1 Topic by Tamsin Liddell (edited by Tamsin Liddell 2025-09-11 13:03:40)

Topic: Prologues are not Chapter 1

Ok. I apologize, but I have a minor rant.

Your prologue is not Chapter 1. It is your Prologue, which comes before Chapter 1. That's why it's called the Prologue,.

Amazingly, the Portfolios for Books on here actually take that into account. When you're choosing your Chapter number, you can actually choose Prologue as an option.

Even more amazingly, if you accidentally misnumber your chapters? You can change the order of them quite easily. In the "Content" section of the book, you can click on the chapter numbers in the left-most column and quickly edit the number to be anything from 1 to 99. And maybe even more than that, though Epilogues are treated as 100 so I haven't experimented to see what would happen. Even more amazing, you can have multiple chapters published with the same number, so you don't have to worry about rotating one to an empty socket first. Just change 1 to 2 and 2 to 1 and be done with it.

However, you can't turn a chapter into your prologue from that screen.

However, you can change it into your prologue from either the Chapter Edit screen (by clicking on the chapter number in the chapter info section) or from the Publish screen (which will take you to that same place, so same thing).

So.

There should be no more excuses for people to have prologues as chapter 1, and chapter 1 as chapters 2 and 3, and chapter 12 as chapter 10, etc etc etc.

ahem

Thank you for you time.

Quote Post 1

Re: Prologues are not Chapter 1

Yup. I've seen it sometimes too. Rather than helpful chapter names, they're often reduced to naming each chapter n to "chapter n+1" because they haven't used the prologue choice in the pick list to denote an actual prologue.

Quote Post 2

3 Reply by njc (edited by njc 2025-09-11 15:38:04)

Re: Prologues are not Chapter 1

Do you think that applies to a story like The Finishing Stroke in which the engaging, chapter-length "prologue" sets up the events of the "main" story, years after, and the chaper-length "postlogue" is set still years later, when Ellery Queen has the knowledge to fully interpret the clues?

Quote Post 3

4 Reply by Tamsin Liddell (edited by Tamsin Liddell 2025-09-11 23:12:56)

Re: Prologues are not Chapter 1

njc wrote:

Do you think that applies to a story like The Finishing Stroke in which the engaging, chapter-length "prologue" sets up the events of the "main" story, years after, and the chaper-length "postlogue" is set still years later, when Ellery Queen has the knowledge to fully interpret the clues?

There's nothing wrong with a chapter-length prologue or epilogue.

There's also nothing wrong with not having a prologue or epilogue, and just calling it chapter one.

What's ruffling my feathers is people who post a chapter 1 and call it "Prologue," and then "Chapter 1" as chapter 2, and "Chapter 2" as chapter 3, etc.

(No, <redacted>, I'm not looking at or talking to you at all. Why ever would you think that? big_smile )

To be fair, I haven't read any Ellery Queen (yes, I know, gasp; I've read all of Christie and Sayers, though, so tongue ).
So I can't properly tell if your question is serious or sarcastic. smile

Quote Post 4

Re: Prologues are not Chapter 1

Serious.

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6 Reply by Tamsin Liddell (edited by Tamsin Liddell 2025-09-11 16:54:35)

Re: Prologues are not Chapter 1

Fair enough. In which case, my answer still stands.
If you want to call something "Prologue," then set it as the prologue.
If you want to set something as chapter 1, then don't call it "Prologue," because it's not.
Heck, if you want to name your chapter 1 "Prologue," then fine, but don't name chapter 2 "chapter 1."
I'm done with my soapbox. Anyone else want it?

Quote Post 6

Re: Prologues are not Chapter 1

Gandalf does.

Quote Post 7

Re: Prologues are not Chapter 1

Dirk B wrote:

Gandalf does.

Yes, you didn't get told the most important thing about being a cat owner:

The things inside the boxes aren't the cat toys;
The boxes themselves are the cat toys.

Save yourself a lot of money and get your cat toys from recycling centers or the back of the shoe store or wherever free package supplies may be found.

Quote Post 8

Re: Prologues are not Chapter 1

Just so you know because it might ease the frustration just a tad, or maybe not, but anyway, once upon a time in the land that was this original site, you could not just call it a prologue and be done with it; it would be chapter one or nothing at all. Not that there is a huge number of such entities running around these days, but just in case there is, it might be easier to accept such things than taking an aspirin or Tylenol or whatever the heck might help alleviate the post traumatic indigestion. Just trying to help. Take care. Vern

Quote Post 9

Re: Prologues are not Chapter 1

Oh, I've gotten it out of my system for now.
Like I said, it was just a little rant, to get it out of my system.
Sometimes things just need to be communicated. smile
And the ones I'm talking about are new.
I wouldn't have bothered for something ancient.

Quote Post 10

Re: Prologues are not Chapter 1

Tamsin Liddell wrote:

Oh,
Sometimes things just need to be communicated. smile
.

Just tell me you don't sell pillows, lol. Take care. Vern

Quote Post 11