Sue, even though you've pronounced a death sentence on your particular darling (congratulations - so hard to do!) you've got me thinking about this whole issue, as I'm a great one for having too many layers to my novels.

My prologue is part of a sub plot. Although important to the overall social picture, it doesn't involve my main character.

Putting something in a prologue is telling the reader it's terribly important to the book, if only obliquely. I've had readers say of elements that read as more important than I'd meant, or that I hadn't darned into the fabric properly, 'I spent the whole book waiting for XXX, and it never happened' and, as someone else has said on this thread, feeling cheated and narratively(?) unfulfilled.

Maybe the one time you really do want a prologue is when you have something desperately important to the story, which yet must stand wholly outside the story's narrative unity. Scene-setting, background, grabbing the reader, explaining a bit of plot... not good enough reasons, maybe. Epilogues traditionally do have a summing-up feel to them, but I still think that if they're just answering the 'what happened' question, it's often better to try and make that either implicit but clear, or explicit enough, in the narrative.

Shadows in the Glass, as well has having two narrators in two different centuries, has at the end of each chapter a short section, a sort of mini-epilogue, which are the nightmares of one of the narrators. The voice is different - italics, subject-verb-object sentences, present tense, neutral in tone though not subject - where his narrative is 19th Century in syntax and thought. The point is that these are things in his past which he never tells anyone, hardly allows himself to think about, but they still invade his sleep. They are separate from the narrative, and yet closely related to it - there are references to these nightmares very carefully woven into both narratives - and the mini-Epilogue form expresses that separation and relatedness. It's not just architects who need to think that form follows function, perhaps.

Emma

Interesting, Emma. I'm now desperately re-thinking the structure of the new novel and also the previous one. I've come to the conclusion, a very painful conclusion, that I've perhaps used the prologues in both of these novels because they are a shot in the arm snapshot of excitement and the chapter that follows, chapter one, is a tad dreary. I need to find the balance between laying the groundwork and making for an exciting read to draw the reader in right from the first sentence!

While I personally do like prologues in other people's books, I can't abide epilogues. As you say, it smacks of ends that haven't been tied together properly. Having said that, I love your idea of the mini-epilogues. A wonderful idea but maybe one that only works with this type of story and those particular characters. Look forward to reading it!!

Sue

Available from all good bookshops from Spring 2007...

Because the voice was different from Stephen's normal narrative voice - he writes letters too which are even more 19th Century-flavoured - and they were so short, I was worried I wouldn't be able to keep it consistent if I wrote them as I went, so I just made a list of what events in his life they should be about, and knitted those into the narrative, and then wrote all the nightmares in one, over a weekend, when I'd finished the first draft. I found myself knowing what 'lacrimae rerum' really means...

Emma

Something to do with tears? That's as far as my knowledge goes!!

I've just looked it up, it's from Virgil's Aeneid:

sunt lacrimae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt

which my ODQ translates as

there are tears shed for things even here and mortality touches the heart

though I think you could render 'mentem' as 'soul', which might be better.

Emma

<Added>

And I know what you mean about laying the ground work vs. drawing the reader in. Much of my revisions for Headline have been about narrative drive in the first third or so. You're feeling your way so much in the early chapters. And my novels do seem to be about characters undoing their past, which makes groundwork even more important, and dangerous. I suspect you can only tell whether you've got the balance right when you've got the whole damn thing in front of you. (Or even more salutary, in front of someone else. I said to my tutor recently what I'd been doing to Shadows with Headline, and he said, 'I told you so' and so he did, years ago!) I'm surprised how ruthless I've been, because only now - exactly 3 years since I wrote the opening sentence - can I see what of the groundwork is truly essential, and what I could spare, or move to later without it having that awful clank of a piece of backstory dropped in.

I think that's what I'm struggling with. Anyway, I have ditched the prologue and am going back to the first chapter. The other, finished(ish), book I've set aside for a while. I need some distance from it before I can make any rational decisions. That's why I'm starting a draft of the new one! I've also been rifling through my bookshelves and seeing what others in the field have done. Quite illuminating in some cases!! Mind you, almost all of them start with a really fantastic first sentence.

Sue

Naysayers!

The prologue is a fine tradition of literature, and is there exactly for the purpose of providing a back story or 'hook'. It isn't lazy at all - it's a chance to reveal the heart of the story before the chapters can establish that - like a taster of wine before you buy the whole bottle.

My first novel has a prologue that doesn't make any sense until the last chapter. I don't think there is anything remotely gauche about this, nor of the fact that the entire book works in past/present/future sections, so you gradually get to see and understand the whole cloth.

These are excellent writing devices, employed in many successful books and movies, and is indeed, a lot more difficult and artistic than any by-the-numbers linear storytelling. Especially when told in the first person. My first book is written like a complex riddle, each section revaling more of the plot...until hopefully, it takes the reader completely by surprise. There was a reason it got signed.

Please don't knock these devices. They are wonderful tools to use in the business of writing, and should be respected, not derided.

JB

I wouldn't knock them at all, but I would examine my motives for thinking I need one. It's not that the device is lazy, it's that it can be used in that way.

Emma

Apologies if this isn't really relevant but I feel a Meldrew Moment coming on. One of my bugbears with TV is the large number of programmes that start by telling you what's coming up, then they show a bit of 'live' action, then tell you what you've just seen, followed by telling you what's coming up after the break. After the break, they tell you what you saw before the break, then tell you what's coming up in this part, etc. Not to mention that the programme has a long standard intro, followed by the sponsor's logo short. It won't be long before there's no jam in the sandwich at all, just logos, intros, teasers, recaps, summaries and 'coming next week's. I remember when ITV launched The Premiership – a 90 minute programme of football highlights in which there was just 19 mins of actual football. The rest was ads, logos, pundits, more pundits, more ads, etc.

But don't let this put you off using a Prologue, Sue!

Have already scrapped the damned thing but it has been relocated as a little bitty sub plot chapter, so all is not lost!

S
x

'Sunt lacrimae rerum', I have always thought, is one of the most resonant phrases in literature. It's virtually impossible to translate, I believe. Literally, it means 'there are tears of things'. I have always understood that to mean that the objects of our lives are imbued with emotional associations. 'There are tears shed for things' is okay but it seems to me a little bit more than that. The objects themselves possess the potential to make us cry, even when we are dead.

Rambling. I don't know where this is coming from. Some deep, distant memory. Somebody will probably tell me I'm wrong.

Terry, I know just what you mean. They drive me NUTS. I have to switch them off.

Dee

'Sunt lacrimae rerum', I have always thought, is one of the most resonant phrases in literature. It's virtually impossible to translate, I believe.

Woaaahhh. Lost me completely. I mean, if it's impossible to translate then how come... Ah never mind. We have a saying, if you're referring to Sue's predicament, that goes, "divvent worry bootit pet" which might mean the same. Or not. Who knows?

Colin
(and just read your profile, Roger. Congrats.)

Ah, sorry Colin, if my post seemed a bit odd. I was meant to be replying to post up above, I think from EmmaD, who mentioned the 'sunt lacrimae rerum' tag.

As for prologues, I do sometimes get a bit impatient with them, as a reader. But I like to give the writer the benefit of the doubt so I try to put aside my impatience.

Hi JB,

I'll add my voice to yours. A device like a prologue or an epilogue is a perfectly valid way of leading into a story or tying up loose ends. They don't work for all stories; but then, no story-telling technique does. I have a personal dislike of stories told in the first person. It's not a major dislike of the "I'll never read such a story" kind, but I do often find it irritating. I know, however, that many stories are told like that, including by such notables as Dickens and H. G. Wells. Even Ian Fleming did it in "The Spy Who Loved Me", which I regard as the best James Bond book of them all (so I don't always dislike the approach).

What works for one story won't work for another, and an author always has to consider whether the way s/he is telling a story actually works. And, of course, we have to make that judgement knowing full-well that someone else will have a different opinion on the matter. C'est la vie.

Alex