style - When is a prologue useful?

Prologues tend to get a bad rap on the internet, and sometimes for good reason. They're often used by as an excuse to start a novel with an info-dump. However, it seems to me that people often criticize prologues, but rarely explain when they are useful. Many published books have prologues that add to the story.

So, what are the criteria for a good prologue? What clues might indicate a bad prologue, or one that should be cut completely? (If you can, cite an example that illustrates your answer.)

Answer

I think that a properly used prologue can be an incredibly powerful tool. The Wheel of Time series begins with a prologue for every book - some of them are great, some you pretty much just have to plow through as fast as possible to get to the main story (they're info-dumps). However, I think that the best prologue I've ever read is for The Eye of the World (first book in the series). I can still remember picking the book up in a bookstore, never really having read much in the way of fantasy, and just being amazed. Sometimes, I still pick up the book just to read the prologue. Here's what I think it did well:

• It sets the tone for the entire series, showing the main protagonist and antagonist (though thousands of years in the past from the date of the series itself) engaged in one of their many 'eternal' conflicts.



• It is movement oriented. Not necessarily action (per se), but it takes place in the midst of great strife, both (kind of) action but especially emotional. In other words, it hooks. I found it entirely impossible not to care about the character Lews Therin and what happened to him and his family.


• It shows something about the world itself with its use of the author's own particular magic "system" - which is different and strange and intriguing.


• It foreshadows the story to come.


• It's faster paced than the first chapter of the book, which is a great first chapter following a prologue, but would have been a rather slow first chapter without the prologue.

That last point is one I've heard a lot. If you have a first chapter that you just absolutely cannot change, but you know it doesn't move quite fast enough to thrust the reader into the story and hook him, then one might consider a prologue (even a short one) to help accomplish this task - so long as the prologue actually has something to do with the story and isn't just there as a hook.

There are also a lot of authors who have prologues, but without entitling them as such. I think it has to do with the stigma many have against prologues, the idea being that if a reader picks up a book in the store and reads "Prologue" he's just going to put it down, assuming it's going to be an info-dump before getting into the real story. That's a valid concern, so one way some authors have gotten around this is by starting in Chapter 1, but Chapter 1 is really the "Prologue" - just without saying so.

While I love the Prologue to Eye of the World, Jordan also has some terrible ones that run on for 50+ pages and are nothing more than a collection of scenes intended to dump information on you before you get into the book. It's almost always necessary information, but I can't help but wonder if there isn't a better way of getting it to the reader. On the whole, Jordan is one of my favorite authors of all time, so I hate to be critical of him in this regard, but if you want some examples of truly stunning and truly awful prologues, I highly recommend The Wheel of Time series. Also, the books are a great read.