#prologues

[elumish]

My not-so-hot writing take for this fine middle of the night: prologues are virtually never necessary, and Origin Of The World prologues are even more virtually never necessary.

And if you are going to write one, it should be very short and damn good.

[motherluvdofus]

Prologue n.2

[cg920fire]

Why do people hate prologues so much? There's nothing stopping you from skipping them if you really hate them and/or going back to them later when you read the rest of the book. I personally think they are good at establishing the setting

[describetheepilogues]

you haven't described the epilogue themselves yet

This is true.

Describing the Homestuck Epilogues: Prologue 1

[Plaintext: Describing the Homestuck Epilogues: Prologue 1]

J Egbert has a nightmare about the end of Paradox Space, implied to be caused by a black hole. This black hole likely refers to the one Alternate Calliope (henceforth referred to on this blog as Al) resided in, as well as the one that Lord English and the other ghosts are shown being sucked into in Homestuck: [S] ACT 7. It is the death of the Green Sun.

Some phrases are used to foreshadow. "[...] a trembling thread that cuts through space" could refer to any one of the 7 living space players in Beyond Canon. It could also have been foreshadowing Candy!Jade's death and how the bullet cuts through her head when she dies. "[...] splintering the void into razor sharp shards" also creates a connection to Roxy, who goes through a gender crisis in both timelines.

The most important and intentional foreshadowing: "Around the hole, ghosts scream. [...] They whip together like the wind[.]" This could be a subtle nod to the fact that J Egbert of the Meat timeline dies, rendering him a ghost, although he is not actually a ghostly apparition as far as the readers are aware. He simply haunts the timeline (I will elaborate on this one at a later point).

J wakes up from the nightmare and refers to it as "dreaming in anime", a phrase that he repeats later on in the Candy epilogues (and possibly the Meat epilogues but I am unable to check right now). He checks to see that the world is not ending, and is relieved to find that he is correct. It is noted that he lives in Salamander Village, where nothing of note ever happens (according to J).

While asleep, he has received many messages from his friend Rose Lalonde. Rose is also calling him, and he picks the phone up. Rose notes that he rarely ever responds to his friends' communications and wishes him a happy birthday. Rose says that she assumes the birthday will be uneventful, just like it was the last year, and J says he doesn't want to hold a party. J tells Rose that he has been "dreaming in anime" about millions of people dying and the world breaking apart.

J asks Rose what she thinks the dreams mean, and she admits that she doesn't know. She says that her condition has been getting worse. J is confused because she says she wanted to tell him something and that his birthday would be a good year to do so. She says that she has been getting visions that overwhelm her and asks J to come talk to her in person so that her head doesn't hurt as much. J says yes.

He stands up. The narration points out that he is once again a young man standing alone on his birthday, the 13th of April. It is revealed that he is 23 years old as of this current birthday, meaning it has been 10 years since he got his name and entered SBURB, and 7 years since he and his friends beat the game. The narration then asks J what he will do; this entire passage is an homage to the first few pages of Homestuck.

[hotcheetohatredwastaken]

BDOR Prologue: A Haircut -- A Final Trim (5/5)

They gotta fix Wild’s hair now that everything has settled down. Wild is… conflicted.

“Will all’a his memories come back?” Twilight caught one of the physicians by the arm. They’d already run a multitude of exams on Wild—testing his reflexes, his senses, his memory both of present and past events—to no discernable results they’d shared with Twilight. “Do we gotta worry about this sort of incident again?”

“We can’t know about that, yet.” They answered, as they always did, with all the clarity of a mud pit. “We’ll just have to see—the brain can be quite the tricky thing, you know.”

Read the rest of this fic here! BDOR Prologue: A Haircut

Or catch up with the whole series here! Blood Drops On Roses

@sunny-porridge I did indeed write another chapter to this fic XD

Beta read by @needfantasticstories and @somer-writes

[elejah12]

I’ve a couple new stories up on wattpad. One of tvd one in a million. Two of Harry Potter stories Snarry and Drarry. All three stories don’t have pics in them. Please check them out.

[lindseybyrd]

It takes a certain amount of chutzpah to write a prologue for your book and essentially go: okay so you remember what happened in this OTHER previously published work? Well any inconsistencies are because these are all retellings and oh yeah by the way here's what you missed, mmmmk?

Good for Tolkien.

[cherrybombfangirlwrites]

Hi~! Happy STS!

How do you feel about prologues and epilogues? How often do stories you write contain one or the other? What do you think their best uses are?

(from @tisiphonewolfe)

Happy STS!

I think that prologues and epilogues and the books they're in, live and die on execution and whether or not it's necessary for the story. If the epilogue/prologue is unnecessary or is poorly executed, it's enough to make me put down a book instantly.

However, a well done and well used epilogue/prologue can make a story that much better. The best uses for these is to add to the themes of the story. For prologues specifically, they can be used to draw the reader's attention in, but if it's used for only that it feels a bit like cheap writing to me- but if it does that AND adds to the themes of the story? And characters? And plot? Then it's very good.

One of my favorite examples of a good use of epilogues/prologues is the epilogue at the end of the last Hunger Games book, Mockingjay. It's a well written epilogue that serves the themes of the story extremely well and also adds to the characters, not to mention Suzanne Collins is just a brilliant writer (call me basic but I really admire her as a writer).

The last line of the book

 So after, when he whispers, "You love me. Real or not real?" I tell him, "Real."

STILL GETS ME EVERY DAMN TIME.

As for my own writing, I haven't written a story that needs an epilogue/prologue yet, but if it would add to the story I would absolutely include one.

Thanks @princessw0lf !

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

am taking perverse pleasure in reminding people it's 2025. that's a star trek year. silly little science fiction number. except it's happening, and DANG ain't it underwhelming!

[thebloodthatmadeyou]

'Across The River'

Hello, everyone! I'm Camilla — some of you may know me as Pixie — and I came here on Tumblr to build a community centred around writing and reading, but mostly to tell you more about my adult dystopian novel, 'Across The River'.

Just to start, I'm gonna tell you a few things about myself:

• I'm 21

• I'm about to get my degree in Communication Sciences and I will proceed my studies in International Relations

• My preferred pronouns are she/her/they

Now here's a few facts about my novel:

• It's a MULTI-POV novel

• It's supposed to be the first of a series, but it could also work as a stand-alone, should that be imposed on me (by traditional publishing standards)

• There's no "spice" or smut

• It's a wip (work in progress)

• For now, I intend to traditionally publish

• The story follows the POV of Nadar, Zilla, Marcel and Shaera, with some more occasional POVs

• If you like these tropes — found family, strangers to enemies, unrequited love, friends to lovers, destructive grief, revenge arc —, this is the book for you

And I guess that, to let you know my novel even better, I could let you read the blurb and the prologue!

I'm hoping that some of you will be captivated enough to follow my Tumblr account and my TikTok account (@landsraadsdoom), where I also post content and snippets :). If you have any questions, comments or thoughts, please feel free to leave them in my inbox or under my posts!

Hugs,

Camilla <3

[eskwander]

[flm-linkedfissures]

Prologue

Next

[motherluvdofus]

Prologue n.1

[hillerska-official]

Oh btw I'm reading another star trek novel and chapter 1 just opens like this

[describetheepilogues]

Describing The Homestuck Epilogues: Prologue 3

J goes to have a picnic with Roxy and Callie in the Carapace Kingdom. J fills them in on the conversation he had with Rose, and Roxy says that she probably told him all about the "Ultimate Self junk"— referring to Rose's condition and visions. She assures J that she's not going ultimate, and J in turn assures her that Rose is taking her medication only as prescribed.

Roxy mentions how it's not her business since she's not as close with Rose anymore. According to her, Rose was usually busy down in the breeding caverns with Kanaya before feeling sick, and they only started talking again once Rose was bedridden at home. She also mentions that their conversations are often upsetting.

J gets uncomfortable, remembering how much time it has been since he last properly spoke with Roxy, and changes the subject to how Callie and Roxy are living in the bell tower. Roxy says it's a nice place and that she's glad to be away from the drama.

She then takes Callie's hand in a fond manner, and J guiltily ponders on the nature of their relationship and if they're dating or not. He notes that Callie is still wearing the Ring of Life, and that he'd given it to Roxy many years ago with hopes of a deeper relationship. He wonders if his crush on her faded away or if it just numbed over time, and then theorises that Roxy's own thoughts on the subject are so difficult to figure out because of the Void aspect.

Callie interrupts his thoughts to tell him that he needs to choose now whether he'll go fight Lord English or stay on Earth C. J expresses surprise at being presented with a choice, assuming he had to go. Callie says there's always a choice, and Roxy says that she's glad to get the conversation over with, because it has been stressing Rose out for a while. She mentions that Rose has discussed it with both her and Dirk, the latter of which seems to have many thoughts on the subject.

J stresses about the choice. He regrets all the time he has wasted on Earth being depressed, and thinks about how Roxy might be upset with him for not reaching out sooner. He tries to read into her expression and finds nothing at first, comparing her to Dave's stoicism, before realising she's concerned for him and hiding it.

Callie, noticing how anxious J is, says that he shouldn't make the decision on an empty stomach, and offers him some picnic food to soothe his worries; Meat, raw and bloody, or Candy; sweet and indulgent.

J overthinks over this decision too. He describes the meat as rare and juicy, thinking it'd be tough to chew and swallow. On the other hand, he could eat Candy and only bother himself with what he wants, at the risk of getting sick from how sweet it is.

He realises Callie and Roxy are looking at him with confusion. He's taking a long time to decide, so he decides to hurry it up and go with his gut.

[space-blue]

Having a prologue or writing in second person aren't rules that talented people can break. There are no rules against them.

I think it's simply that there was a distinct era of writers (in particular fantasty writers) who did prologues every book, and readers got sort of fed up with the concept.

Personally I don't mind, but I'll say that the prologue of the first Way of Kings is a perfect example of what a double edged sword it can be. That prologue is showcasing characters we don't know, doing things we don't understand, and having a crucial moment we can't contextualise.

Some readers are hooked and read on hoping to understand. The issue I personally have with it is that several books over a *thousand* pages each later, and we still can't understand that original prologue.

I understand that some readers may not want a prologue that demands they pay attention to things they can't and won't understand for a while before the next chapter making it entirely irrelvant. And I do prefer when the prologue makes sense too. I don't mind if the characters die, or don't come back for a while. But ending a book without understanding the prologue is not great.

Still, "don't do prologues" is not a rule and the proof is in the countless published books that have prologues.

Prologues

I was having dinner with a good friend last night, who is currently working on a redraft of her novel; she's taking a workshop that sounds awesome, but she was nervous about having added a prologue, because she'd heard from the other participants that prologues can be offputting. Apparently one person said that if there's a prologue to a novel they just don't read the novel, which absolutely floored me. (It turned out that people liked her prologue, which is just more proof that once you know the rules and reach a certain level of skill, you can break them with impunity.)

I don't read prefaces to books anymore, because usually they contain brutally detailed spoilers, but I still read the actual book. I doubt I even notice a prologue normally. But I know that a book having a particular element that's offputting to a group of readers also isn't confined to commercial fiction -- a lot of fandom won't read fic in the second person or the present tense, for example.

So I told her I'd put up a poll and report back on the results! Tell me all your thoughts on prologues!

I'm setting it to one day because I'm going to be seeing her tomorrow and I figure I can report back then. :D