Saturday 20 October 2018

Writing/Reading Prologues - Joan Lennon

Recently I came across an article by Casimir Stone titled Tips for Nailing Your Novel's Prologue.  I had just finished writing a draft of one for my work-in-progress and was having doubts.  Do I like prologues in general?  Do I like this prologue specifically?  Do I even like this work-in-progress any more? 


Leonid Pasternak (1862-1945) The Passion of Creation
wiki commons
(aka "Prologue?  No prologue?")

Writers - what do you think?  Do you write prologues or avoid them like the plague?

Readers - how about you?  Do prologues intrigue or irritate?

And after reading Casimir Stone's article with extreme interest, is my own prologue getting the boot or is it here to stay?  Well, I've come down on the side of keeping it.  Will my agent agree?  That remains to be seen ...


Joan Lennon's website.
Joan Lennon's blog.
Walking Mountain.

7 comments:

Pippa Goodhart said...

As a reader I generally don't like them. They feel like a false start. They feel as if they are making up for the lack of a good story start proper. I don't like quotes or poems at the start of a book either because they feel like hard work, and when I make the effort I often don't 'get' them. They'd make better sense at the end of the book, once we know what it is under consideration.
As a writer I've added a prologue twice -
- once a single page of scene setting which the publisher asked to be added, and which I rather regret.
- and once to set a sub-plot game going that was a sort of extra for anybody who wanted, but could happily ignored.

Enid Richemont said...

I put a short quotation at the beginning of THE GAME because I felt it was necessary, and still do.

Hilary Hawkes said...

I think prologues are something many writers can really like doing but readers aren't always so keen on them. As a reader I'm fine with prologues if they are short and feel like the start of the story, if that makes sense. I've been told by editors and a past agent that children don't read prologues. I'm not sure if that's always true. My own children didn't have any problems with them. As a writer so far I've never written prologues but I'm writing older MG now and so have wondered about this myself. If I did include one I would keep it short, a page at most I think, and it would have to be there because it added to the start in a better way than weaving the info in later. It must be difficult to get right. Good luck with the book :)

Ann Turnbull said...

I am generally against them, and, more importantly, I think they are out of fashion. I've only once written a prologue, and if I ever get the rights back and re-publish that book I will almost certainly remove it and weave the information in later. I doubt whether the prologue was the reason why the book failed to sell but, unless a prologue reveals something dramatic, it does tend to give the book a more leisurely feel, and that is not what publishers are looking for these days!

Unlike Pippa, I rather like quotes and poems. They intrigue me, especially if they are in languages I can't read (i.e. everything except O Level French); my husband dislikes them because they make him feel inferior. So they seem a bit risky and perhaps elitist.

Joan Lennon said...

Thank you for your comments!

Sue Purkiss said...

I think a lot of people probably skip prologues, unless they're very, very short. But a short, puchy, dramatic one can surely hook people in, not put them off. And if the world you're writing about is a very different one, a short prologue may be helpful - take Star Wars, for example. (Though with that, I always felt as if I was chasing the words as they disappeared over the horizon!) But I like a quote or a poem - though it often makes more sense after you've read the book. But that's no problem - if I read a book and really enjoy it, I lap up anything that tells me more about it, whether it's at the front or the back.

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