Today’s post is by editor Tiffany Yates Martin (@FoxPrintEd).
“Always avoid prologues!”
“Agents hate prologues.”
“Readers won’t read a prologue.”
The advice in the writerly ether concerning prologues is vast and … well, not varied. Most of it revolves around telling authors simply, “Don’t.”
Yet riffle through a handful of books on the shelf at any bookstore and you’re likely to see at least a few prologues—many of them in bestselling books and classics.
So what gives? Is there a cabal of rogue prologuers defying the injunction? A secret password certain authors get that allows them to break this inviolate commandment?
Are prologues okay or aren’t they?
As I say in my book Intuitive Editing, like sharks, snakes, or bears, prologues aren’t inherently bad; it just depends on how you encounter them. A well-drawn, well-used prologue can set a story up and even become a definitive part of it:
“Two households both alike in dignity / In fair Verona, where we lay our scene.”
These first two lines of Shakespeare’s prologue sonnet can only ever evoke the entire story of Romeo and Juliet.
“A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…”
Just these few words in the signature opening crawl of the Star Wars prologue can set fans’ hearts fluttering (ask my obsessed husband).
But prologues have developed their dangerous reputation because often authors fall into one of several common traps in using them that diminish their effectiveness.
Why prologues fail
Like Tolstoy’s unhappy families, each unsuccessful prologue is unsuccessful in its own way, but what they have in common is often that they are used as some form of “cheat”—shortcutting the actual work of storytelling to circumvent potential pitfalls.
This type of prologue abuse can take several forms:
The backstory dump
Authors may use a prologue as a chance to “bring the reader up to speed” on backstory they feel the reader needs to know to understand or invest in the story. This can result in a slow, backward-looking beginning that can fail to hook readers.
As an editor I often suggest that whatever backstory may be essential to set up the story or characters may be more effectively woven in as context as authors plunge readers into the present-moment main story and move the action forward.
The exciting-event preview
Often a result of the writing advice to start en medias res, this type of prologue opens right in the middle of fervid action that may or may not directly relate to where the main story starts. I call this the “Stick with me—I promise it’s going to get good!” prologue—when an author knows his first chapter may not have a strong hook and tries to make up for it by slapping something more exciting in front of it.
This can often take the form of a dramatization of some story event later referred to in the main story, something that happened in a character’s past, or even a “sneak peek” at a high-stakes scene from later in the book that the author randomly sticks at the beginning like a “coming soon” film trailer.
The bait-and-switch
In this type of prologue faux pas, readers are drawn into the story laid out in the prologue, only to start the “real” story in chapter one that seems to bear no direct connection to it. This can feel like an annoying piece of misdirection that may leave readers disconnected from the main story as they busily try to connect the dots, or simply feeling unmoored, uncertain of what the story is actually about.
The preamble/stage setter/dramatis personae
Like the description of settings or list of characters at the beginning of a play, this type of prologue mostly concerns itself with establishing something: a setting, a tone or mood, a world, a key event, a character or characters. Used unskillfully, this can result in a dry, static story opening that lacks a hook or forward momentum, and may have readers bored and putting the book down before they even get started.
The rabbit hole
The reader turns the first page of the prologue…and then another…and another…and another…and before too long they’re paging ahead to see when the story actually begins. The endless prologue risks losing reader engagement, or taking them so far down a path that may not reflect the story they thought they were reading from the description or synopsis that they give up, frustrated.
Prologues that successfully break “the rules”
What can make prologues so maddening is that many of these techniques can actually work very well, used proficiently and according to genre expectations:
- The Star Wars and Romeo and Juliet openings cited above, for instance, are actually backstory dumps—but they follow prologue best practices for creating a strong hook: they’re brief, essential, and set up pivotal story stakes and conflict.
- Mysteries, suspense, and thriller stories often use a seeming “bait-and-switch” opening scene—for instance, a character who meets an untimely demise—to set up the central plot, like the hunt for a serial killer.
- Tolkien commits rampant scene setting, backstory dumping, and rabbit-holing in his Lord of the Rings prologues (he has four!) that establish the Hobbits, their pipe smoking (!!), the Shire, and the Ring, respectively—and in damned lengthy fashion.
Using a prologue effectively and well means being aware of what makes them work—and what makes them fail. It’s understanding how to make them essential, intrinsic, and give them a powerful hook and forward momentum; as well as how to meet current reader, genre, and market expectations.
A prologue can open the door to your story and entice the reader in, or throw up a barrier that delays or prevents their engagement. If you learn to use them deliberately and effectively, there’s no need to fear this potentially powerful tool for your stories.
Tiffany Yates Martin has spent nearly thirty years as an editor in the publishing industry, working with major publishers and New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today bestselling and award-winning authors as well as indie and newer writers. She is the founder of FoxPrint Editorial and author of the bestseller Intuitive Editing: A Creative and Practical Guide to Revising Your Writing. She is a regular contributor to writers’ outlets like Writer’s Digest, Jane Friedman, and Writer Unboxed, and a frequent presenter and keynote speaker for writers’ organizations around the country. Under her pen name, Phoebe Fox, she is the author of six novels. Visit her at www.foxprinteditorial.com.
Good summary of how many ways prologues fail.
I’ve always thought the reason to use a prologue is that all your skill in finding the best starting place (and that’s a major skill to develop) concludes that the story should begin with a contrast of two beginnings. That means the prologue’s got a first-page-worthy hook (even if it’s just providing one fun bit of information quickly), and yet it shouldn’t be the proper, flowing start that’s Chapter One — and yet that One won’t be as good without seeing the prologue first either. It’s a tricky, tricky balance, but when you’ve actually got that situation a good prologue does let you do it all.
Hi, Ken! Great point–I’m actually a fan of a well-executed prologue, and that contrast can be one reason: It can serve as a powerful setup for a story, an unexpected amuse-bouche that whets readers’ appetites. 🙂 Like so many other types of prologues, it can go awry, but so much of what makes a prologue effective (or not) is delicate…and subjective. Thanks for your comment.
Thanks for the great post, Tiffany. I’ll be sharing it with my clients! I get asked this a lot, and I think about half of my 20+ novels use prologues. I really like artfully using them in a cinematic fashion as a teaser (I was raised in television, reading scripts, and it’s a typical frame structure for episodic TV).
Susanne! Nice to see you on here. I so agree–I really do love a well-used prologue; I think it can add a lot. I also analyze them in movies and TV; they can be so effective when they’re good. (Although did you see the “cheat” one in the recent movie Uncharted?) Thanks for sharing–and for the comment!
A useful guide to why prologues fail, but less so for the rules of success.
The opening to A New Hope was successful because it was original, unexpected and became a promise of high adventure for the Star Wars brand. The lengthy opening crawl for The Phantom Menace undermined that promise: it raised chuckles or groans and (rightly) lowered expectations. LOTR’s prologues were daringly original in their day, setting an expectation of epic scale that allowed Tolkien to focus his story on ordinary characters called to heroism.
The problem for any SFF author is that prologues have become a trope overshadowed by these examples. Some readers love ’em, others will roll their eyes unless they’re doing something original with the form.
As a writer, I think they’re OK for first drafts when you need a place to start, but they shouldn’t make the final draft unless your story can’t be told any other way.
You make the great point that reader and genre expectations evolve, Alex–the lengthy prologues of old would likely not fly today in our shortened-attention-span environment. And there’s definitely a trope trap.
Using a prologue as a drafting tool is a great suggestion. I’m not of the “no prologues allowed” school at all, so I don’t know that they always need to be excised in revision, but I agree with the idea that they’re often a pitfall, and the bar for including one should be pretty high.
I’ll be going into ways to determine what makes for an effective prologue in my upcoming class with Jane, “Powerful Prologues,” Nov. 30. Thanks for your perspective!
From what I’ve seen it seems to have more to do with agent/editor injunctions than reader distaste–but I do think that much of that comes about from unskillfully used prologues (which can leave readers cold as well). Like everything in art, it’s subjective! Thanks for the comment, Raymond.