And at the end. I see nobody hammered a stake through this thing’s heart. Next time go the extra distance and do the job properly. Various young authors, mostly self-published (or unpublished but submitting to trad) it seems are having fainting fits about whether a prologue will ruin their chances or not. Further arguments include epilogues, appendices and glossary positions or existence, and even ‘dramatis personae’ lists.
These things, apparently, will absolutely doom to never being read… or elevate to stardom your work depending on which internet rando you believe.
Ok. So I’ve been doomed and elevated to stardom. And oddly, no particular difference in the sales numbers of the books in which I did the great evul prologue, and the ones I didn’t. Likewise with the epilogues, appendices, glossaries, ‘dramatis personae’ lists etc.
So far, I have not got around to putting an epilogue at the beginning of the book, but I can see the possible merit of this for the kind of reader who always reads the last pages first.
Heinlein didn’t do these. Tolkien did. Pratchett did.
Some readers love them, and some… skip over them. My wife finds the Eddings ones tedious and doesn’t read them. I know another bright reader who can quote them. But here is the bottom line: The chances of someone utterly condemning your book because it has a prologue and not reading a word — are very very much smaller than the chances of them skipping or skimming it. What is going to MAKE your book is how good the story is.
Yes, I get it. If no one knows your name, and you’re relying on quick engagement to get them interested, there is a small chance they’ll start with the prologue and get no further because so many authors consider this to be a setting infodump. The key, maybe is that it shouldn’t be? But most readers who are irritated by prologues will just skip it anyway.
Personally, being a detail obsessed monkey of small brain, I enjoy these ‘extras’ both to read and to write. And yes, I read appendices. I think my characters are memorable, but some of my books have large, inter-related casts. I don’t expect my readers to remember just whom is related to whom, especially in series like the Heirs of Alexandria books. Hell, I don’t always, and I spend A LOT more time with the characters than most readers. I feel enough people know who I am to trust there will be a good story there, even if I do have a prologue, glossary, dramatis personae, and a dedication… and they have to skip all of them to get to the good stuff.
But it’s whatever floats your boat. The audience out there is so vast and varied that, really, your problem is more connecting with them at all, than the existence of people who will or won’t read your book because it has a prologue, epilogue etc.
Worry about the story, not the trivial trimmings.
Mad Genius Club 
8 responses to “In the beginning”
My Series-in-Progress starts with a prequel book, which I worry is going to be treated like a prologue-on-steroids. That is, it’s a full-fledged novel, but the hero is 15, and the series proper begins in book 2 with him at 20 (and proceeds slowly from there). Serious objections in the reviews could be enough to derail the entire series, and I don’t want them starting with book 2. It’s not a YA form, just has a hero who starts his career as a sub-adult.
I welcome suggestions on what terminology I could use in the 1st book’s description to be fair (there will be a jump after the 1st book) but reassuring (it’s a good story – you’ll like it).
The current draft description:
Book 1 of The Affinities of Magic.
MAGIC WITHOUT UNDERSTANDING, AND A WIZARD’S GUILD WITH NO MEMBERS.
Young Rush has bent the rules and managed to become an apprentice in wizardry to his uncle, but neither of them is qualified to revive the Torch & Scroll guild, and there is no one else left. Neglected for generations, the mother house is in ruins, soon to be sold off by the Star Watch, the wizards’ council, as the only guild ever to have expired for lack of heirs.
But this clever and deep-thinking young man may have puzzled out some of the fundamental principles underlying all magical practice, and this discovery will change everything, if only Rush can stay alive long enough for his plans to work.
Suggested revision, which you can take or leave: “Apprentice Wizard Rush and his mentor Uncle (Name) seek to revive the (extinct/nearly extinct) Torch & Scroll guild. But the wizard’s council judges the two of them to be unqualified for the task, and plans to sell off the neglected mother house of the Torch & Scroll.
But clever young Rush has made a magical discovery that will change everything, if only Rush can stay alive long enough for his plans to work….”
I had a prologue to the first two books in my series, Red Lights on Silver Mountain Road, and The Changeling, because in both of those, the fantasy elements take a while to get going. I didn’t want anyone to read the first few chapters, assume it was straight mystery, and then wall the book when they found out that the solution was, “It’s magic!” The prologues were a warning: if you don’t like fantasy, read no further.
In my third book, The Harper, I’ll admit that the prologue was pure self-indulgence. I had this mental picture of a god-like being who wanted to hang out in a coffee shop during open mike night, and who didn’t understand why he kept freaking people out (I mean, geez, he didn’t even pull out his harp made from human bones). I wanted to include that scene, and it didn’t fit in the story proper.
For my other books, I haven’t felt the need for a prologue. But that doesn’t mean I’ve sworn off them; they’re another tool in the box, to be pulled out at need.
Yeah, right, nobody will ever read a book with a prologue.
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…”
“Once upon a time there was a Martian named Smith.”
‘The Stars My Destination’ starts with a prologue.
So do ‘Voyage From Yesteryear’ and ‘Code Of The Life-Maker’ by James P. Hogan.
I have a prologue starting of the Adelsverein Trilogy – but it describes the very raw and violent experience of a young Texian soldier surviving the Goliad massacre; so no, not an info dump but setting the story out with a tremendous bang!
I did add some family trees, at my alpha reader’s suggestion, but that’s at the end, along with the historical notes. My wagon-train story does have a list of the eleven wagons of the train, their owners, employees and children. Just to keep everything straight.
If someone’s not going to read a book because it includes a prologue, epilogue, or appendices, all of which can be easily skipped over, they’re looking for excuses to skip reading the book.
It’s easy enough to say “that’s not the kind of book I like.”
I guess it sounds more “literate” to say, “if a book has a prologue, it’s badly written.”
Me being a smartalek, I’d have a Prologue, with the text “The Past.” Then go on to chapter one. *smirks in feline*
Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t . . . doesn’t seem to make any difference. Not that I ever sold anything to a trad publisher, but then it’s been a decade since I last tried.