Prologues?

[ShotokanXL]

When writing a story set on an alternate Earth where one event in history played out differently than in our world, how is it best to get this across to the reader? Is it acceptable to write an account of what happened and present it as a prologue, or is it better to simply jump in at the story's "present" time and just drip-feed the information to the reader as the narrative unfolds?

Essentially, there is a catastrophe in my alternate version of events that changes the world as we would know it. The story is set 51 years after this event (what would be 2059 to us).

Would it be feasible/acceptable to give an account of this catastrophe? Perhaps written from the point of view of a survivor or witness at the time of its occurrence?

If it were a film it would be the sort of thing where you get a block of text on screen accompanied by a Morgan Freeman voice over (or James Earl Jones if he were available...) but I'm not writing a screenplay so I was wondering how it is best to approach it.

What do you think?

 

[Jo Zebedee]

They're risky because agents dislike them and might not read past. Tbh, when I'be dropped them I mostly fit the story in somewhere easily enough, although I'be kept some too when I''ve thought they're needed. Depends how essential it is....

 

[Hex]

I think jump into present time and let the reader find out from the thoughts/ reactions of your characters.

re the prologue -- I wonder why you'd need one, really. Does the reader have to know exactly what happened right from the start? I think it would be best to feed the information in slowly (you could even feed it in explicitly -- "since the worldwide chicken crisis of 2008, no one had been able to enter the building, which was stuffed with beaks and feathers...").

Diana Wynne Jones has several alternative world stories, but the one that leaps to mind is Witch Week where we only discover towards the end that we're in an alternative universe and what happened to divide them.

 

[ShotokanXL]

I think jump into present time and let the reader find out from the thoughts/ reactions of your characters.

re the prologue -- I wonder why you'd need one, really. Does the reader have to know exactly what happened right from the start? I think it would be best to feed the information in slowly (you could even feed it in explicitly -- "since the worldwide chicken crisis of 2008, no one had been able to enter the building, which was stuffed with beaks and feathers...").

Diana Wynne Jones has several alternative world stories, but the one that leaps to mind is Witch Week where we only discover towards the end that we're in an alternative universe and what happened to divide them.

Worldwide Chicken Crisis... the Day the World Got Clucked...

 

[ShotokanXL]

Yeah, I've already written most of first draft it and haven't included a "previously on..." opening. I'll stick with the drip-feed method.

 

[Venusian Broon]

Sticking with the subject of prologues...

If, say, you had written your work with a prologue and epilogue, and assuming they could be easily detached and left on one side, would it be acceptable to try and sell your work (without these bookends) to agents or publishers, which if you get a positive response that looked like you might be going into a working relationship you could say, "You know, I have this prologue/epilogue that I wrote for it, do you want to have a look and see if it fits?".

Or is that sort of behaviour worthy of a slap and should not be attempted?

I presume there would be a number of suggestions of changes to be made from their side in terms of chapters to alter remove, or add so I'm thinking it isn't too bad.

Before you get back to me and say, 'well, if they can be removed that easily in the first place, then they probably shouldn't be there at all.' Fair point and it is something that I am struggling with (on the plus side it would be the easiest 3k word cut I've done with the manuscript, and I'd really quite enjoy doing that!) However I am quite clear what their purpose is (they are not chapters that can in anyway be put into the main text nor can the information I give in them be given in the main - but they interact and shed some light on what had happened...)

I shall get more feedback on it from beta's to see if it works before deciding...

 

[Brian G Turner]

The problem with prologues is that they are too often used as nothing more than a way to infodump to explain something of the background to readers. So if your prologue exists, not to tell an important story, but instead, to get information across, then you're probably better off slipping that information into the general narrative.

 

[Venusian Broon]

The problem with prologues is that they are too often used as nothing more than a way to infodump to explain something of the background to readers. So if your prologue exists, not to tell an important story, but instead, to get information across, then you're probably better off slipping that information into the general narrative.

I agree...but what I've written is definitely not an infodump - more of a weird framing story, cut in half and surrounding the main text. Anyway, like I said: if it had to go, it'd go.

 

[ShotokanXL]

The problem with prologues is that they are too often used as nothing more than a way to infodump to explain something of the background to readers. So if your prologue exists, not to tell an important story, but instead, to get information across, then you're probably better off slipping that information into the general narrative.

Yeah, I'm of the mind that I'll just drop in bits of history during the narrative. Cheers!

 

[MatterSack]

I'm honestly of the opinion that a well-placed prologue or introductory page (some basic ground rules in other words) can do wonders. Sometimes the angst from 'showers' is outweighed by the utility of immediate exposition.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I think it depends what you want with your book. (And please bear in mind I have a prologue, so I'm not anti-them...) if you want to self-pub, do what you like. It you want to go down the agent/trad publisher route, then google literary agents and prologues and take your pick. Here's one that sums it up:

http://www.floggingthequill.com/flo...-or-not-to-prologue-that-is-the-question.html

The bottom line is if you submit with a prologue you immediately cut your chances. Not because agents hate prologues but because they see them a lot, often as a reason for putting in backstory which is a key story telling skill - back storying without info dumping. They also have to start the story twice, usually in a different voice, and they only have a few pages to make up their minds if you're for them, so you're doubling their work (which is one of the reasons I cut one ofmy prologues, even though the book wasn't improved without it.)

So, it's not about what we as readers think, unless you're self-pubbing, but what the industry thinks. And they think it's a risk, usually unnecessary and often a sign of a less confident writer.

 

[The Bravest Newbie]

I think you should skip the prologue and just drip feed into the story. Everyone else has made a good point about how the prologue is usually an info dump and I concur. It would be more attractive to an agent if you started the story in the present and immediately showed what the world is like after the disaster, then slowly built the up the disaster through little details.

 

[tinkerdan]

The reason I'd stay away from prologues is that most of the good ones I've read could have as easily been the first chapter. Then writing the Prologue seems to beg for an Epilogue. Some but not all epilogues seem to be written because the author doesn't trust the reader to understand the point of the plot in the real story so here's my five page explanation. And when that becomes evident then you look at the Prologue and realize again that the author didn't trust that you would understand something so here's a hint.

On the other hand I've seen a few that seemed to have nothing to do with the story, which clearly demonstrated that I really was too dense to understand the plot.

 

[paranoid marvin]

You see them in films often because they're only 90 minutes long; with a book you have far more time to do this. Ask yourself if everything that you are going to put into the prologue is essential to the plot; I'm guess 90% of it isn't. The rest you can fill in during the story. It's good to have a sense of wonder when you're reading; get us guessing as to why the streets are empty, or the city is in ruins. Nineteen Eighty Four starts with a world that is completely alien to the reader (or at least was); with no prologue we learn much about the world in which Winston lives, but there is still plenty left to speculate about and that's one of the reasons why the story is so memorable.

I'm not saying that having a prologue is bad - I actually quite like the idea - but it certainly isn't necessary,

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I think it depends on whether the prologue reads like an infodump or like an exciting chapter full of action, peril, and tension, told from the viewpoint of someone who was there. If the former, I'd avoid it. If the latter, you'd be showing things you would have to tell if you waited until later (unless you use flashbacks), and that may be desirable. Drip feeding is good, but even something very short can read like an infodump if it looks like it has been dropped into the scene, and sometimes readers would rather see some of the most exciting things that happened in the past rather than be told about them. And maybe your Prologue will turn out to be longer than a chapter and end up being Part I instead. I think you should write it and find out. You can always drop it later.

So it all depends. I think an agent would be able to tell pretty quickly whether you have written an infodumpy prologue or something urgent and immediate.

 

[paranoid marvin]

Another option is to start your story in 2008, maybe for a chapter, which helps to set the scene for what is to come. Then have a '51 years later...'

I'm not sure how popular this would be as far as punlishers or agents are concerned, but for your story it's another angle to consider.

 

[Toby Frost]

Why not just have a short first chapter? That's what I've done in the WIP (which is no guarantee that it actually works). Hero is riding - hero is shot - hero evades his pursuers and crawls into forest - hero realises he's being watched and passes out. The only problem is that he has to come back into the story, but hopefully he's started off in an exciting way, and the longer conversations can come as he meets the creature that saved him and convalesces.

In terms of alternate history, I read the whole of Fatherland and The Man in the High Castle without really knowing what the point of divergence was, and I'm still not entirely sure. It had no detrimental effect to the books at all, as far as I'm concerned. On the other hand, I thought that one of the weakest bits of The Peshawar Lancers was the section where the explanation was crowbarred into the text.