Ok I am having the ever so popular prologue debate

[nadinbrzezinski]

Yes I know speculative fiction has it from time to time, but I took books off the shelf and realized that
about half of them don't have them

[hiaasenrocks]

1. I think they're unnecessary and actually kind of distracting.

I can't remember which author it was, but I read an interview a couple of years ago in which he was discussing prologues and said that he doesn't write them because he finds himself skipping them when he reads the work of other writers.

I do the same thing. Not sure why, but I do. And it never seems to matter that I did so.

The other thing he said was that you can take a prologue and pretty much drop it anywhere in the book and it will serve its purpose there. That makes sense to me. Prologues, usually consisting of back-story, can appear elsewhere in the book. You're going to write back-story anyway, in other chapters, so forget the prologue. And if your prologue is NOT back-story, just call it Chapter One and get on with the story.

I think most readers, myself included, want to get right into the chapters. There's just something about seeing "Chapter One" that makes it feel like you're getting right down to the story.

[Orrex]

2. Very well-worded!

I would add that if a prologue takes the form of a big, fat infodump, then you're better off omitting it altogether and incorporating the information elsewhere in a less conspicuous form.

Too often, when I read a prologue, it comes across as "stuff I should have written in one the chapters, but forgot. So read it here and get up to speed." Sure, that's not an ironclad description, but it seems accurate as often as not in my experience.

If a prologue is longer than your average chapter, it's too long. If it's as long as a chapter, then make it a chapter. And if it's shorter than a chapter, then work it into one or more other chapters, as appropriate. Again, that's not ironclad, but IMO it's a good rule of thumb.

[sybylla]

3. I agree

I've been having that debate with myself in my present literary project and came to the same conclusions. If it's important information, either there's enough there to build into its own chapter or you need to find a vehicle to incorporate it into the main story.

[petgoat]

4. I disagree. A prologue represents a great way to present a microcosmic teaser,

setting the tone for the whole book in a deft, imagistic
vignette.

[Orrex]

5. Now that I think of it

You make a good point, but in practice I think that prologues are used less as "deft, imagistic vignettes" and more as overlong "establishing shots" to save the writer the trouble of working the details into the story. So-called genre fiction is especially susceptible to this IMO.

However, Cormac McCarthy uses prologues as you've described, and often the style of his prologues differs sharply from the text to follow.

So maybe it boils down to a matter of skillful deployment; a well-crafted prologue is an effective mood-setter, but a prologue written less well will seem tacked on and superfluous.

[hiaasenrocks]

6. Good writing doesn't need a teaser of any sort.

A good first sentence or first paragraph that hooks the reader (in a substantive way, no gimmicks) is much more interesting, in my opinion.

[petgoat]

7. Good point

But a first sentence hook that take off into a
momentum-ful first paragraph or first page is
even better.