So in the first part of this series we discussed the idea that your prologue should contain critical information. Today, in the third and final part, we’re going to look at how much information your prologue should contain overall, and whether it’s all as critical as it seems.
There’s a lot of work that goes into designing a world. Whenever you write fiction you’re having to create (or re-create) a universe for your characters to live in, even if it’s not sci-fi or fantasy. And if it is SFF, then you’ve got a whole new boxful of things to work out: history, politics, magic systems, space travel. How things got from where they were to where they are. Who said what to whom and when and why. Why this works and that doesn’t and why it’s all consistent.
All this information. And, in its own way, it’s all critical. How’s the reader supposed to follow along if they aren’t told all this stuff right away? So let’s examine a common fear that leads writers into the often-fatal trap of the info-dump prologue:
The reader won’t understand the story without my prologue.
It can be an uncomfortable feeling to just toss readers into your fictional universe without any explanation. It seems rude, really. Poor etiquette. What if they get confused? Worse, what if they get frustrated and stop reading? And so the panic sets in, and you find yourself using the prologue as a safety net – setting down all the things you’re worried that readers won’t stick around long enough to find out on their own.
But here’s the thing: not knowing stuff is why people read your book. It’s what they don’t know that keeps them turning the pages. If you use the prologue to explain everything about how your world works, then you deny your readers the pleasure of discovering these things by themselves. It’s the same principle behind the whole ‘show-don’t-tell’ dichotomy: readers prefer to discover, rather than be told. And, as long as you give them some characters to focus on, and a sense of direction – a sense that the answers are on their way – then you’d be surprised at how patient they’re willing to be.
The other thing to remember is that readers are smart. They would be, since they read all these books. That means you can introduce them to an unfamiliar situation or setting and they’re not going to hurl your book away in blind terror. It’s also rare that you’ll have created a setting so unfamiliar that your readers won’t have any point of reference. Again, they read books. They know why your wizard can’t just snap his fingers and solve everyone’s problems. They know not to fret about faster-than-light travel in your space adventure.
And, while your world might have a few quirks, the odds are that you haven’t rewritten the fundamental fabric of reality. You probably still have stars, for instance. And gravity, and trees. Day and night. Society, families, language. And the physical properties of things are mostly the same. Sure, your wizards can throw fire at each other, but the fire itself pretty much behaves as we’d expect.
So how much info to put in? Well, think back to what we’ve already covered: your prologue should be immediately relevant to your story, and it should make your readers want to read on. This might mean you put in less information, instead of more. And it might mean that you use a scene to deliver this information, rather than a legend or an encyclopedia entry. Even in your explanations, you should always be aiming to impart a sense of mystery to the reader. That’s what will make them read the rest.
In summary: readers want to explore your world, not read a history of it. If you try to explain everything in the prologue, you leave nothing for them to discover. Readers also don’t need to understand every detail in order to follow the story. They expect to find the answers as they read on.
Epilogue
I’ll close with a caveat: there are plenty of readers out there who aren’t phased by prologues. Particularly in fantasy, a prologue’s just something people have come to expect (along with the map at the front, and the poem or quote or riddle). So, most of the time, they’ll read through it no matter how irrelevant or dense it is, the same way they’ll glance at your map and skim over your riddle.
But if the best thing you can say about your prologue is that your reader’s going to tolerate it, then it’s worth seriously considering whether you need it at all. Because here’s something that’s never going to happen: you’re never going to get readers reviewing your book and complaining that your prologue wasn’t there. No one’s going to send you an angry email raging about how you wove all your history and backstory seamlessly into the narrative instead of dumping a huge chunk of exposition at the front of the book. In many cases, you could cut the prologue right now, and your readers would never even know it existed.
And if that’s the case for you, then you should probably cut your prologue.
Melancholy Whale 