Your
journey as a writer will lead you into the orbit of many other wordsmiths, and
by now you may have realized how important it is to learn from the Ancient
Graybeards, from She-who-has-her-shit-together, and let us not forget, The
Published One. However, every now and then advice that is common among the
almost-pros will turn out to be meaningless swill, peddled in the format of
listicle blog posts aimed at self-conscious, young writers (all inferior to
this listicle blog post aimed at way
cooler young writers, rest assured, dear reader).
The
swill I intend to excoriate today is the “damn the prologue!” fever gripping
writerly circles.
It
happens the same way again and again. Some neonate author will plunge into the
vast nest of cats, caffeine, and self-obsession that is a writer’s group and
ask whether their intro (almost invariably a prologue) “works,” by which they
actually mean, “Praise me and tell me I’m good, the same as my mother does.”
I
always cringe, waiting in silence as the respectable types in their dark hoods
look up from the freshly feasted-over dreams of the last writer whose work they
stripped dry. They swarm to the youngster. “No, no, NO,” they rationally explain,
“Do you want the spray bottle or the newspaper? No prologues. NO. PROLOGUES.”
Today
I pick at the thread of conventional wisdom and seek to unravel the dark robes
of the Prologue Haters. What I reveal beneath is the fetishization of “Do Not”
checklists and confusion over what the device actually does.
Here
is my checklist: The six major myths and realities of prologues.
MYTH
#1:
If
you want to be a Grown-Up Writer, you should listen to “Do Not” checklists that
condemn prologues and other storytelling tools.
REALITY:
This
is the worst possible way to improve your writing.
“Do
Not” checklists are the empty calories of the writing-advice world—and I’m
bitter because they get more clicks than I do. If you want people to read your
blog post, write a “Do Not” checklist. It either validates or angers young
authors, and they will share it with their friends either way.
In
short, these articles rarely rise above the function of masturbatory aids for
your ego.
You’ll
never get better by avoiding things. Write them, assess whether they worked,
and if they did not, then just rewrite
them.
Why
are you so terrified of mistakes? Don’t write like it’s a minefield. The
English language contains over a million words, writers employ hundreds of
literary devices, and there are over 20,000 tropes. It’s not a
minefield, it’s a diamond mine. Write like it’s a dance floor and you know one
million moves. Somewhere in there, there are moves that will make your
defenseless readers feel something, think something, or want something.
Stop
avoiding. Take risks. This isn’t medicine, and you get as many do-overs as you
need. Never stop taking risks. I broke
three “Do Not” rules in the opening sequence of my latest work-in-progress. I
only wish I’d broken seven.
MYTH
#2:
“Don’t
call it a prologue—just label it ‘Chapter One.’”
REALITY:
The
number one argument employed by Prologue Haters is that you don’t need
them—typically followed with, “At least, not if you’re a good writer, like moi.”
If
what you’re saying is so important, they might add, “just label it Chapter
One.” This is a statement bereft of understanding.
A
prologue is like punctuation for your chapters. A period gives you pause and
notes a transition to the next thought. Prologues are the same thing for
chapter structure—a transitioning
device.
Consider:
When you see the word “Prologue,” you know that you are reading something that
is apart from the main work. There will be a barrier between the prologue and
Chapter One—some type of significant break, change in narrative or character,
or shift in trajectory.
The
two most important pieces in the anatomy of a prologue are the break between it
and Chapter One—which can mark some of the sharpest transitions in
literature—and the word “PROLOGUE” at the start, which informs the reader what
to expect ahead, in exactly the way “appetizer” informs the diner that there is
more (and different) to come. Alerting the reader to that forthcoming break is
what makes a prologue different from Chapter One.
People
blame prologues for employing false protagonists. This is nonsense. If you read
a prologue about a character and are SHOCKED that this character might not turn
out to be the protagonist*, then you’re too dim to be reading anyway. Go watch
TLC**. The whole point of the device is to note that “this is what comes before
the story, so be prepared for us to shift gears.”
Prologues
and first chapters are not
interchangeable. Learn what prologues do before you use them—but for the love
of the Inklings, try to learn what they do before you give bad advice regarding them.
*--If you're not shocked, but just upset because you bonded to the character in the prologue, then you're fine and the author is probably a dick. And also probably me. (Thanks for pointing that out to me, Amanda.)
**--Don't actually do this. TLC will just make it worse.
MYTH
#3:
“You
never actually need a prologue.”
REALITY:
It’s
not about “need.” Good writers don’t set impossible standards for a device,
such as, “Can I think of any way to do this without the prologue?” They ask,
“What is the advantage to a prologue? What is the disadvantage? Now, with my
audience in mind, is it a better story
with or without the prologue?”
Like
short chapter breaks, or first-person perspective, or non-linear narratives,
they have both strengths and weaknesses. A lot of writing is about managing
tradeoffs between the strengths and weaknesses of various devices. We’ve talked
about how prologues are great at making transitions, so now let’s talk about
their downsides.
Why some people hate them:
Prologues are strong for the same reason they are weak. They are the beginning
of a story that is different from the story. Some folks just want you to get to
the point. Never mind the anticipation of a four-course meal, they want their
cheeseburger right now, goddamnit.
And
hey, sometimes I want my cheeseburger right now goddamnit, too. There’s nothing
wrong with that.
But
when people issue a Fatwa on appetizers, some of us are ready to draw blood on
behalf of our cheese sticks, thanks.
Why prologues fail:
Prologues fail when they are used for the sake of establishing things that you
don’t need a sharp transition to establish.
The
number one complaint is when prologues are used to “infodump.” It’s difficult
to find successful prologues in literature that are solely infodumps—Tolkien’s
“The Hobbit” is the best I could come up with, and he may have needed it
because Fantasy wasn’t a well-established genre with reading rules until he
came along. So it’s safe to say you need to do more than infodump.
But
there’s also a whole world of effective transitions for you to exploit. Some
people like them purely for the sharp contrast—introduce a character in the prologue
before they were broken and cynical, and then in Chapter One reveal who they
have become. The huge gap between the character’s past and present that the
writer has created can catapult the drama forward in a way that “seeding” the
protagonist’s back story could not.
Whether
they do character, setting, or plot work, prologues create an “establishing
shot” that can be contrasted to or used to condition what is happening in
Chapter One. For writers who love to employ stark contrasts and sudden
transitions, it’s a powerful tool.
Good
writers use prologues to heighten the narrative. They accept that it makes for
a slower start, but if the appetizer is delicious enough, they know most of
their readers will hang through and then love them for it.
MYTH
#4:
“No
one reads prologues.”
REALITY:
Nearly
everyone reads prologues.
This
is the part where the Prologue Haters try to validate their opinion through
cynicism. If you can’t convince them it’s bad art, convince them it’s bad
marketing. I’ve seen it come off as
nearly a veiled threat, as if to say, “Yes, it’s a matter of taste—but if you
don’t change your taste, then you won’t sell.”
I
don’t buy it for a minute. It doesn’t pass even a preliminary smell test, since
tens of thousands of books use prologues, and they continue to be used by
talented authors. If no one reads them, why are there so many? Second, I have
never heard someone complain about prologues unless they are writers who read a lot of bitching from agents.
Prologues are mostly a weird agent hang-up, because they get so many bad ones.
I
cannot think of a more cynical, less interesting writer than the one who takes
seriously the bitchings of professional agents. The whole reason agents exist
is to tell crappy writers “no.” While a
talented agent will know a good story when they see it, they have far fewer
productive things to say about what authors should write, or else they would be
writers and not agents.
But
hey, you know what’s great about a cynical point like this? It’s an empirical
question. We can answer it through the magic of surveys. As best I can tell,
it’s been answered already here, here, and here (and a hat tip to J. Scott Savage). Would I like a larger sample size and a more randomized draw?
Sure. But it’s the best data I’ve seen, and it confirms my commonsense
intuition.
Namely,
the percentage of people who usually or always skip prologues ranges from
between about 5 and 16 percent. That means the overwhelming majority—about 85 percent
or more at the lowest—are reading prologues. Moreover, the survey that offered the
best question methodology (the widest range of frequencies for prologue reading,
and written in the most neutral fashion) is the one that shows 95 percent of
people will read a prologue at least some of the time.
If
you know anything about the percentage of people who start and then never
finish books, you’ll realize that people are more likely to read your prologue
than your epilogue.
If
you can’t tell, this is the moment in my listicle in which I drop the mic.
(And
then pick it up again, because I’ll not only kick a man when he’s down, I’ll
kick him until I’m out of breath).
MYTH
#5:
“But
AGENTS won’t read your prologue.”
REALITY:
No,
agents will not black list you because of your prologue. They will cast it a
critical eye because they do get a lot of bad ones, or at least so says David Powers King—a fine, sweet gentleman kind enough to interview some agents on
Twitter (seriously, he appears to be one of the internet’s most jovial writers).
According
to King’s Twitter exchange, the important thing agents are looking for is that
you used the prologue correctly. That’s all. That’s everything.
Agents
want to read the best thing you can produce. Yes, crappy writers do more
prologues than the professionals, but professionals still write an awful lot of
them.
If
you’re super worried you’ll get the brush-off for a prologue, just send them
Chapter One instead, and include the prologue when they ask for the full
manuscript. Or whatever. I know a lot about writing, but I admit, my
relationship with the marketing side of the business is roughly what you would
expect from someone who publicly derides “bitching” from agents.
MYTH
#6:
“I’m
just expressing my harmless opinion about prologues!”
REALITY:
You’re
spreading misinformation that percolated out of the frustrations shared by a
few agents, and which don’t reflect readers at all. You are also backhandedly
insulting a shit ton of talented writers by claiming prologues aren’t something
“good authors” do.
Prologue
Hate is a massive misunderstanding wrapped in a humblebrag. A few agents griped
about wanting more writers to get right to the story, and now it’s taken as
Gospel that there’s nothing worthwhile in the device. And that Herculean leap
of logic is perpetrated by almost-pros who want to give worldly-sounding advice
to novice authors. It’s an attempt to say, “Look at me, I don’t make this
common mistake that the riffraff make. Be like me.”
Prologues
aren’t a mistake. They’re a device. As a writer, you are responsible for
knowing the tools in your toolbox. If your story calls for one, then damn the haters—full speed ahead, and
write the prologue.
