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?
 |
| 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
