??! Prologues are Criminal !??

[Raymann]

An Excuse to dump tons of exposition hidden beneath a pile of prose and sometimes poetry that adds nothing of value to story-telling, while making the reader feel like wasting 10 minutes(often more than that)


They are like Unnecessary padlocks on the web novel story. Just admit it, writer, you wrote that because the word "prologue" sounds cool.
In all honesty, the amount of effort a writer puts in while writing a prologue doesn't help with the pacing of the story either. It just messes up everything.

[I am talking about web novels of the fantasy genre here.]

I have been betrayed by prologues so many times that my thoughts nowadays when I read something with a prologue are following.
"Better to treat 'prologue section' as the terms & conditions pages of story series and skip them. "

What do you think about stories with a prologue in general?
Suggest a prologue that you have read and is not confusing, complex and criminally corrupt like that.

 

[J_Chemist]

Your thread title is criminal.

But yes, most prologues are very well written and the story following may or may not follow the same, as is the point. The prologue is meant to grab your attention and draw you in, so you want to make sure it's well written. Keeping that level of skill/detail up later on can be... difficult.

 

[Sola-sama]

I think most prologue are unnecessary. You can start with chapter 1 instead of prologue, but there are some cases where prologues are useful.

However, my words are not persuasive/convincing enough to highlight which situations prologue would be usefulness or useless, so I'll leave some of the more experienced writers to elaborate further.

 

[Corty]

I completely disagree with anyone who is saying prologues are bad/unnecessary or anything along the line.

It is important to lay down the foundation of the world you invite your reader into. I totally stand by prologues and anyone who disagrees; none of you can convince me otherwise.

 

[Raymann]

Your thread title is criminal.

Noted and corrected.

 

[Placeholder]

I often skip the prologue with webnovels - a decent author should be able to hit the ground running en media res, drip feeding background, character details, and setting as needed.

And with the less-skilled authors, it's that much faster to find out if they tell a compelling story.

 

[CheertheSecond]

Well, a good novel doesn't need a prologue so I always skip it. :P

 

[sam9501]

I don’t know how anyone could hate a prologue. It helps build a foundation. It can provide different perspectives you cant see from the mc’s point of view. It could establish main/supporting characters, maybe from before the the main story. It could provide interesting world building.

Honestly, if you only experience bad prologues then you are reading bad stories.

Edit: The story Deathworld Commando has four prologues, but without them you would never have been able to understand the mc and see his growth as a character if the story started with him as a baby. Without spoiling too much, his past makes him who he is, affects how he grows up, and gives him the power to overcome his eventual conflicts. It has both positives and negatives. The story would be completely different if the prologue wasn’t there. It would probably be just an average op mc story. But that beginning information twists the genre on its head a bit. It gives the mc more personality, makes him more interesting, makes you excited when he unleashes that op-ness you know he has from the prologue.

 

[Vnator]

I had a prologue for one of my stories, but only to introduce the deal with the world. Like, it's pretty much a generic harem/smut/ntr world, but with real life implications to everything, and the prologue is a horror story of what terrible things a person with a system could do. It's really freaking awesome though, so I'm a bit proud of it. Story name is Living it for the Plot.

 

[Rhaps]

I extended my prologue to not a single chapter, but 25 chapters, give or take. Marinating the readers in the background lore of the important characters, then continue from there.

There is no prologue if an entire chunk IS the Prologue

 

[RobBanks]

No, they're not. There's thousands of different types of prologues.

My prologues, for example, generally would consist of an intro scene focusing a bit on some secondary characters.
It helps make the novel world feel a bit more 'lived in' right off the bat.
Sure, you can always complain that there's infodumps, or the scene is clichê, but let me tell you a little secret here...

... that also happens in later chapters on this site ALL THE GODDAMN time.
It's just something that happens sometimes. If the prologue is criminal, might as well say that of the whole novel.

Might as well give up on reading/writing entirely, if we're going by that troll logic.

 

[Bobple]

If a prologue chapter is going to take ten~twenty minutes+ to read... yeah.. that's probably a bad prologue. You don't need to know the wiki page for story before reading it. Don't get me wrong, some people do enjoy knowing everything about a world before reading a story, I like to do that myself sometimes, but that is not the prologue's job.

Besides that, I do like a good prologue. It can, if done well, give a quick explanation for setting up the story, a kind of extended synopsise in a way. Or it can be used to hint at the character's past or future. Or in many other different ways.

Like most story telling stuff, It's been done well or absolutely awful.

Also, some call their first X chapters the prologue. Which um, that is a bit different from an actually prologue but in some ways isn't wrong to be called that, as cause it is pretty common for people to call arc 0 or the introductory arc the prologue, but that is different from the prologue we are discussing here.

But anyway. That's enough rambling cause as usual I'm getting off topic! Prologue can be good, however they aren't always required. As most things, depends on the story if they are needed. Then depends on the writer to make it good.

 

[Deleted member 54065]

I write prologues. The reader doesn't like prologues.

I don't care; it's my story. They can always find another novel, anyway.

 

[SailusGebel]

I write prologues. The reader doesn't like prologues. I don't care; it's my story. They can always find another story, anyway.

In your case prologues are okay.

 

[KrakenRiderEmma]

I prefer Brandon Sanderson style prologues ( and epilogues ) where they’re short “in media res” scenes that show something happening elsewhere in the same world from another POV than the protagonist. (I think Worm did this as well, as section break, though not prologue.)

 

[beast_regards]

What is a Prologue?
When is a Prologue?
Why is a Prologue?
When is a Prologue?

 

[Raymann]

What is a Prologue?
When is a Prologue?
Why is a Prologue?
When is a Prologue?

This.
(From star wars movie series.)

 

[Erios909]

Prologues are often the first thing a writer writes.
Writers get better with practice.
It stands to reason that prologues are often some of the worst writing of a story, before the writer gets into their voice or groove.
Webserialization and ameatur stories often have no editing, and authors are brand new.
So readers of this genre are subjected to lots of bad prologues.
Making them hate prologues.
But a well crafted prologue is excellent.
Sadly, the reader who has been conditioned to hate them will pass the good ones by because of prior experience.
And never see the wonderful prologue that they could have enjoyed.

 

[Corty]

Reading all the comments, I think people who complain about prologues have serious issues defining what they think a prologue is.

And they most certainly don't know the difference between not liking something and thinking "I didn't like how the story starts = bad prologue" or something along that line...

 

[beast_regards]

Why does the Star Wars start with the best fanfict ever created?