The purpose of a prologue
Filed under Trends & Tropes on January 9, 2007
Tagged: Maiden of Pain, prologues, Robert Jordan, Shattered Amulet, Wheel of Time
Prologues are developing into a pet peeve of mine. I’m reading Knife of Dreams, and Jordan once again starts off with a 100-page prologue. Why wasn’t this a chapter?
Somewhere along the line, I came up with a pretty specific definition of what a prologue was. It is not based on any dictionary definition, as the ones I’ve found are vague. The purpose of the prologue is to provide a historical (i.e., before the actual events depicted in the story) set up for the main plot of the book, but should not directly involve the protagonist. My reason for this qualifier is that any historical event that directly involves the protagonist is better served through a flashback juxtaposed with the relevant current event.
Most of Jordan’s WoT prologues do not fit this definition. I can remember one that depicted Lews Therin’s breaking of the world, but the others simply continue the story from where the last book left off.
Another pitfall that writers fall into is turning the prologue into a dumping ground for backstory on the world. I did this myself with Maiden and the origin of Saestra Karanok. Instead of weaving the depth and richness of the world into the story, the writer crams it all into the beginning and promptly forgets it. Prologues set an expectation for the reader that the information revealed will have significant relevance later on in the story. Fail to do this and you let the reader down.
I originally included a prologue in Shattered Amulet, but turned it into chapter one in this latest draft. The content would still qualify as a prologue by my definition, but I’m just tired of the convention at this point. And recent comments by Miss Snark make me wonder why I would want to include one in the first place.
What do you think belongs in a prologue?
January 10th, 2007 at 2:59 am
I liked Maiden of Pain a lot, once we got to Ythnel’s story, but yeah, to be honest, for the amount of information that went into the prologue and the first few chapters, i kinda expected more to come of it. Don’t get me wrong, the story itself was excellent, but I did wonder where the previous stuff was going to come in.
My definition of prologue is pretty much the same. It contains an event significant to the plot, but not directly involving the antagonist. An example would be the book I just finished reading, Eragon. Now, I don’t _like_ this book, I think it’s badly written, especially the prologue, but the use of prologue wasn’t handled as badly. In this case, elves are transporting a dragon egg, they get ambushed, they magically teleport it away. This sets up the means by which the hero then finds it, but because it’s a prologue, the reader doesn’t expect those events to come into play anytime soon.
Similarly, the Lost Library of Cormanthyr from Forgotten Realms has a prologue in which ships carry treasure, and then are sunk by a storm. Which sets up the quest that forms the plot. however, this book commits what I consider a sin of prologues: It’s a little too long, and it’s much too vague. It ends with the focal character agreeing to or calling on some bizarre treaty that is not explained, and then is magically changed into something ’stronger, but weaker as well’, or something along those lines. This is never properly explained, nor is the author’s word choice expanded on. There is a fairly direct hint when the lich (or whatever) guarding the remains of the library calls on some pact to help retrieve the stuff lost at sea. The pact summons whales. I found that confusing, if not a let down.
So yeah, I guess I feel that what belongs in a prologue should be self-contained as much as possible, self explanatory as much as possible, and it should be significant to the story, but not directly involved.
January 10th, 2007 at 1:29 pm
Yeah, I saw that post on Miss Snark’s blog too. I have to say I disagree with her when she implies all prologues are bad (even though patrick nielsen hayden chimed in with her). I say, bad prologues are bad.
For example, authorial info dumps. “In the land of middle earth, bad things happened like this. Then other bad things happened, until finally a good thing happened, but it was quickly smitted from the land by another bad thing. This bad thing then went to sleep and will stay asleep until someone in the future wakes it up.”
Some of my favorite books have prologues that acted as hooks. I read the prologue to A Game of Thrones while standing in the bookstore (never having heard of it in 1997) and then bought the book. The prologues in Jordan’s first few books were good (with the one from the second book being a favorite). Those prologues worked because they gave the reader a glimpse of things that happen off stage from the main character(s). These can be in the distant past or just across the continent. I completely agree that now Jordan uses his prologues now just to progress his legion of sub-minor-sub plots that took over the series.
Of course the challenge as writers is determining whether our prologues are the good or bad kind… And whether they serve as a better hook than chapter one (in terms of which to send to agents, etc).
January 16th, 2007 at 9:28 am
I tend to agree with your definition of a prologue. The more I write, the more expansive I get about different techniques I might use, but generally it remains the same: the prologue is meant to 1) set the tone of the novel, 2) provide context for the novel, and 3) hook the reader into the novel.
That’s not to say that all that can’t be done with the first chapter, either, except possibly (2) — sometimes, it’s difficult to establish context from multiple frames of reference when you dive right into the main narrative. If, on the other hand, your first chapter is indirectly related to the main narrative, then how is that different from a prologue?
Books that are told in first person tend not to require (or even allow for) prologues. The simplest reason being that prologues involve at least a degree of separation from the main narrative that first person doesn’t allow. Dream sequences can be effective prologues, or the “I’m the person who discovered this diary of this crazed hush puppy collector — read if you dare!” sort of prologues.
It just depends on the demands of the individual novel.
My 2 cents!
Cheers
April 7th, 2009 at 6:04 am
[...] first chapters of your fantasy fiction novel cataloging the 1000-year history of your world. Or the prologue, either. That should really be woven into the story, revealed to the reader at relevant points in [...]