In a guest post on Jane Friedman’s blog, Tiffany Yates Martin examines why prologues get a bad name. “The advice in the writerly ether concerning prologues is vast and … well, not varied,” she says. “Most of it revolves around telling authors simply, “Don’t.'”
Nonetheless, novels still use them. How do writers get away with it when everyone tells us we shouldn’t? “Like sharks, snakes, or bears, prologues aren’t inherently bad; it just depends on how you encounter them,” Yates Martin says. “A well-drawn, well-used prologue can set a story up and even become a definitive part of it.”
Unfortunately, prologues aren’t always well written. While every bad prologue is bad in its own way, Yates Martin says the main fault is that writers use them as a cheat. Many try to use prologues as a place to world build, providing information that readers don’t need yet and probably won’t enjoy. Some writers use the prologue to preview an exciting part of their novel, often because the opening chapter isn’t so exciting.
There’s also the bait-and-switch, in which the prologue has no direct connection to the story that begins in chapter one, and the rabbit hole, in which the writer goes on at length, causing the reader to wonder if the novel will ever start. Finally, Yates Martin describes the “movie trailer” prologue, where the writer establishes the setting or a mood, or introduces the main characters as though they were reading from a cast list.
Conversely, each of these approaches can work well, if you know how to use them, Yates Martin says. For example, the prologues in Star Wars and Romeo and Juliet work because they are brief, essential, and set up key stakes and conflict. Mystery and horror novels often use the bait-and-switch approach by introducing a character who is killed off by the end of the prologue, igniting the search for who – or what – did it.
“Using a prologue effectively and well means being aware of what makes them work—and what makes them fail,” Yates Martin says. “It’s understanding how to make them essential, intrinsic, and give them a powerful hook and forward momentum; as well as how to meet current reader, genre, and market expectations.”
