: Re: How long can a prologue be, and what should you not do? A while back I wrote a prologue about the beginning of time and space and all that. One thing I noticed later is that between the

Prologues are good for the author's purposes (fleshing out your backstory), but consider whether the reader needs to know it.

Many agents and publishers immediately throw a manuscript aside when they see the word "prologue" at the opening. This is because quite often, what we write in a prologue is actually backstory that is more for the author's sake than the readers. I have a friend who wrote nearly 500,000 words of backstory. He could have included a lot of it in a prologue, but he opted not to because it isn't something the readers need to know. Unless the prologue is absolutely, completely critical to the story and nothing would make sense unless it's included, it might be better to cut it.

If you do need a prologue - for instance to show something that happens outside of your protagonist's point of view - it should be written with great care. Make it as short as possible to get your point across. If your prologue is longer than an average chapter in your book, that's a red flag. If your prologue is a couple thousand words of essential information, that's ok. (Just name it something other than 'prologue' so an agent/publisher doesn't skip your manuscript.)

Load Full (0)

: Where can I get/generate a custom font? One reading Harry Potter (and I'm sure they are in other books as well) will notice that J. K. Rowling utilizes several custom fonts, most commonly in

@Cugini967

Load Full 1 Comments

: Where does the power granted by a theme come from? A novel that has a theme - that is, something to say, a message - has a weight to it that a novel without a theme cannot achieve. I'm

@Cugini967

Load Full 5 Comments

: Empires Rise and Fall, People Come and Go I've got this sense that everything on earth and the universe will eventually decay or end. It may take seconds, hours, years or even billion of years.

@Cugini967

Load Full 2 Comments

: What's the most natural way to show a passage of time between the prologue and chapter one? In my current novel, the protagonist is driven forward throughout the plot by events that happened

: Re: How long can a prologue be, and what should you not do? A while back I wrote a prologue about the beginning of time and space and all that. One thing I noticed later is that between the

More posts by @Cugini967

: Where can I get/generate a custom font? One reading Harry Potter (and I'm sure they are in other books as well) will notice that J. K. Rowling utilizes several custom fonts, most commonly in

: Where does the power granted by a theme come from? A novel that has a theme - that is, something to say, a message - has a weight to it that a novel without a theme cannot achieve. I'm

: Empires Rise and Fall, People Come and Go I've got this sense that everything on earth and the universe will eventually decay or end. It may take seconds, hours, years or even billion of years.

: What's the most natural way to show a passage of time between the prologue and chapter one? In my current novel, the protagonist is driven forward throughout the plot by events that happened

Login to post a comment!

0 Comments

Back to top