7 Tips How to Write an Effective Prologue
An effective prologue is the first chance a novel gets to hook a curious reader. Hook your reader with these tips.
This could easily be applied to the back cover of your novel as well.
1. Raise More Questions than Answers
An effective prologue leaves the reader wanting instead of satisfied.
Readers want to dive into a good read knowing internally that their curiosity and questions will be solved along the way.
So in your prologue you want to give some information but leave out the majority of information for the book.
It’s like making a multiple course dinner. The prologue is just the appetizer.
It’s tasty, but not at all filling. – tweet
2. Don’t Be Too Long-Winded
It’s unnecessary to explain much in the prologue.
It’s the sort of spot where we can tell a small part of the story or introduce the main problem of the world we are building, but not explain much more than that.
A good prologue might have a scene where the villain is seen breaking into someone’s home and murders a victim.
This would leave the reader with so many unanswered questions.
It might tell of a world where dragons and giants rule the earth but battle over which species is allowed to live above ground and humans are just caught in the middle.
3. Watch a Show with a Beginning Narrator
Some of the best examples of an effective prologue are found in kids’ cartoon shows. In the beginning, you hear a narrator explain the world, maybe a short story, and the overarching problem for the plot.
This is a very effective way to write your prologue.
Think of yourself as the narrator’s voice and how you would tell the audience what the show is mainly about.
4. Sprinkle in Different Styles of Writing
If you are able to execute it well, try adding in different styles of writing just make your writing stand out amongst other writers.
In your prologue there could be poetry. A little poetry done well can add an extra flare to it.
Throw in a quote at the beginning, middle, or end. A good quote made by you or found by a famous person can add substance. It can give more meaning and weight to a story when executed properly.
Think of things like this as salt though. The right amount of salt is delicious. Too much salt can be gross.
7 Tips How to Write an Effective Prologue
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7 Tips How to Write an Effective Prologue
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5. Give it a Beginning, a Middle, and an End
Make sure that you don’t get carried away.
Your prologue should be extremely strategic with its start and finish.
It’s your very first and maybe only chance to hook a reader. You want it to take off smoothly, carry your reader straight through, and land well in a place of further intrigue.
6. Be Concise
Your prologue is not the place to dump much description.
Waxing and waning won’t help you much here. Try not to “information dump.”
Instead, be concise by knowing which characters you want to introduce and be more focused on presenting problems to be addressed and solved.
Again leave your reader wanting more, not less.
Sometimes less is more.
7. Create an Image in Your Reader’s Mind
This is kind of typical advice for any fiction writing, but especially in the prologue, be more concerned about creating images in your reader’s mind than using power words.
Power words can be helpful when put in the right spot, but some authors get carried away assuming power words will make the prologue itself more meaningful. This just isn’t always true.
The reader needs to be able to see the scene you’re setting. This is almost always absurdly more powerful for convincing a reader to read on than fanciful word choices.
You don’t have to be an English or literature major to be a fantastic storyteller. You just have to be able to create an image in someone’s mind and have them follow along from start to finish.
And a great way to hook your reader from the start is to pay particularly close attention to the crafting of your prologue.
Hope this helps!
Happy Writing!
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7 Tips How to Write an Effective Prologue
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