Prologues - Do We Need Them?

[j. d. worthington]

Well, while it is in some ways restating what has already been said, I'll simply add this: If the prologue seems necessary because what it has to add is something that will not comfortably fit in the body of the story proper (if it provides needed information that would stick out -- even if well-written and interesting on its own -- like the proverbial sore thumb within the tale itself; if it introduces a theme that will be reintroduced later in the story, but the tone of which would interfere with/clash with that set by the early parts of your tale; if it brings in an important character who will not reappear until much later on, where the information about that character would -- again -- be a roadblock within the main story, etc.) then a prologue is a good idea.

The point of a prologue is to provide something for the reader/viewer that itself has drama and is important to the thrust of the work, but which nonetheless would simply be out of place in the text proper. If what you have is a block of worldbuilding that can be broken down and introduced gradually throughout the text, or is in some other way something that can be melded in, then it should be handled that way. Prologues are fine (personally, I quite like them), but they need to have a valid reason to be separated from the story proper....

[Teresa Edgerton]

Originally Posted by lin robinson

I guess I just don't get rattled by this, or really figure it's any of my business.

But surely if someone puts something up for critique they are asking other people to make it their business.

I just doubt somehow that anyone - even anyone as unenlightened as not to belong here - would say something he didn't believe. After all, he said, "I don't see why it is needed" (personal opinion) and not, "they are all unnecessary" (dogma).

Actually, Interference, I've seen people -- yes, even people who are enlightened enough to belong to this site -- cite these kinds of things as dogma. They learn a new "rule" like watch out for prologues, or avoid too many adverbs or saidisms, and they go out to slay every instance they can find. On the other hand, yes, I've seen people mistake criticism of the way they handle some particular facet of their book as a flat-out statement that whatever it is they were trying to do is always wrong. Hard to tell out of context whether either of these over-reactions is true in this particular case.

But rereading your first message, KSeriphyn, it sounds like the person who was criticizing your work may be confusing your prologue with a synopsis of a previous book. Do you think it may have read like that was what you were doing?