Prologues

[Stratadrake]

I did some thinking today about prologues. Who uses them? Do you set the stage for the reader before you start the story going, or do you just drop the reader in to chapter 1 and fill in all the details as you go along?

And what are the ways to categorize a prologue? There are several -- here's a description for the ones I can think of:

[b]The Dream Sequence[/b]. This is where the events that take place in a prologue have little or no bearing on the overall story. They just set the stage to introduce the story with.

[b]Cosmology.[/b] "In the beginning, there was..." and yadda yadda, you know the rest, right? Like the Silmarillion, this type of prologue starts the story by giving the reader a sense of how the universe and world are built. It can work well for the more 'ethereal' style of stories, but as it doesn't have much to relate to the plot with, it can too easily become boring (and then some) for the reader.

[b]World History.[/b] "A long time ago...", before there was the story, there was [i]history[/i]. When politics, tradition, or legends are important, a world-history prologue can be a good quick 411 to tell the reader what they need to know. This can be especially tasty if the world's history involves some sort of major crisis that was never fully resolved, and thus sets the stage and course for the story. But like the cosmology style of prologue, this too can get boring.

[b]Recent Events.[/b] "It is a time of civil war." Like a 'Chapter Zero', this style of prologu frames the opening chapter by describing, witnessing, or recounting some important event(s) that happened earlier, like within the last generation or so. You might recognize some faces or characters between the prologue and actual story, or you might not.

[b]Chapter Zero.[/b] This kind of prologue is not much different from a normal chapter. The main difference is in the exposition and description, perhaps in the form of dropping little pieces of 'omniscient' type information that helps set the scene, even though the characters themselves take it for granted. Take the opening sequence of the Matrix, for example. Trinity talking to Cypher about "The One", then she fights off the police and narrowly escapes from an Agent. This is 'prologue' material because the Matrix (the first movie, at least) is really about Neo, and Neo isn't introduced until the next morning.

[b]Future Tense.[/b] Sometimes the Prologue is a sequence that happens later on, perhaps halfway through the story when character development is underway and the climax is nigh. Give the reader a taste of the conflict to come, then show them what leads up to it, then continue with the scene and climax. But be warned: this can also be rightly called the "bait and switch" prologue.

[b]Retrospective.[/b] Like the future tense style prologue, but set even farther down the line, past the climax in fact. This sort of Prologue opens with one of the characters reflecting on the story, but only hinting at the events which took place, then proceeds to tell the whole story. You start at the end without realizing it, then proceed on a trip through the history of the plot, and when you end, you're right back where you started, only you know what made it happen. But you do have to be careful of which character is doing the recollection. There's an implicit rule that whichever character is reflecting on the story is one that actually [i]survived[/i] the plot -- otherwise they wouldn't be there to reflect on it, right?



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[Jailcrow_of_Mandos]

Hey, this is some really interesting work you did =) I almost always use a prologue. I think it helps to slowly settle the reader into the story, give them something to go on. Even if a chapter isn't called a prologue, it often has very similar qualities, and I don't know how you could really begin a story without that. There are some novels, of course, that begin with dialogue, but I've been told this is a big no no and indeed, it isn't very captivating or informative unless a lot of description and explanation comes directly after it.

After writing a detailed sci-fi/fantasy, I found it much easier to use a prologue sort of format before each chapter and then go from there. I was surprised to find that a lot of science fiction novels use the same format because the characters and settings are so odd. [i]The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy[/i] uses that most noticeably and even has entirely separate explanation chapters. It's just too tedious and involves way too many commas to explain as you go in that genre!

I think I'll have to come back to this now and then when I write- actually seems rather useful, too ^^

[Kickassgirl]

I tend to use the future tense or World history prologue. The furture tense is nice just for the fact that you can show an interesting scene, make the reader [size=18]think[/size] they know what's going to happen, then lead up to it and twist it a little so that they get something different and unexpected. Like in the movie "Bandits", in the begining,you think they're all trying to kill each other. When actually, it was just a distraction for the police. I really haven't even tried to do a story without a prologue recently. Every time I tried to, it just never went any where.