The ‘pro’ and ‘epi’ of ‘logue’

Last week I discussed what makes beginnings and endings strong. Grabbing the reader by the throat and holding them against the wall until the very end is vital, especially in those first few pages.

But what do you use for those first few pages?

It’s quite common to use a prologue. Simply put, a prologue is a short [sometimes long] ‘pre-chapter’ before chapter one. These can be used as powerful attention grabbers, but also as areas to dump information on the reader, do cheesy introductions, spy in the villain for no real reason, and/or to show us something the author thinks we need prior to getting to the real story.

Prologues rarely have some form of ‘okay’. They either stink like hogs or shine like your grandmum’s best china. I’ve read only one prologue which fit the term ‘okay’, and even then I didn’t like it.

What makes a good prologue?

Well, it appears to depend on the genre. Readers for different genres will expect different things, and some prologues don’t fit certain genres.

For instance, most historical fiction has no prologue. Those that do have prologues are often boring, and filled with background information about such-and-such who died and are irrelevant except as some form of cynical symbolism. Dystopias (the few that have prologues that work) tend to have very short [one or two page] prologues that are very tense, mysterious, and make the reader ask questions. This sort of prologue - the dark, tense, attention-grabbing kind – works well for almost any genre.

There is one kind of prologue, however, that is an exception. The epic fantasy prologue is, generally, very long. Some, such as Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time have prologues stretching anywhere from twenty to sixty pages.

*low whistling*

However, this sort of prologue becomes, in the reader’s mind, a sort of chapter one.

In fact, any good prologue should act as a chapter, standing alone by itself. If the author could rename it ‘chapter one’, it will probably work. At this point, the author should weigh the pros and cons of keeping it as the prologue or just make it chapter one.

The basic rule of thumb* I follow: “If it wouldn’t work as a first chapter, it shouldn’t open your novel.”

Why?

Because everyone goes into your book looking for a beginning. And if your prologue doesn’t begin the story, but simply set it up, they won’t walk away happy.

In summation:

Never use a prologue to dump information. This includes information on the story, the world, the pre-story history, and the characters (especially the villan²).

Always treat the prologue as a first chapter. If it doesn’t work as one, figure out why, and consider changing it so it does.

The prologue should begin the story, not set it up.

A prologue must be concise and gripping. If your prologue rambles on forever and ever about one thing, you’ll lose the reader just as fast as if it was a foreword or preface.

After a long period of observing people, I’ve discovered that people either hate prologues or love them. To give you a generalization: fantasy readers tend to enjoy and read prologues more than others. And yet another: authors dislike prologues more than your average reader.

If there’s one part of a novel that is often overlooked, it’s the epilogue. Not because all epilogues are excellently written and thereby deserve no criticism, but because they normally contain very little critique-able information.

Almost every epilogue is used as a ‘flash-forward’; it’s a chance for the author to show the audience what happens, say, seventeen years after the conflict resolves.

I’ve found very few unsatisfactory epilogues in my browsing of literature, but here are a few marks of those less-than-marketable ones:

-They drag on forever³. This is a hyperbole, as there are no books that stretch into eternity, but it’s still true. Often times an epilogue will grow boring after the first few pages. Why? Because the conflict is over. We’re reading about the characters we loved, but older and changed. Maybe even matured and wizened. Chances are a few of them have fallen in love and gotten married. Ew.

-The epilogue ruins a perfect ending. Imagine this: in the last chapter, the main character is sitting at a table with his best friend and the love interest. Maybe they’re in some tavern, drinking mulled cider and talking about how the villain is crushed forever, and all is right with the world. The best friend says something witty, goes to get another drink, and the lovebird get their moment. Queue the cheesy music and/or the theme song, and pan the camera prose toward the frosted front windows of the hole-in-the-wall inn.

The reader is happy, and ready for the credits.

BAM. We’re rushed twenty years into the future, listening to the aged hero telling his children about the time he destroyed the castle of his arch-

Wait.

We had the perfect last scene.

Not only that, but we already know the main character destroyed that castle. We watched him do it, even as he wept because his sister was trapped under the rubble. We probably even had his future with the love interest planned out, and named all his kids.

A good epilogue wraps up loose ends. It gives the reader satisfaction, brings the conflict to a close, and lets the reader get a glimpse and what will be, after the story finishes. It never ruins a perfect last chapter, it never drags on. It gives us a few last thoughts to ponder, and it always –always- makes the reader want just one more sentence.

What about you? Do you like prologues and epilogues? What are some examples of your favorites? Share in the comments below!

*I never have understood this phrase… why do thumbs have rules?

²I say this because there are countless prologues that try and be clever and shows us a quick glimpse at the villain. It’s more cliché than the thin air your Mentor vanishes into.

³there are very few exceptions where a long epilogue is a good epilogue. For instance, War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy has not one, but two epilogues, both of which are rather lengthy. But then, Tolstoy can get away with that when his book is already going on fourteen hundred pages.

On Endings and Beginnings

Recent events – some personal, some not – have brought beginnings and endings to the forefront of my thoughts. I’ve decided to address them, and shine a light on how they affect writing.

These two simple words carry heavy burdens. Perhaps most especially they bring with them toils and strife in literature. Not just for the author, but for the characters, for the plot, and for the reader. Without a beginning, there is no story. Without an ending, nothing can terminate in a satisfactory way, thus boring readers with an infinitely long book*.

If there is no beginning, why are you writing the story in the first place? If there is no end, how do you intend to finish?

Let us first look at beginnings.

In short, the first four pages of a novel [or any other form of writing] are the most important pages in the entire manuscript. Even if the black moments of chapters twenty and seventy-nine will be the ones to bring your readers to tears, it’s the beginning that draws your reader to those chapters in the first place. Most editors, agents, and publishers will buy or trash a story within the first four pages.

That might not be fair; maybe page six is the most wonderfully written page of prose and emotion since Leo Tolstoy penned the second chapter of part fourteen of War and Peace. However, if you don’t have that same depth and emotion on page one, they’ll never get to page six. 

Every story worth telling starts at the beginning¹. It is, after all, “a very good place to start”. This inciting moment compels the reader forward in a journey, whether metaphorically or literally. If the reader picks up a book, they’ve come with questions: What is this story about? Why should I read it? Will it bore me? Am I willing to invest my time and emotions into this work? Is it a genre I like? Who is the main character? What type of prose does the author use? Will it make me laugh or cry? Can it do both? Will I be satisfied by this story? Is it easy to read, or does it require more thought and contemplation? 

That’s a lot of questions, isn’t it? Your average reader won’t consciously ask each of these questions, but when they pick up a book – your book – they’ll expect answers to most of these questions within the first chapter, if not the first few pages. They’ll judge your book by what they first read. That’s often why books with professional-looking covers (or those with well-loved looks from hundreds of readings) are read widely. Sure, the proverb states we shouldn’t judge books by their covers, but most everyone does.

And if someone chooses your book, they want whatever is inside to far outdo the outside.

A good beginning does not, however, truly begin the story. For example:

“He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish.”

You probably recognize this line, even if you haven’t read the book to which it belongs. Ernest Hemingway knew how to start a story. While his story The Old Man and the Sea may bore a lot of readers due to its simplicity, this first sentence is an excellent example of a beginning that simply picks up the story at its most important part. The story could have started eight-five days prior, when the old man caught his last fish. It then could proceed to show us the agony of eighty-four days without even a single nibble.

It might be agony for the old man, and it would certainly be agony for the reader. We don’t want to sit around for eighty-four days while nothing happens. We do, however, want to be there on the eighty-fifth day, when the greatest fish the old man has even seen catches the bait.

A good beginning chooses the right moment to begin, even if the story starts earlier. A moment too soon, and you might bore us before you even begin.²

Endings are just as necessary as beginnings. In the words of the Doctor:

Just because we don’t like them (medical staff mentioned above included) doesn’t mean they aren’t important.

The ending of every piece of writing should satisfy the reader. It should make us feel like that was the best possible moment to end it. There should be no feeling of ‘they should’ve ended it sooner’ or ‘augh I hate that ending, so much feels unfinished’. 

At the same time, however, the reader should feel the need to turn the page, just to check and make sure that really was the end. We should become so engrossed in the story that we don’t want it to end, even if it’s the perfect end. If you get us hanging on your ever word, hoping and begging it won’t be the last, you’ve done your job.

One particular type of bad ending is what I call the Sequel Setup (considering what the acronym would be, I also call it the gestapo). This is when an author has another book or two or twelve planned, and so they purposefully give the reader a cliffhanger.

This isn’t so bad when you and I (the readers) can put down the book and walk away, with no compulsion to read the next one just to find out what happens next. A good example of a well-written cliffhanger-style ending is Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time series. Each book sets up the next one with a little bit of a cliffhanger, but you don’t feel like you have to keep reading.

However, when nothing feels like it resolved, the reader can (and will) get frustrated with the author. Even if the main goal isn’t fulfilled, even if the Dark Lord Couch Potato still reigns as immortal king of Couchkind, we want to feel some sense of conclusion. Something needs to resolve. Ending the book with Lord Couch Potato preparing to smash the main character under his pudgy thumb isn’t satisfying.

A good ending satisfies the reader. It leaves them content with the story, but begging for one. More. Word.

*as I typed this, I realized how fascinating that would be… a book that has no ending, and an infinite number of pages. I wonder how that would be stored…

¹there are, of course, those stories that start with a flash forward, but with those, I would say they simply start at chapter two, the beginning, and chapter one is just in the wrong place.

²one way to start too soon is with a prologue. Next week I’ll discuss these special little beginnings, and their counterparts, the epilogue

A Little Fellow

Imagine, if you will, a nine year old boy. His blond hair sticks straight up in the back and it won’t lie straight no matter his mother’s attempts to get it to behave. It matches his personality almost exactly – spastic and loud and slightly crazy. Of course, you’d never know it if you weren’t around him at him; he’s a very shy little boy on the outside.

This little boy spends his days playing knights and dragons, protecting his sisters from the evil overlords and slaying his minions (because plastic swords are obviously the best way to kill the embodiment of evil).

Furthermore, imagine this little boy, lying in bed, trying to fall asleep. He’s tired as one can get, but he can’t fall asleep. He spends hours and hours, staring up at the ceiling, or at the glow-in-the-dark planets hanging above his dresser. The CD in the radio (that supposedly helps him fall asleep faster) has long since finished, and he can’t stir himself to go play it again.

He’s got all the songs memorized, after all, why play them on the radio when you can hear them perfectly in your mind?

And then he sparks on an idea.

All those times he slayed the dragon, beat the evil knight, killed the minions, stayed the mighty foes, all the time he spent constructing a massive castle out of cardboard and duct tape, only to watch as the massively outnumbered defenders lost to the conquerors.

What if those were real?

What if…

Now imagine this little boy the next night. His younger brother is in his bed across the room, snoring (his younger brother is the king of all snorers).

“Once upon a time,” the little boy whispers to his glow-in-the-dark planets, “there was a castle on the shores of the sea, a castle which was never defeated.”

And then, in his mind, this little boy unfolded a story of simple honor, renowned kings, dragons and wizards, dastardly villains and fighting for what is right.

This little boy read his little story in his mind every night, until he fell asleep.

Fast forward five months.

The great saga of the mighty castle (called Argoncoth, for your information) is complete in his mind, a tale worthy of the greatest bards to be sung at every feast in every palace in the universe.

And it’s fading from memory.

So this little boy – almost ten now – has another spectacular idea.

What if the story was a book?

What if…

He began to write. The little boy worked frantically, whenever he wasn’t saving his sisters from the newest threat, he sat at a little green and flaking white desk, scribbling in a college-ruled notebook. He captured all the details of his story in four of these notebooks, finishing after about eight months.

As he finished, the little boy realized he didn’t want to stop there.

He wanted to keep writing. More ideas flooded into his mind. He didn’t use them to fall asleep anymore – he had conquered that problem – instead he used them to fill up notebook after notebook.

Three years. Five novellas and two novels.

Almost a hundred thousand words.

Now flash forward four years.

Now the little boy is a gangly teenager, almost as tall as his dad and taller than his mother by a good eight inches. He towers over all of his friends, too, even the ones who have since graduated from school and gone off to college. His hair doesn’t stick up anymore (at least not as much), instead it curls when it gets longer than an inch or two.

He still writes, writes more than ever before, actually. In fact, he has completed four novels since and has plans for dozens more.

Looking back, this young man realizes his first stories aren’t as good as he once imagined. In fact, he knows they’re really just combinations of other stories he loved – simple plots of games and books and characters with names only a little different than those he admired.

He doesn’t like to talk about those novels, now. They’re a stack of notebooks in his closet, to be smiled at whenever he grabs nice shirt for church on Sundays.

But they were a start.

If he hadn’t been able to fall asleep that night, all those years ago, he might not have ever written for fun.

He might not be considering sending a novel to publishers or thinking about going to college to major in Creative Writing with a focus on Journalism.

He might not be what I’ve become.

(And so concludes a simple story of how I became a writer. It’s rather anti-climactic, don’t you think? What about you? What story makes yours with telling?)