Why the Prologue Hate?

[DaisyMama]

Why does everyone hate prologues? I like 'em.

My favorite author includes a prologue in every one of her books, although she doesn't call them that. I always enjoy them. Sometimes they're a scene that precedes the main story, and it sets the tone and gives us a bit of insight into the story. Sometimes they're an excerpt from a scene to come later in the story (with names removed, so you aren't sure exactly who it is), and it too sets the tone and underscores some of the tension because the reader has the unsettling feeling of thinking, "I know where this is going, and it ain't good." Many stories take time to establish the plot before they get into the thick of the conflict, and prologues are a way to give a glimpse of that conflict right away.

What qualifies a prologue as "good" or "bad," in your opinion? Why do you love/hate them?

I certainly don't think they're necessary, but I appear to be one of the few who LIKE them.

[ProfessorAlan]

In the process of re-writing my novel, I feel the need to ADD a prologue, to introduce the villain about 10 years before the actuion of the novel takes place. The purpose of this is to show him in action early in his "career," as opposed to telling about this earlier event in the current flow of the story.

[AnnieJ]

Some people hate them because they see them as a hinderance to getting right into the story.

Some hate them because the bad ones give all of them a bad name,

And I am convinced that many writers hate them because they have been told to -- it's one of those writer's 'rules' that is easy to glom onto and get your boxers in a bunch over as if it actually matters, when in reality there are so many writers around that do it and their books do not suffer any dire reprocussions that all the hate hardly makes sense.
Besides, it's easier to teach writing when you can say - don't do this, always do this, don't use that, etc.

Prologues are tricky, so is all writing. If you do them well and they are integral to your story, use them. If not, don't.

Yeah, that's direct. Its just that, to me, this is the kind of thing, the focus on prologue or not, instead of story, character and writing that hang writers up. Why throw up roadblocks? Write and see what works. Consider that some people have an issue with prologues after you are done and are editing.
Until then, just tell the story.

annie

[DaisyMama]

Good point, Annie!

ProfessorAlan, I think that's a perfect example of when to use a prologue.

Annie, you're right: Tell the story. Write well. That's what's most important and what will ultimately make or break your novel, not whether there's a prologue or not. A good novel can't be ruined by one, nor can a bad novel be saved by one.

I've heard many people say they don't even read the prologue, and that frustrates me.

[Merry]

Who hates prologues? They keep you from having to flip forward to figure out what the heck is really going on...hehehehe...

[Warrior 4 Jesus]

Prologues are generally rubbish because it allows the author 40+ pages to ramble on about nothing even remotely related to beginning the story. The beginning should pack some punch - whether it's emotional or action based it needs to be there.
Too many authors (and I'm talking mainly fantasy ones here) have taken Tolkien's example and take about 60 pages before they get into the story. Not too mention many prologues are badly written, boring, overdrawn and just not necessary. There are some exceptions but they are few and far between.

[Merry]

40+ pages...?! Well, that's right, I guess you could make a good case for hating long prologues.

[DraperJC]

W4J has it right. Prologues often come across as the author's background notes and really aren't needed. Just start telling the story and we'll pick it all up in context. A prologue that's an action piece with the villain is brilliant and can be very well done.

They should also be short, five pages max.

[cynthiahickey]

I used to skip prologues, but have since learned that I often would miss important information. The prologue needs to be justified. In my writing, I've only written one prologue and felt it was needed. It shows what is going on just before the main story line. As it is a warning posted by the "bad" guy, I felt the reader needed to know why what happens in the story, happens.

[Phy]

I think most of this comes down to simple planning and studied humility.

I've only read one prologue that was worth the time to read it, and it was by George R. R. Martin. If you're as good as he is, by all means, go for it. If not, work the information into the story in context in due time.

Most prologues are simply too full of themselves. The author should be prepared to accept that the reader isn't nearly as interested in your back-history as you are. The the extensive back-history is so integral to the story, maybe you're telling two different stories. In a sense, The Hobbit is the back-story to LOTR. It functions as a stand-alone tale on its own, and has a different vibe.

[DaisyMama]

30+ pages for a prologue?! If it's that long, why not just call it "Chapter One"? Most of the prologues I've seen have been fewer than 5 pages.

Do you think it's ALWAYS better to include backstory in the course of the novel? I would think that when done correctly, it's more effective to show the significant event actually taking place, rather than describing it in a flashback or a conversation later on.

[Phy]

Do you think it's ALWAYS better to include backstory in the course of the novel?

I've been reading prologues for thirty five years or better. The only one I thought that did it right was GRRM in the his epic series A Song of Ice and Fire (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Song_of_Ice_and_Fire).

I never put my finger on why I didn't care for prologues into reading Orson Scott Card's Hugo award winning How to Write Fantasy & Science Fiction (http://www.fwbookstore.com/product/67/102). (btw, this is an indispensible book on how to write sci-fi and fantasy. It is rather slim 140 pages, but that is only because there's not a wasted page. Everything fits. Highly recommended.)

Card first defines the Event Story and then explains where it begins and where it ends.

In the Event Story, something is wrong in the fabric of the universe; the world is out of order... The Event Story ends at the point where a new order is established, or, more rarely, where the old order is restored, or rarest of all, where the world descends into chaos as the forces of order are destroyed. The story begins, not at the point where the world becomes disordered, but rather at the point where the character whose actions are most crucial to establishing the new order becomes involved in the struggle. Hamlet doesn't begin with the murder of Hamlet's father; it begins much later, when the ghost appears to Hamlet and involves him in the struggle to remove the usuper and reestablish the proper order of the kingldom.

After that, Card writes that that the Event Story must make us care about the characters first before introducing backstory. (I personally presume this is at least a partially male thing, as we think in terms of headlines. We need something to attach information to for it to be important to us.)

"...Tolkien does not begin with a prologue recounting all the history of Middle Earth up to the point where Gandalf tells Frodo what the ring is. He begins, instead, by establishing Frodo's domestic situation and then thrusting world events on him, explaining no more of of the world situation on him that Frodo needs to know right at the beginning. We only learn of the rest of the foregoing events bit by bit, as the information is revealed to Frodo.

In other words, the viewpoint character, not the narrator, is our guide into the world situation. ...In other words, by the time we are given the full explanation of the world, we already care about the people involved in saving it.

Too many writers of Event Stories, especially epic fantasies, don't learn this lesson from Tolkien. Instead, they imagine that their poor reader won't be able to understand what's going on if they don't begin with a prologue showing the 'world situation.' Alas, these prologues always fail. Because we aren't yet emotionally involved with any characters, because don't yet care, the prologues are meaningless. They are also usually confusing as a half-dozen names are thrown at us all at once.

I have learned, as a reviewer, that it's usually best to skip the prologue entirely and begin with the story -- as the author should have done. I have never -- not once -- found that by skipping the prologue I missed some information I neede to have in order to ready the story; and when I have read the prologue first, I have never -- not once -- found it interesting, helpful, or even understandable.

In other words, writers of Event Stories, don't write prologues. Home didn't need to summarize the whole Trojan War for us; he began the Illiad with the particular, the private wrath of Achilles. Learn from Homer -- and Tolkien, and all the other writers who have handled the Event Story well. Begin small, and only gradually expand our vision to include the whole world. If you don't let us care about the hero first, we won't be around for the saving of the world. There's plenty of time for us to learn the big picture.

In my current serial novel at Ray Gun Revival (http://raygunrevival.com/index.html), "The Adventures of the Sky Pirate," something threatens the planet, something all big and space opera-ey. An invader threatens to disrupt planetary order, and other forces are already at work 'on the ground' to restore order, but the story doesn't start there.

The action begins on a remote island of all men, a monastery, where the orphaned son of a famous sailor plays at swords with his one friend in the world. They frolic on a sun-swept hillside, blissfully ignorant of the titanic forces swirling around them. A stranger arrives at the island, a great event. But he is followed by yet another stranger, and that is no event at all, and that's where it gets dangerous. Somebody we care about will meet their end at the beginning of the first chapter, and the full reasons for assassins to venture to quiet Patience Bay in the first place are not revealed until much, much later. For now, we meet a youth of fifteen and get to know him and his friend. It's a way to get a handle on the environment, the basic players, and the world situation. New revelations occur in the fullness of time, and we build a foundation upon which ever larger revelations may be added.

The first chapter of this swashbuckling serial is called "The Assassin of Patience Bay (http://raygunrevival.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?t=314)," and is part of a three year episodic storyline that starts with swashbuckling adventure in the first season, advances to escalating steampunk techonology in the second season, and lifts off into full-on space opera in the final season. There is a deliberate beginning, middle, and end. The story doesn't burden you, the reader, with backstory that you don't know what to do with. The first season introduces Cooper Flynn and his world, takes us through a colorful adolescence, and ends with an emotional bang as the Haddirron Naval Academy is attacked by a brutal pirate. It also shows the freedom of youth and the consequences that occur when our actions catch up to us (as they always do).

I could have used a prologue to explain everything that has gone on before, and everything that threatens the world, but nobody cares about my world, yet, because they don't know it like I do. So I introduce my main character at fifteen, and we watch as he struggles and grows and wrestles with character issues and how to get along with assassins (and, more dangerously, the opposite sex, heh) well before he is saddled with saving the planet.

[mel3]

Prologues only serve to irritate me, especially since most of them are poorly written and dont actually have any significance as such to the main story.
I tried to write one for my book but decided against it as I felt it just hindered more than helped.
In short, they are boring.

[paulchernoch]

I love prologues. One that I think I subconsciously copied in spirit for my series is from E.E. "Doc" Smith's Lensman series, where he reveals the existence of two alien races locked in a galactic struggle, with the earth as a puppet. Pompous, over-the-top, pretentious? But I loved it.

He used mini-adventures separated by centuries and even millenia in the first few chapters to reveal backstory. He gets you to empathize with individual characters as a means of introducing families for readers to root for, whose blood lines are crucial to the survival of humanity. (Too bad I later found out that what he was espousing was eugenics supervised by a master race, but it was interesting.)

For me, the prologue is told from a different point of view than most of the story. I was unable to find a way to introduce the information in another way, given the limitations of my novel's structure. It may be that a poorly conceived narrative structure forced me to adopt the prologue, where a better structure would have allowed me to follow OSC's advice and slip the information in more gradually via action involving the main characters.

- Paul