In my line of work, I see a lot of manuscripts. Plenty of them have a prologue. And there are many times where I can tell it’s not needed. Some authors have even given a specific reason why they include one: Because I’m not sure if the first chapter is doing a good job at hooking the reader.
I hate to say this, and I say it with much love, but that right there is, sadly, a red flag.
If your first chapter isn’t cutting it, then the problem is there, and a prologue won’t make it go away. You need to diagnose what’s causing the lackluster-ness of the first chapter, not disguise the problem by adding an unnecessary prologue.
Prologues are an oft-debated topic. Many people love them, and many people dislike them. In fact, some people dislike them so much that it doesn’t matter what book they’re reading, they’ll skip right over it. To me, that’s a little unfair, because sometimes, prologues are necessary and they’re crafted with care and intention. But how do you know whether it’s necessary?
If I could offer you only one tip for your prologue, this would be it: If readers can skip your prologue and still understand the story, then it’s unnecessary.
However, I don’t just have one piece of advice, do I? Of course not! So, if you’re drafting a story and you’re wondering if you should include a prologue, read on!
The following paragraph is the advice I give to many of my clients, and I give it often enough that, if you’ve worked with me specifically on your prologue, you may recognise this, because I keep it in a file to reuse and avoid having to type out again and again. (Yes, it comes up that often—you’re not alone in your prologue ponderings!)
An effective prologue will be short and frame the story. It’ll set the tone, the location, give us clues, give us something surprising to look forward to figuring out, etc. But above all else, it will make the reader curious enough to want to keep reading. It can’t be filled with backstory or explanatory details, rules of the world/world building, opinions, etc. It must be something compelling, something story-related that grabs the reader and doesn’t let go.
It also shouldn’t be a scene that we’ll see again somewhere later in the story. If we’ve already seen the scene in the prologue, then any tension it’s meant to provide has already been played out, and when we see it again later, it will have lost its impact and the reader will probably skip over some of the text. (Trust me. Way back in the day, I tried this tactic, and it didn’t work.)
There are also examples I often point to with my clients. Let’s start with the prologue for Delia Owens’ Where the Crawdads Sing. (Don’t worry, there are no spoilers! This is available right on the Penguin Random House website.) It is labelled as a prologue (and not all prologues are labelled as such—sneaky devils!)
Prologue
1969
Marsh is not swamp. Marsh is a space of light, where grass grows in water, and water flows into the sky. Slow-moving creeks wander, carrying the orb of the sun with them to the sea, and long-legged birds lift with unexpected grace-as though not built to fly-against the roar of a thousand snow geese.
Then within the marsh, here and there, true swamp crawls into low-lying bogs, hidden in clammy forests. Swamp water is still and dark, having swallowed the light in its muddy throat. Even night crawlers are diurnal in this lair. There are sounds, of course, but compared to the marsh, the swamp is quiet because decomposition is cellular work. Life decays and reeks and returns to the rotted duff; a poignant wallow of death begetting life.
On the morning of October 30, 1969, the body of Chase Andrews lay in the swamp, which would have absorbed it silently, routinely. Hiding it for good. A swamp knows all about death, and doesn’t necessarily define it as tragedy, certainly not a sin. But this morning two boys from the village rode their bikes out to the old fire tower and, from the third switchback, spotted his denim jacket.
This is an excellent example of a prologue. It’s short and sweet and frames the story, but it does so much more. Let’s break it down.
What do we know? We know the year, so we already have a sense of the timeline. We know the setting is in a marshy area. And aren’t Owens’ descriptions simply gorgeous? Her prose sets our expectations for the style of writing. We start out with a beautiful description of what one might find in a marsh. It’s not a swamp, to be sure. Swamps are gross! Marshes are beautiful.
But.
Marshes can have secrets under all that surface beauty. Marshes know things. Marshes hide things.
Like bodies.
And we know the exact date that a body is found in this stunningly beautiful marsh before it swallows it whole, thanks to two young boys. And that is what the reader is left with.
Questions!
Wonderful questions!
Questions born of curiosity, not of confusion—and that’s a very important difference to note. You want your reader to be curious, which leads to theorizing, and that’s what’s going to compel them to turn to Chapter One. And it doesn’t matter what Chapter One contains (for reference, it goes back to 1952), readers are going to want to know things, like: Who is Chase Andrews? Why is his body in the marsh? What happened? Did he fall? Was he murdered? If so, by whom? Was it done there or is this where his body was dumped? How long was he there for? Why was he murdered?
And so, the theorizing begins.
And… Owens breaks a rule (gasp!), and she does it well. Remember above when I said prologues shouldn’t contain world building? There is definitely world building happening here, but the marsh is so integral to the story, and it’s also the location of the inciting incident (at least of the 1969 timeline). The setting is woven into the plot; there’s something beneath the beauty and the details about what a swamp is or isn’t and what it does, what it knows... There’s a reason why Owens is opening with a gorgeous depiction of the marsh. It’s because there’s a dead body there. She’s framing the story, setting it up with vivid details of the location, and she’s creating curiosity.
It is short, powerful, and to the point. Everything that happens after that in the 1969 timeline stems from that discovery.
How about the opening to Matt Haig’s The Midnight Library?
‘Between life and death there is a library,’ she said. ‘And within that library, the shelves go on for ever. Every book provides a chance to try another life you could have lived. To see how things would be if you had made other choices… Would you have done anything different, if you had the chance to undo your regrets?’
WOW. This is universally resonating, isn’t it? I don’t think there are many people in the world who truly don’t have regrets and/or who don’t wonder what might have been if they’d made different choices in the various crossroads of their life. So now, the reader is emotionally connected because he’s hitting them in the feels before the story even gets started, really. He’s making them think, he’s evoking emotions.
Note: It is not labelled as a prologue. It comes after a brilliant, perfectly relevant quote by Sylvia Plath in an epigraph, and before the first chapter.
The opening to Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander is equally enthralling:
People disappear all the time. Ask any policeman. Better yet. ask a journalist. Disappearances are bread-and-butter to journalists.
Young girls run away from home. Young children stray from their parents and are never seen again. Housewives reach the end of their tether and take the grocery money and a taxi to the station. International financiers change their names and vanishe into the smoke of imported cigars.
Many of the lost will be found, eventually, dead or alive. Disappearances, after all, have explanations.
Usually.
What’s hooky about this prologue? It brings up many people’s worst fear: having a loved one disappear. And what’s even hookier? The fact that this story is about to dive into an unexplained disappearance.
That last word, isolated.
Usually.
It tells our brains all we need to know to get us to Chapter One.
And the beginning of The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner? Technically, because it’s a real, historical text, it’s an epigraph, but it functions as a prologue: it frames the story and makes the reader curious.
I swear and promise before God, author and creator of all things…
Never to teach ungrateful persons or fools the secrets and mysteries of the trade…
Never to divulge the secrets confided to me… Never to administer poisons…
To disavow and shun as a pestilence the scandalous and pernicious practices of quacks, empirics and alchymists…
And to keep no stale or bad drug in my shop.
May God continue to bless me so long as I continue to obey these things!
Hmmmm… What do you think? Is the story going to show us all of these rules being intentionally unbroken? Probably not, because what fun would that be, right?
No, it frames the story and sets readers’ expectations. Once we read this, we’re convinced that these rules are going to be broken. But why? How? And what consequences will there be?
You get the gist, I’m sure! In all these examples (and there are many more, but I can’t list them all here!), there is one common thread: they evoke a certain mysteriousness about them. And naturally, mysteries must be solved. 🕵️♀️
Notice how none of these prologues skip ahead and show us a later scene in the story. Not that it’s impossible to do that, though! Rules are made to be broken! (Look at Delia Owens’ example of breaking the “no world building in the prologue” rule!) But you must understand the rules before you can break them well enough to get away with it.
Now. Think about the story you’re not working on right now because you’re scrolling through Substack instead. 😉 Are you wondering whether to include a prologue? Do you have a prologue that’s been removed and put back dozens of times because you can’t decide if it belongs?
Think about the core message you want readers to come away with at the end of the book. What is this theme or concept? Can you think of a way to frame it in 1-3 paragraphs or so? Does it add a layer of mystery to your opening? Does it give your reader a sense of tone/vibe or writing style? Does it leave the reader lingering on an emotion or hooky question? Does it plant a clue, truth, or threat?
And consider these questions:
Does the prologue directly affect the outcome of the book? If not, it’s unnecessary.
Is the prologue written in the main character’s POV before any action starts? If so, it’s not a prologue, it’s a chapter.
If you cut the prologue and read the entire story, does the story still make complete sense? If so, keep the prologue out. (Test this on a beta reader!)
Is it really long? (Long enough to be a chapter?) Cut it. It should be short and sweet and to the point, and much shorter than a chapter.
So, that, in a nutshell is how to determine whether your prologue is necessary and working. Remember: All you need to do in a prologue is plant a seed. Chapter One can take it from there.
Do you have questions about prologues? Ask me—let’s figure it out together!
(Incidentally, prologue diagnostic checks are a new service I’m offering at Foxx Editorial!)
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Until next time, happy drafting!
Great post! I lerve OUTLANDER and that first book is iconic. I agree, this prologue works because it starts with a familiar reality, “people disappear every day,” then shifts to something unsettling. The short, isolated word "Usually” breaks the reader's expectation that every disappearance has an explanation, creates suspense and makes me eager to discover what happened next. Thanks for sharing this.
Fantastic post! Thank you so much. You gave me confidence in where to use (or not use) a prologue. Loved that you referenced Crawdads—it’s why I decided to complete this WIP I’ve been wrestling for nearly five years.