Does the prologue have to be in the same voice as the rest of the novel? I have a first person prologue but want to write the rest in third person. Does that work??

Sue

I'm sure that will be ok, but why is the prologue in first person. I think this might work if you did it as a letter or some such?

JB

Of course it will Sue. It certainly works the other way and so many films are made that way. Go ahead and write what you feel... you will soon realise whether this works for you.

Len

I'm thinking a journal entry, so maybe it would work?

Thanks JB & Len!! Although I've now got yet another novel to write! They're piling up in my head now! Which one first? Which one first?

X

I think if you checked a few books (and something tells me the Fantasy shelves would be the best place to find Prologues) you'd find that the Prologue is usually in a different voice and person to the rest of the book. It's usually employed to provide an overview that the main text can't - or the author doesn't have the skill to, depending on your view of Prologues. Often, it's in first person so that the overview can be emotionally charged, too. But if you use first person you should at some stage identify who it is. If you do this at the start, that person should really figure again in the story - arcing, in other words, which satisfies the reader's subconscious story-telling mind.

Thank you! Will re-think my use of prologues...
S
x

Sue, I love prologues, but you might be interested to hear that more than half the people questioned in a survey admitted to never reading them.

I think it’s fine for a prologue to be in a different tense or voice than the novel. However I do think it’s neat to have a few inserts throughout the story that revert back to the same voice/tense.

I'm working on a novel in which one of the main characters is dead. Her sections (including the prologue) are in first person, present tense. They’re aren’t many of them but just enough to occasionally pull the reader up short and remind them that she’s still around.

Dee


<Added>

Eek... it's that weekend mood...

should be 'There aren't'

;)

Ooh - sounds interesting, Dee. Would love to read some of it! My other option is to have tiny snippet chapters interwoven - bit like I did throughout Ripped (although that did have a prologue as well!). Thinking about it.....

There's a kind of prologue that kicks things off with something active and immediate and maybe present tense, and it's all very exciting, and then the first chapter starts, very stodgily. The prologue feels like a lazy way of dealing with a problem, instead of re-writing the damn first chapter. Or if it's the kind of prologue that's after the event, ('Long afterwards, I realised that...' it can be a lazy way of setting up narrative tension, by providing a hint of a juicy part of the story, so the reader then is titillated into reading on.

I think I would be tempted to examine this potential prologue very fiercely, to see what I was trying to do with it, and whether I couldn't do it more fluently as part of the body of the story. But I quite often find I want what you might call a nearly-prologue, with the narrative voice at first looking back at the story from much later before slipping into a more immediate-sounding straightforward narrative past tense.

On the other hand, they have their uses as a clean way of setting out a back-story, rather than that awful zig-zag back into the past that writers do three pages in: 'She had come down the stairs one Monday morning three years earlier...' Or yes, to have an alternative angle on the main story, though Dee's got something, in thinking that the reader may need reminding of that alternative take occasionally, and Terry's right that you need to know who's view it is.


Emma

Thanks, Emma. What you say strikes a chord. I'm thinking long and hard now about your comments. My prologue is part of a sub plot. Although important to the overall social picture, it doesn't involve my main character. It is quite action packed and does draw the reader in and I'm now thinking that it's a bit of a cheat!

Sue

Hi Sue

Hope I am not teaching you to suck eggs but I had a similar issue with the first draft of my manuscript.

I think it doesnt really matter what voice you use in the prologue as long as it is clear to the reader who is speaking - author or character. It is also a good idea to stick to that person's perspective throughout the prologue.

Hope this helps.

Thank you. Actually this has now turned into a wider issue for me - whether to use prologues at all, whether they weaken the story - so it's good to have everyone's view.

Sue

Hi Sue.

Personally I don't like prologues. Some are heavier than others though. I often find them confusing as they give a scene that doens't make a lot of sense until you get halfway, or completely through the novel. I also think they weaken the first chapter. If a first chapter has to grab you, then it can't do that if a reader has to wade through a prologue. On the other hand, if a prologue really grabs you, then the first chapter feels like a let down because if the prologue was that good, I'd be wanting to read that story and not chapter one.

Colin.

I am now convinced. The prologue goes..... (sob, sob)

I like prologues. Taking The Winter House as an example, (go on – it’s been ages since I had a shameless plug ) it just wouldn’t work without one. The prologue introduces the backstory and then, all the way through the novel, I refer back to it as the present day characters gradually work out the details. Without the prologue, those scenes where Georgia has flashbacks, or when Fynn is under hypnosis wouldn’t be so strong.

Of course, this won’t mean diddly squat to those of you who haven’t read it!

Sue, I think there is a place for prologues but – big but – they should be as short as possible. I'm thinking about uploading that prologue I mentioned earlier. It’s been ages since I posted anything.

Dee