The Power of Prologues

Prologues.

Some people love them, some people hate them. Some, of course, are indifferent to the whole concept. If the author tells a great story, then the prologue serves the purpose of setting things up the way the author wants.

In my current series, I’m using preludes (musical world) in an unorthodox way. The preludes serve as brief insights into the future of the series, after the first introductions of the first three light novels. While my series will be light novels going forward, that doesn’t mean books three through twenty will be light on pages. From this point on, they will run at least 350 pages, if not hundreds more than that.

Each one will have a prelude that is in medias res, except for book three, The Last Key of Maestraumus.

These preludes show what’s coming up ahead, a little taste of the future.

We can use these literary devices in so many ways.

Telling the future, as in my case, or showing what happened any length of time in the past.

Sometimes prologues need to shine through for the reader to understand something otherwise unknowable.

Other times, they help to set expectations about something further down in the story.

You can use them any way you like.

Like showing what happened to the traveling musicians as their friends wished them an amazing time on the road as they patiently waited for them to return. It sets the stage for understanding why the mythical flutist turned evil, because when he returned to his hometown, he found that the nerdy trumpeter of doom had slaughtered his entire family.

This is a ridiculous example, but I’m sure there’s something to glean from it if you look at it carefully.

Perhaps the main character’s father challenged her to a duel when she was fifteen, and the katana broke in such a way that she keeps the hand guard busted like that as a memento, ready to challenge him once more when she has amassed a certain caliber of skills.

Like Jack Sparrow keeping his one shot for Hector Barbossa, with less mutiny.

In a romance novel, it might be gleaned from a prologue that the main hero and heroine only got together the right way all those years ago without doing something shady, even though the main hero had been with the wrong woman, choosing to follow his heart instead of staying with a woman that only hurt his views on love for most of his life. He didn’t believe in cheating, or running around on someone, even if they weren’t right for each other. While that might lead to some conflict and drama, the point of the story isn’t the prologue, so it’s best avoided to explore the characters. This might set up a story where full-bloomed romance is the focus, rather than how they get together.

You can plant clues within the text for people to find and place some stray hairs after a moonlit night to foreshadow the stereotypical werewolf trope, then flip it on its head when the character becomes a woman instead of a wolf, causing all sorts of problems to solve in the story, sort of like Your Name meets Fruits Basket meets Ranma ½.

Another ridiculous example, but you get the gist.

Prologues are awesome, and they must be wielded with the proper intent.

Impact and setup are the name of the game here. They are flexible, fun, and offer so much creative potential.

You can also visit the events later if you decide to use them as an in medias res introduction to future events.

Don’t underestimate the power of a prologue.