: Re: Is it considered lazy writing to have a dry prelude at the start of a book? I'm thinking of the crawl sequences at the beginning of Star Wars, that just give you the background information

@Heady158

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The thing about the Star Wars crawl sequences is they’re very short, less than 100 words. They work because they’re short, interesting and presented in a novel way (back then). They’re also necessary to provide context to the opening scene of action that follows.

I would ask yourself the same questions.

Is it absolutely necessary and essential for your story? Where does your novel start? Does it start in media res where the opening scene wouldn’t make sense without the prelude giving context?

Is it really really short? The last thing you want to do is info-dump the reader on page one. You have very little time to hook a reader. Some say it’s only a page, some say five. For some readers, it may be a paragraph. Readers may tolerate a brief prelude but a long info-dump will be a turn off. Much better to start with an action scene that introduces your main character.

Is it really interesting? If your prelude sparkles with an exciting premise, you may get away with it. But if it’s boring, you’ll lose your reader before they even put your book in their shopping basket.

Can you present it in a novel way? If it’s absolutely necessary can you spice it up with a unique delivery? Erin Kelly with He Said She Said has a prelude about a total eclipse. She separates it out into small sections describing each ‘contact’ alongside a picture of an eclipse. She also uses interesting descriptions to keep this prelude alive.

Generally readers like to be shown your story, not told it. They want to figure things out for themselves and draw their own conclusions rather than having a narrator lay it all out on the page in exposition. But, ultimately, it’s your book and you are allowed to be as ‘lazy’ as you like about how you present your backstory. Whether a reader will tolerate it is another thing. Do you really want to risk losing a single reader because it was too much effort to bleed the backstory into the narrative?

In short, ask yourself if the prelude is absolutely essential to provide context to your opening scene/s. If it isn’t, I would avoid it.

Good luck!

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