Prologues

Tonight I want to talk about the dreaded prologue. I generally avoid prologues, but I bring it up because the manuscript I am currently querying has one. And not only is it completely necessary to my story, it is a whopping 2,388 words (or 9 pages) long.

That's right folks, not only am I insistent upon keeping my prologue, it's an epic one to boot.

Almost every agent I've researched (including some of those I plan to query) has at one point or another, given their opinion on prologues, and from what I've gathered most agents absolutely loathe them.

One of my favorite posts came via Vickie Motter from the Andrea Hurst Literary Agency. It stands out amongst the others I've read because Ms. Motter, while admitting that she is occasionally guilty of skipping a prologue in a manuscript, takes the time to explain that not all prologues are unnecessary and/or a bad idea.

There are reasons why prologues exist and Ms. Motter highlights some of the ways in which prologues can be used effectively:


Past is Prologue:

• If your novel is about someone in the present discovering some link to history (paranormal or not), you might show a scene of a significant event that will be important in the future (present) (The Mummy)
• You show the murder or crime (without giving away the killer or thief) (Dan Brown)
• An extremely important event that doesn't quite go with the body (maybe for POV or VOICE reasons) but you must include it
• The character died and the body is about their afterlife (Heaven, Angel, Vampire, etc)

Future is Prologue:

• Foreshadowing a death or near death (Twilight)
• Foreshadowing some horrific experience
• Reflection upon the events in the story (The Notebook)
• The character died and the body is about their life

And in order for a prologue to work there are a few things that a writer must do, and an equal number of things that they must avoid:


Do:

• Have action
• Have intrigue
• Have VOICE
• Leave unanswered questions

Don't:

• Give too much detail. It isn't a textbook of history or of events in your novel
• Use it as a back story dumping ground (and/or info dump)
• Use it as a device to reveal information not found in the body--important information in the first page can easily be forgotten by the reader
• Include a prologue just because you think it will sell more books

The bottom line is that there must be a reason for your prologue to exist. Unfortunately, a lot of the time writers use the prologue as a venue to perform a little bit of data dump.

They think that they're setting up the story, giving us pertinent information, when in fact the information could have been relayed in a better way. Woven throughout the story instead of simply spewed all over the first few pages of the manuscript.

What are your thoughts on the Prologue?  Does the WIP you're working on now contain one?




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