: 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

@Kristi637

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Just to add to the other excellent replies, I didn't see any actually post the crawl itself, so here goes:

Episode IV
A NEW HOPE
It is a period of civil war.
Rebel spaceships, striking
from a hidden base, have won
their first victory against
the evil Galactic Empire.

During the battle, Rebel
spies managed to steal secret
plans to the Empire's
ultimate weapon, the DEATH
STAR, an armored space
station with enough power to
destroy an entire planet.

Pursued by the Empire's
sinister agents, Princess
Leia races home aboard her
starship, custodian of the
stolen plans that can save
her people and restore
freedom to the galaxy.....

According to MS Word that's only 88 words. So if you can keep your prelude that short and too the point, then you can probably get away with it. Otherwise you run the risk of trying to introduce and interest people in a bunch of characters they may never see again.

If it's particularly dull you'll kill off any sense of investment in the book or story ... are you writing a fantasy novel or formal business documentation? ;-)

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