Are Prologues Bad? | Writer Questions #1

I've read that prologues are acceptable if written well and are not blatant info dumps. But I've also heard they are a death knell in the minds of agents and editors who might be considering a work and think they are amateurish.

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Dear Writer,

If you are still in the process of writing, my recommendation would be to just write the story and ignore professional sensibilities. You need to finish the story and have fun doing it. Maintain your artistic integrity as long as possible, and understand what your goals for the story are.

If, however, you are looking at a second or above draft and desire professional publication, consider the following:

Prologues are frowned at by contemporary professionals because they are often unnecessary. To the gatekeepers in the traditional publishing world, a prologue should be relevant to the main plot of the story but should have significant thematic, perspectival, or chronological differentiation. If your prologue stars the main character, takes place around the time of the main story, or "feels" like a part of the main story, you will be told that your prologue is your first chapter and that your query has been rejected.

As with all the arts, any practitioner can bend the "rules" or flat-out violate them if they demonstrate enough skill, but published authors can get away with more than unpublished authors. Practically, leading with a prologue puts an agent or editor on yellow alert. Is your prologue so substantial that you are willing to be reckoned as an amateur not only on the basis of your credentials, but on the quality of your work? Do a risk assessment.

If it is at all possible for your prologue to become a proper chapter or for its points to be peppered across the story, I would urge anyone to consider that alternative.

"What do readers think?" The average reader will start at what you say is the beginning of the story trusting you to have done a good job until they find reason to think otherwise. The working professional will anticipate errors on the basis of their experience. I would recommend you sidestep the incompetent patterns demonstrated by others. See my "risk assessment" comment above.

I do not currently have a prologue in my first main book. I turned the prologue into a series of thematically-relevant interludes that inform the main narrative but are distanced from it chronologically and perspectivally.

If you are self-publishing, do what you want.

Best,

DR-M