: Very short prologue? I'm currently writing a fictional book where the main character is a diagnosed psychopath that is planning to kill the president. I have an idea for the prologue already

I am going to go crazy abstract on this answer. Be warned.

I believe that writers can do anything that they think is appropriate/clever/innovative as long as they can convince their readers that it works.

Let me present some reasoning.

When we discuss the art and science of writing, we naturally think of the writer, toiling away at the process of putting words on the page. It is also useful to think of writing as communication between the author and the reader.

This leads me to three obvious questions: Are you writing to communicate? If so, what are you trying to say? And to whom are you saying it?

You might be writing for the sheer joy of creation. Woodworking, gardening, and cooking are often pursued for the innate pleasures that they offer. If you are writing for your own pleasure, then the criterion for judging is simple. Does it give you as the author pleasure? And that is not a question that is easily answered here.

If you are still reading this answer, I will assume that you have something to say and you want an audience to hear it.

First, who are these people? What language do they speak? How has culture shaped their world view? What expectations do they have when they read novels? If your writing breaks away from the conventions of the material that they are reading now, how will you induce them to do the extra work to read your writing?

Second, what effect do you want to achieve? I send messages because I want to alter the behavior/understanding of the recipient. For me, reading lets me (or forces me) to see the world in a different way. In what way do you want your reader to change?

It may be that you just want to give the reader a few hours of diverting entertainment. There is ample need for that in this world. If so, you might not want to challenge them by breaking the conventions that they have come to expect of such material. So, you need to determine what those conventions are. Find out what books they have enjoyed. Read them. Observe what conventions that they follow. Follow them yourself.

But there are readers who want to stretch, but not to the breaking point. The story has to follow some of the conventions but not all of them and not in exactly the same way. Perhaps those are the readers for your writing. What conventions, which ones to ignore, which ones to bend, and how to bend them are all questions that drive writers to madness.

To come back to the practical, let me propose the following:

Describe the kind of people who might want to read what you are writing.
Read what they are reading, at least to the point where you understand the conventions of the material.
Decide which conventions to follow, which to ignore, and which to bend, keeping in mind the cognitive load you will impose on your readers.
Bend with cleverness and style, but remember that you are bending, not breaking.

Now, to answer your question. If a short, one-page prologue is likely to offend your target reader to the point where they refuse to read further, perhaps you need a different target reader.

Go for it!

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