Having joined a book club for the first time in my whole
life - and when I say ‘joined’, I mean ‘created’, ‘forced my family members into’
and ‘run like a dictator who gets to choose all the books’ (there are reasons I’ve
never been in a book club before) – we had our first official meeting last
month. It went surprisingly well. We had actual discussion about the actual
book, instead of just drinking wine and chatting about how awful
lockdown is (we met outdoors in a socially distant fashion). There was debate.
There was dissention. There was pretty good Millionaire’s Shortbread.
And then it happened.
Me: I think you were supposed to suspect that she was the
murderer right from the start though.
Cousin: Why?
Me: Well, it was kind of set up in the prologue.
Cousin: Oh, I never read prologues.
Me:
I interrogated her for a further five minutes, sure there
must be some mistake, but no, apparently it’s true. She NEVER READS PROLOGUES. Just
skips them. Just turns the page and starts at chapter 1 like they don’t even exist.
Me: But… but… but… WHY?!
Cousin: Because they always give the plot away and I don’t
want to know.
I then discovered that her ten year old son does exactly the same, for the same reasons! So maybe it's genetic.
I ranted a bit about prologues being part of the book, put
there for good reasons by hardworking authors who know what they’re doing thank
you very much. They set up an atmosphere. They introduce a theme. They hook the
reader in. They do LOADS of stuff.
They also, to be fair, often give away the plot.
I’ve read loads of debates around whether or not you should
use prologues, especially in YA, along the lines of ‘They’ve gone out of
fashion, You can use them but only if they’re absolutely necessary, Agents hate
them, They’re hard to do well, They’re information dumps, They can provide useful
background, Reveal action the MC isn’t involved in, They can be set in the past
or future or from another character’s POV, They foreshadow future events, Introduce
the antagonist, Set up a paradox etc etc etc.
I’ve never heard anyone say, ‘What
if readers just don’t bother reading them?’ But it’s the only argument that
would make me seriously wary about ever using one.
It blows my mind that you’d skip a single word in a book. I’m
not a skim reader. Even for the boring bits. I read the reviews at the start and
the acknowledgements at the end. The idea of skipping a part of the story…?
I mean what if you got right to the end and the entire book didn’t make any
sense because you hadn’t read the prologue!!!
Although, that would never happen, would it? Which suggests
that maybe they’re not actually that necessary at all. We’re told all the time,
‘if you can cut it, cut it’, so why do we use them?
So what do you think? To prologue or not to prologue? Do you
write them? Do you read them? Would you be in a book club (or even a family)
with someone who skips them?
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| Sorry Cuz, it's been great but we're done now |
She is the Children's Writing Fellow for Northern Ireland #CWFNI
She also blogs at The Blank Page
@KMcCaughrain
20 comments:
That's very funny! I always read prologues but never read forewords or introductions until I have read the book, and usually not even then. I also annoy many of my friends by skipping and skimming, but this is a tribute to the writer really, because I do it to find out what happens, which is also the cause of my most annoying habit (to certain people anyway) which is TURNING TO THE END OF THE BOOK TO SEE IF IT ALL TURNS OUT OK.
Hi Paul, my cousin does this too! I can't believe we share genes really.
Interesting... I've only once given a book a prologue, and it's my least-read book (or least-bought, anyway). It's also (I think) one of my most lively and exciting books, and very popular with the few people I know who've read it. I decided on the brief prologue to save time, to give information that my heroine need not then witter on about at length. I still think I was right - but perhaps it should not have been called 'Prologue'? Maybe just a place and date?
NOOO! I can't think which is worse - never to read a prologue or to turn to the end of a book first! (Sorry, Paul!) I had a dear friend - a fellow-writer, who you'd think would know better! - who always turned to the end first, and it drove me nuts! As to prologues, I often use one to give readers a slight clue as to what will happen later in the story, but definitely without giving the game away - what would be the point in that? Such a good blog, Kelly - and it certainly galvanised me into making a comment!
PS I always read prologues too!
Great blog! -- The only time I've written prologues is when a publisher, at the last minute, has demanded that there's a piece at the front to explain or establish something. This piece gets called a prologue. If I'd thought the book needed it, I would have made it part of the book. But that's me as a writer.
As a reader? I'm with Kelly -- if it's there, I'll read it. (Though maybe I'm not as hard-line. I usually skip acknowledgments.)
My Dad, though... He was a great reader, of fiction and non-fiction, and he never read introductions, forepieces or prologues. I think he missed a lot, especially with non-fiction, where you find some interesting nuggets in the introduction.
Hi Ann. Yeah I wonder if you'd even get away with that though. I think readers are so used to prologues now that they're wise to them. Unless it says 'Chapter 1' at the top, they know it's a prologue.
Thanks Lynne. Can't believe people read the end first. I have to cover the bottom of the page with my hand if I know there's a big reveal coming up, to stop myself looking and spoiling it.
Thanks Susan. I do skip introductions and forewards because they totally give the whole story away, especially in classics, where they assume everyone's read it and knows the story. I go back and read them at the end though.
Once you've written a book and published it, your ownership ends. The reader has paid to do what they like with it, including ignoring the prologue and reading the ending first; you can't be precious about it. Although I read prologues, if a book has an over long prologue I won't even buy it. It looks as though the author can't integrate their material properly. I read introductions after I've read the book, too. The intro is generally the last thing written, when the author understands the book, and so it makes sense to read it last, too :-)
Interesting that some don’t read them! I find I often skip short italicised quotes or even dates at the top of chapters ( def was an issue with the Tine Traveller’s Wife- had to go back and look at them to make sense of it!!). Perhaps a lesson for us as writers (as I recently heard while watching Brian Sanderson in his lectures on you tube) not to put anything in prologues or at the start of chapters that it is essential for readers to know!!
As to reading the end... sigh! I was careful in my YA books to avoid obvious give aways on the last page as I know many YA readers do that but for myself, I cannot imagine why you’d want to spoil the story for yourself by doing that as a reader.
Book groups are certainly a good way of finding out more about how differently people read! I will ook at the end if I cannot bear the tension anymore and need to know whether certain characters will still be there on the last pages. That done, I can settle and enjoy the unfolding of the story.
I never read introductions or forewords before reading the book as I like to discover the book and writing myself, but I do expect to read the prologue, because it is part of the whole experience.
In addition, I also ignore, not in any kindly spirit, those endless pages loaded with good comments & reviews by illustrious names - how dare they step into my reading space? - and I get cross with novels that suddenly seem to rush to an end when there's still many pages left: all because an extract from the next book has been sneaked in at the back, disturbing my anticipated rhythm for the final scenes.
THnaks for an interesting post, Kelly, that has raised lots of responses.
Good idea, Linda! You could just put a page of random text from a different book at the end and have the book actually finish several pages earlier! Serve them right.
Thanks Penny, yeah I hate that when they put in a chapter from the next book. I like to know when they end is coming, just not what's going to happen.
This is all so interesting! Just had a look at my book's prologue and, in fact, it is not a prologue at all; it's a very short first chapter which just happens to take place nine years before the one labelled Chapter One. If I ever get to re-publish this book, I'll change that!
Five years - never was any good at maths...
Hindsight, eh!
This was very interesting for me! I have a section of the book I'm writing which is a flashback to something that happened to my MC when she was a small child. One of my beta readers suggested moving it to the front, because she said it's a really powerful scene and would hook the reader in. But I'm hesitant to do so, because it makes it feel like a prologue and I worry that some readers would skip over it.
Thanks Katy! I think it's a tough decision, but I guess you can't please everyone, you just have to do what's best for the story. Maybe if it's not necessary for the story, then it'll feel like a 'gimmick' to the reader. But then again, other readers might love it!
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