: Re: Should I make my prologue chapter 1? My prologue is set 17 years before the main story arc. I am reflecting on the discussion here, which was asked by another SE contributor. I'm trying to

@Odierno164

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I would put it as chapter 1, subtitle, "The beginning of the end", or "The seeds of destruction" or something that makes the reader realize it is important and necessary reading.
I prefer to move as much as possible to the present story, but not using flashback. My own preference is in dialogue; a foil character the main character has reason to explain their goals or behavior or what drives them. So the MC tells them stories, of a paragraph or two. Memories, hurts, betrayals, failures. Or, if the foil is an antagonist (like a detective or parole board officer), the foil can tell the backstory:

Cop: "So you stabbed him in the throat."
MC: "Okay, yes, but in friendship, not anger."

It is possible to reveal the "major plot point" in the same way. Although we definitely DO need to know such things early in the book (the first quarter or so) we do not need to know them immediately. You can have your MC doing things for many pages that are intriguing but unexplained, so when they do have to explain them to some foil, the back story brings things together for the reader, they now understand what the MC was doing now because of what happened then.
Another way of saying this is that your back story must have ramifications on the actions, thoughts, and attitude of the characters in the main story (or you shouldn't write it). So you can work backward: Show the ramifications without explanation, but they beg explanation, including by other characters, and that leads your characters to exposing the back story for you.

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