Carnival of Souls, because it shows an event that takes place nine years before the main story that is crucial to the flow of the story
I'm thinking of a Prologue kind of like in the movie 'The Exorcist."(1973) It begins with Father Meredith in Iran. We follow him about for a short while. We learn he is in charge of the Archeology site, where they discover the talisman, and he has a heart issue that requires medication. Then, the story begins in Washington DC.
I wrote my prologue as the first chapter just so that no one skips it, even though it seems irrelevant in the beginning the story would stop making sense somewhere around the middle without it
Book 2 of a song of ice and fire, it really showed the headspace Stannis' camp Was in before the events of the book. Plus, we hadn't really met anybody from that corner of the world
I personally don't like it when Prologues have a different POV. I do question if it's in a different POV from the rest of the book. I don't like jumping around between POVs in general, though I can see how a 3rd person prologue for a first-person book might work, as long as it's active, like you said. I never skip prologues, because I think that every word an author gives us should be important (at least on the first read-through). I can't think of any right now that did well, though I can think of several that didn't. I've written prologues before, but they always ended up being cut. It may also depend on the genre, and romance just doesn't need a prologue very often.
I feel like authors put in prologues when they want something exciting at the very beginning, when they know after that, book is going to be a slow burn setup for a while.
A good example is A Game Of Thrones The prologue was in a different POV, In a different day than when the story began, AND was crucial to the plot in the fact that it introduced a conflict that wouldn’t show up until later in the story. I literally made it through the first few scenes JUST BECAUSE I wanted to see when the zombies would show up. I was about to put it down THEN Jon Snow gets sent to the Night’s Watch. Same place the guy who saw the zombies was. Literally freaking brilliant 👌🏾
I am planning a prologue in my newest project because the main character has an initial goal that is changed quite drastically early on in ACT 1 because of an event that has kinda been festering in the background for a while... I think a prologue suits this because it will affect the protagonist later on but isn't something that concerns them at the very beginning of the book as their goals aren't aligned to that thing... YET
I wrote my prologue as a childhood showing. Like the MC is telling a little about his childhood traumas with bullies. It is 11 pages long so i think i will cut some off it out and in the book i’ll bring them back in like a memory kind of way maybe
I'm writing a historical fiction story based on fact with a real person. An event that took place 10 years before the story begins, the death of the MC's father, is important to the MC's situation and worldview. I'm using a short prologue to tell that part of the story but I'm trying not to make it an info dump. Rather it will set the seed and more will be revealed in drip drip fashion later
if your book has a prologue, would it become a stand-in for the first chapter? i.e would the writer have to write the prologue with the attributes of a first chapter?
OK, i know you might see this as cringe. But i am thinking about writing a fan fiction based on a movie that touched me. And while it wont be that type of self insert type crap you typically see with this. It is more or less a continuation of the story with a few new characters added in. That said I came up with a narrative concept of having 2 books follow the same story line. Just being narrated by 2 different characters each having their own adventure parallel to each other. Which really follows the narrative of the movie which rarely cut to any other character expect the main one. That said while 1 of my narrators has experienced the movie. The other did not take part of the events of the movie itself. So i feel like it would make sense for the movie character to describe the events of the movie. While the new character to just get to the story itself. As a prologue for the new character would Delve into the mystery i am trying to create. While the movie character would have events unfolded before the book. Yet you would have no real context for it. So would it be appropriate to add a prolong their?
My character an evil elf bound in a magic stone but is freed by a girl. I used a Prologue to show him being bound because he's basically psychotic and was killing for a women. Important to understand what he does in the main story when freed and immediately obsesses over this new girl and promises to conquer the world for her.
I planning to write a book but I want to make a chapter in the villains point of view so I'm going to write a prologue because the villains point of view is important in my story
My prologue is someone sort of reading off a characters bio in a record of this world I'm creating (Our world but with magic) All that is in it is describing the world with as little detail as possible so it's not an info dump and it reads off the characters name, age, gender, date of birth and political alignment. It's short, straight to the point so it's not boring and can go into chapter one smoothly. Is does this seem boring or should I do a little more work on it, cause it gives the illusion, that you're like a class being read a record and so I can have a little fun with sort of talking to the reader.
Prologues have become shorthand for poor writing and inexperienced authors. Use them with great caution. Too many writers have all of the items on your "don't" list, which is why so many readers skip prologues or skip books that have them. 8/10 of the members in my book club abhor prologues, and I think there are far more traumatized readers out there than you imagine. I had an English teacher who believed that prologues, when done well, are an author's way of setting up situational irony because it gives information to the reader that the character's don't have. Yes, books are still published with them, but I think they have a higher hurdle to clear in terms of quality (doing them well) and in terms of getting readers to accept them enough to read a book that begins with a prologue.
I wrote my prologue as a childhood showing. Like the MC is telling a little about his childhood traumas with bullies. It is 11 pages long so i think i will cut some off it out and in the book i’ll bring them back in like a memory kind of way maybe.
