Dear O'Abby: To prologue or not to prologue...

 Dear O'Abby,

I'm writing a horror novel in which an ancient curse is uncovered in the modern age and wrecks havoc on society - I know it's been done before, but I promise my story is different and very resonant in the current climate.  As I've written it, there is a fairly long prologue in which the origins of the curse are revealed, something that is relevant to the ending of the book when my heroes have to try and reverse it. 

The book really doesn't work without the prologue - it's actually almost more of a first part to the book than a prologue - but I've heard that agents hate prologues and was wondering if I need to try and re-write the book to make it work without this section.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Yours truly.

Cursed.

Dear Cursed,

I don't think agents hate prologues so much as find so many of them unnecessary or a vehicle for info-dumping up front.  If, like you say, your prologue is an essential part of the story and your book won't make sense without it, then it is fine to keep it.  Some books really need their prologues while others don't.  

The problem with prologues is that when querying, if your query outlines the main part of your story, but your first 10 pages (or however much the agent requests) are a prologue that doesn't mention any of the characters or elements you talk about in your query, an agent can get confused.  There are two ways to deal with this: either skip the prologue and send pages from the main part of the novel, or reference the prologue section with a sentence or two in your query and send those pages.

At the end of the day, you know your novel best, and if you believe the prologue is essential to understanding and enjoying the book, then keep it.  If you think the key information in your prologue can be woven into the main body of your text, then it is probably better to do this.  Having a prologue is not going to be the decider as to whether or not you get an agent or a publisher, but how you handle it will be.

Hope that helps!

X O'Abby

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Let's Talk About Prologues

The Prologue. The thing that every J.R.R. Tolkien novel must have, and must be at least 50 pages long. The thing that you - yes, you - do not need in your manuscript.

I'm calling you out. You know who you are.

Prologues have come under fire on Writer Twitter in the past year or two. Increasingly, agents are saying that they don't want to see them as part of a query package, and a lot of agents seem to be advising writers to cut the prologue from their work. I found that this was best summed up in an #AskAgent thread from earlier this year:

Writer Question: When querying, is it true you should never send a prologue as part of your initial novel sample? Should you start with Ch 1 even if you have a prologue?

Agent Answer: If your prologue can be dropped that easily, it sounds like you don't need the prologue at all!

The agent here has a point. If you wouldn't show an agent the prologue, why would you show it to a reader? And if you wouldn't show it to a reader, does it really serve a purpose in your manuscript? Maybe it really is better to just give it the old highlight-delete. And here are a few reasons why that might be the case:

Problem: It's world-building. 

A lot of prologues I've seen as a beta reader and a CP fall into this category. This is especially true for fantasy, where the writer has a lot of setting up the world to do. Sure, sometimes it feels like a prologue is the place to stash that information. I mean, how else are you supposed to explain to the reader that magic is illegal now because of that one Big Bag Guy who used magic wrong without interrupting the story? Isn't that the whole point of show, don't tell?

The best way to get around this is to gradually weave that background into the opening chapters. Some writers do it by having the characters go to school where they study the history of the Big Bad Guy, or with a campfire tale, or a bedtime story. Sometimes it can be done by having the main character consider an artifact - a fountain, a statue, a book - and rehash the history to themselves. Sometimes it's best to let the history be a mystery for a while to build up intrigue and curiosity.

Problem: It's background about the character(s).

This is another common one. This usually involves a scene where the main character is very young, and it's often a tragic story about how their parents died. If your first chapter starts with "X years later..." you fall into this camp.

Like the previous type of prologue, weaving the character's backstory into the manuscript is the way to go. Make the reader wonder! Make them wait for that tragic sob story! Build mystery about your character so that you can reveal the truth at the opportune time! Giving up all the good stuff in the prologue is showing your hand way too early. Let the main character open up to someone and use that story to explain why they are the way they are.

Problem: It's only tangentially related to the plot or characters.

While this is less common, it does happen. The prologue of THE BOOK THIEF falls into this category (in my opinion). I even wrote a prologue like this for the first manuscript I queried, where two side characters had a meeting that would only influence the plot much, much later. It ended up spoiling part of the story for the reader and let them in on things too early.

When it comes to this type of prologue, the most likely course of action is just to let it go. If the link to the rest of the manuscript is tenuous, then what's written there doesn't need to be said. Is it really that important?

If you're on the fence, or even if you're sure that your manuscript needs a prologue, really consider your prologue. Does it advance the plot? Does it impact the characters? Does it tell the reader anything they desperately need to know? If the answer to these questions is no, it's time for the prologue to disappear.

Dear O'Abby: Are prologues good or bad?

Dear O'Abby,

I write fantasy, and my book has a prologue.  It's a very needed prologue as it sets up the entire system of magic and politics for the world my story takes place in. 

But I've heard a lot of agents hate prologues and that it is a bad idea to include one as pages with a query.  So now I'm wondering if having a prologue is going to spoil my chances of ever getting published.

Can you help?

Yours,

Fantastic

Dear Fantastic,

Prologues are tricky wee things.  Personally, I'm not a fan and often skip them when reading because I'm interested in reading the story, not whatever backstory the writer has chosen to tell me in the prologue.

I certainly would suggest not including a prologue with your query package unless your protagonist is a part of the prologue and it is an essential part of your story.  It sounds like in your case, the prologue is there to create context for the story and do some of the heavy lifting for your world-building, so I would not include that with your query package.

In terms of the bigger picture, think about whether or not you can weave those world-building elements into the actual story.  Do they need to be in a prologue people may or may not read before the story starts?  If people skip the prologue, will they still understand the story?

It's always better to show how the magic systems and politics work in practice than to tell a reader all about them in advance, so if you can weave the detail in with the action, I think you'll find the prologue becomes redundant.  Plus the way these systems affect your characters becomes clear within the context of the story.

So my advice is to think hard about what your prologue is actually doing and whether or not that work can be done within the main body of your story.

Hope that helps!

X O'Abby