TheNextBigWriter Premium → The evil prologue
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I'm a member of a blog written by an experienced book editor. His list of rules of how NOT to open a story includes:
Prologues suck.
Do not start with a character who is going to die.
I guess I'm not going to use him to edit my story. :-)
What not to do: https://thejohnfox.com/2016/11/how-to-start-a-novel/
What to do: https://thejohnfox.com/2017/03/30-super … h-writers/
I'm a member of a blog written by an experienced book editor. His list of rules of how NOT to open a story includes:
Prologues suck.
Do not start with a character who is going to die.I guess I'm not going to use him to edit my story. :-)
What not to do: https://thejohnfox.com/2016/11/how-to-start-a-novel/
What to do: https://thejohnfox.com/2017/03/30-super … h-writers/
Dirt,
Wise decision on your part. Prologues set up your story, provide information you readers can draw on as they read the book. In some cases it tells the reader information that the characters don't have, giving your reader a sense of superiority. As for starting with a character who's going to die, in that editors opinion, For Whom the Bell Tolls should never have been written. If I were you I'd find another blog, imo this guy doesn't know what he's talking about. 
I've always found anyone who spouts hard and fast rules for storytelling difficult to take seriously. It always reaks of personal preference that they've bounced off a few like-minded individuals and decided it should be law.
I actually like some of the points made, especially this one:
6. Treating the reader as if they have to know everything right away
A mystery is good. You don’t need to dump everything you know about this world into the lap of the reader right away. Give it some time. If you craft it right, they’ll keep reading to find out all that stuff.
--
But then you get this gem:
10. Starting with dialogue
I don’t care who is talking if I don’t know them. Give me a reason to care about those words by showing me a character in a particular scene.
--
That's just their opinion at this point and I've seen some brilliantly crafted dialogue starts. There are other examples too that if those rules were followed would discount great swathes of fantastic books out there. This feels more like a "get published" guide than a "good story" guide. They can overlap, but they are different.
Here's my opening line:
“Battle stations!” Vice Admiral Alexis St. James cried from the bridge of the Realm of Stars destroyer, the RSS Almighty.
I'm almost certainly going to self-publish, so I take the editor's comments with a huge grain of salt. He says prologues suck, but it's okay to have flashbacks. Same damn thing in my opinion, just organized differently. The advantage of the prologue is that it comes at the beginning, before the main story starts, and then you're done with the past. Flashbacks require forcing your reader into the past one or more times in the midst of the main story. Both have their uses, but I prefer the former.
“Battle stations!” Vice Admiral Alexis St. James cried from the bridge of the Realm of Stars destroyer, the RSS Almighty.
Too many prepositional phrases for number of active predicates.
“Battle stations!” Vice Admiral Alexis St. James cried. Aboard the the RSS Almighty, officers and crew raced through the well-rehearsed chaos that turned a Realm of Stars destroyer from looming presence to lethal threat.
So many hard rules, and then when I look at published books, bestsellers included, they show all the things you're not supposed to do. At the moment, I read a book with the title, The Time in Between, originally written in Spanish, translated into several languages, and a bestseller in many countries. The book is about 700 pages long, a no-no. The first long chapter is written almost exclusively in narration and the following chapter got plenty paragraphs that aren't in direct scene, another big no-no. And so it goes with many other books as well. So what makes a good book and a good story?
A good book and a good story are whatever the audience deems it to be. Period. Granted, in most cases, your audience is not going to be ecstatic about a book which is sloppily written, full of errors, undeveloped characters, ridiculous dialogue, torturous descriptions, no plot, no tension, slow as molasses, etc., but a few minor deviations from the "publishers norm" are most likely not going to be a stake in the heart. The only "concrete rule" is the one which states "There are no concrete rules." That's the way I see it. Take care. Vern
That is really good, njc!
Thank you, but I think it's a little overwritten. My point is that you can mix action and setting it it's just right.
Dirk B. wrote:That is really good, njc!
Thank you, but I think it's a little overwritten. My point is that you can mix action and setting it it's just right.
Excellent point, well illustrated. Extremely useful guidance.
A gold nugget award to njc. Appreciated.
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TheNextBigWriter Premium → The evil prologue
