nThis week’s blog prompt concerns prologues: are they helpful or hurtful? Personally, I think they’re overused, mostly by authors who ought to know better and don’t do a very good job of incorporating them into the story. Such authors use prologues to dump a wheelbarrow load of backstory because they lack the skill to weave in the backstory without an information dump.
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nYep, I can be harsh.
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nThat said, I used a prologue in a book once. Once. (Remember Danny Vermin in the movie Johnny Dangerously?) I used a prologue in The Diamond Gate, because the book picks up where a lesser known fairy tale ends and I thought that readers ought to have a glimmer of that fairy tale before plunging into the story. I don’t know whether the prologue did the job I wanted it to do. I think I’ve sold about half a dozen copies of the book and no one ever left a review. The utter lack of feedback as well as sales basically deserves an insouciant shrug of dismissal of yet one more literary failure chalked up to the growing mountain of experience.
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nMost prologues are completely unmemorable. In fact, the only prologues I can recall are those in David Eddings’ Belgariad series which I read when they were first published way back in the 1980s, you know, the dark ages before the internet. Honestly, though, I don’t know whether I recall them because they were good. Today’s critics of fantasy disparage Eddings’ work, although I always enjoyed the sardonic humor of his books. Of course, they don’t think too much of Terry Brooks’ Shannara series either. No matter, I liked them.
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nMy basic thought regarding prologues is that if your book needs one, then make it the first chapter. Or do a better job of plotting out the story. The reader should not need to read the prologue to understand the story.
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nOf course, I feel the same about epilogues, too.
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