TheNextBigWriter Premium → Opening stories with prologues and dreams
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How many times have you read that you shouldn't open stories with prologues or dreams? I just read a review of the novelization of Star Wars: The Last Jedi. It uses both. How much do you want to bet it becomes a New York Times bestseller?
I think it is recommended that amateur or student writers don't open a novel with a prologue or dream sequence, simply because it seems to be a popular (almost instinctive) compulsion for many, and usually they are are a poorly written or executed indulgence and don't actually do the story any favours.
The old 'learn and master the basics first' rule of thumb.
Of course when written to a high literary standard, the prologue or dream sequence is a powerful device and they appear in many successful novels, plays and screen plays.
Just as the recommended 'do's and don'ts' impressed upon a learner driver don't apply to the professional race car driver. Sometimes quite the opposite.
There are exceptions to every "rule" except of course the one I just stated. You can find success stories which break basically every so-called rule of writing. That doesn't mean that "you/we" can break them with impunity. It also doesn't mean that we will be put to the guillotine should we break any "cardinal rules" placed upon the shoulders of would be authors. If it works, it works. But the odds are that you and I as unknown authors will not pass the preconceptions of agents/editors/publishers, etc. which may take a gander at our stories. Sure we can self-publish if that is the route we wish to take and there are success stories in that category also -- just a whole lot more that don't quite pay the rent. So, we must ask ourselves, "Do you want to take the shot or not; well, do you, ...? Go for it. Take care. Vern
Waste of time listening to wannabes/hacks/amateurs (like me) opine on prologues and dream openings. A confident writer makes this decision based on what the story needs and how the writer wants to tell it. (A writer lacking confidence best try basket weaving.)
Down the line, if a professional engaged in helping a writer publish has an opinion, that’s the one that should be weighed. There are far greater things for a writer to fret over...
Waste of time listening to wannabes/hacks/amateurs (like me) opine on prologues and dream openings. A confident writer makes this decision based on what the story needs and how the writer wants to tell it. (A writer lacking confidence best try basket weaving.)
Finally, good advice on prologues.
Down the line, if a professional engaged in helping a writer publish has an opinion, that’s the one that should be weighed. There are far greater things for a writer to fret over...
Even then, the kind of advice I hear that agents and other failed writers are offering is to only include a prologue if it's well done. Have you ever heard of anyone offering the counsel to only include a Chapter 1 if it's well done?
Meanwhile, I would counsel every aspiring writer to read books that have prologues to see what is possible. Here is an incomplete list I've read:
Empire Falls by Richard Russo (Pulitzer Prize Winner)
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (Pulitzer Prize Winner)
Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen (winner of and nominated for several prizes and NY Times bestseller)
True North by Jim Harrison
The Bones Seth Greenland
Shining City by Seth Greenland
The Angry Buddhist by Seth Greenland
Sometimes I wonder if writers who have made it are telling their agents to advise wannabe writers to only include prologues if they are well done.
Memphis Trace
I have had reviewers tell me that a certain device, gimmick, gizmo, etc. is frowned upon by agents, editors or whoever, based on something they were told. In many cases, this in reference to an error in their own work, and guess what! They didn't get the point. The information they're passing along is a mistaken generalization. I try not to give them any heed.
It makes more sense to look to the great storytellers for guidance. Emulate the greats.
Don't you agree?
There are also standard things that are frowned upon, like adverbs, yet I read thunderingly good stuff that is spattered with adverbs. My agent is not anti-adverb, luckily, and says that if there wasn't a need for them, they wouldn't exist.
I think the answer is: write excellent, thunderingly good, draw-you-in stories and you will be forgiven most things. Write purple, top-heavy, plot-light, leave-you-out-in-cold stories and you'll be taken to task about every tiny error you make.
After reading Nora Roberts (writing as J.D. Robb), and noticing she makes all the "mistakes," that I've been accused of, I pretty much ignore the rules and write what feels good (or strikes my beloved beta readers--all of you--as good). Robb changes POV in the middle of a paragraph, switches between omniscient and 3rd-person, sometimes, is so sketchy in her setting that the characters could be on stools in an all-white room. All, no, no's. She has more bestsellers than there are stars in the galaxy. And there are others. You must write an engaging first ten pages to get the reader's attention. Yeah, tell that to Joseph Conrad, in "Heart of Darkness." The central conflict must occur in the first ten pages (or 750 words, in a short story), I read a mystery where it didn't occur until one hundred pages into it. And don't even get me started on Gormenghast. 1st person is for light and breezy. Well, "Just call me Ismael."
Bevin Wallace wrote:Waste of time listening to wannabes/hacks/amateurs (like me) opine on prologues and dream openings. A confident writer makes this decision based on what the story needs and how the writer wants to tell it. (A writer lacking confidence best try basket weaving.)
Finally, good advice on prologues.
Bevin Wallace wrote:Down the line, if a professional engaged in helping a writer publish has an opinion, that’s the one that should be weighed. There are far greater things for a writer to fret over...
Even then, the kind of advice I hear that agents and other failed writers are offering is to only include a prologue if it's well done. Have you ever heard of anyone offering the counsel to only include a Chapter 1 if it's well done?
Memphis Trace
True, hence “weighed” not “followed blindly”
It makes more sense to look to the great storytellers for guidance. Emulate the greats.
Don't you agree?
Yes. It is simple, we should simply run like Bolt, compose like Mozart, paint like Rembrandt, sing like Beyoncé , play chess like Kasparov and write like Brontë.
...and write like Brontë.
Sorted.
Brontë?
Good luck with that....
After reading Nora Roberts (writing as J.D. Robb), and noticing she makes all the "mistakes,"
She's reached the mulching point where she can just release anything and it'll do okay sales or even great sales. You can tell a big writer is approaching this point when you start seeing the name in giant point and have to hunt for the title.
Usually that's my cue that they don't need my business anymore. They've made it, and I'm happy for them, but I typically pull them from my roster and add some new faces.
-K
kraptonite wrote:...and write like Brontë.
Sorted.Bronte?
Good luck with that....
'Emulate the greats' was the advice.
I'll wager there's hardly a published list of great female novelists named that doesn’t include Emily Brontë.
She's not my bag to be honest.. and even as I wrote the generic name of a universally recognized great author for effect, I knew the pedantic retort would appear.
I could of suggested, Dickens; Shakespeare; Hemingway, Stephen King, Plato, Chaucer or JK Rowling and it would have been;
...and write like Dickens
Sorted.
OR
...and write like Shakespeare
Sorted.
OR
...and write like Hemingway
Sorted.
OR
...and write like Stephen King
Sorted.
OR
...and write like Plato
Sorted.
et al...
Not only does it prove my sense of predictability, it also illustrates the naivety or lunacy of following the advice (which I’m not sure is a suggestion or a rhetorical directive?)
It makes more sense to look to the great storytellers for guidance. Emulate the greats.
Don't you agree?
Perhaps (following the logic) the very best writing would be prose that emulated the style of them all at once?
I don't expect you agree btw.
j p lundstrom wrote:It makes more sense to look to the great storytellers for guidance. Emulate the greats.
Don't you agree?
Yes. It is simple, we should simply run like Bolt, compose like Mozart, paint like Rembrandt, sing like Beyoncé , play chess like Kasparov and write like Brontë.
Aspire to greatness.
Memphis Trace
kraptonite wrote:j p lundstrom wrote:It makes more sense to look to the great storytellers for guidance. Emulate the greats.
Don't you agree?
Yes. It is simple, we should simply run like Bolt, compose like Mozart, paint like Rembrandt, sing like Beyoncé , play chess like Kasparov and write like Brontë.
Aspire to greatness.
Memphis Trace
Nothing wrong with study, practice and aspiration. Although, emulating greatness is not the journey, but the destination.
Open question to the author community, (and out of genuine interest):
Which 'great storyteller' do you emulate and what is it about that particular 'storyteller' that made you imitate them?
Open question to the author community, (and out of genuine interest):
Which 'great storyteller' do you emulate and what is it about that particular 'storyteller' that made you imitate them?
I tend to admire and lean toward Mark Twain in my writing. That probably has more to do with my own upbringing and also having had him read to the class during our "rest period" in elementary school. Most kids napped; I listened to the exciting stories. I submitted a sample of my writing to one those online sites which tell you whose writing you resemble and it said Mark Twain. I submitted another sample and it said Samuel Clemmons. It is what it is, lol. Take care. Vern
Open question to the author community, (and out of genuine interest):
Which 'great storyteller' do you emulate and what is it about that particular 'storyteller' that made you imitate them?
I don’t really seek to “emulate,” and I definitely don’t seek to “imitate” anyone—why would any writer do that? Many, however, inspire me: Hugo, Faulkner, McCarthy, Dostoyevsky, Stegner, Martin Amis, Twain, Márquez, Camus, Mattheissen.
My three favorites are Robert Louis Stevenson, Mark Twain and Charles Dickens. It would be impossible to copy their styles; the work of each was so specific to the author's own period, environment, and background. It is possible, however, to understand that they were paragons of writing who told a good story while capturing the life and language of the time about which they wrote.
There are many authors, past and present, who have done that. Those are my favorites--in part because I taught English to boys and girls who wouldn't sit still for authors of boring tales, and I wouldn't expect it of them. But the greater part of my admiration for those three comes from my love of reading their stories again and again.
We can emulate our favorites not by copying, but by being inspired to pursue the twin objectives of story and style, as they did.
For the record, Charles Dickens's misuse of punctuation is notorious. It's not grammar that makes a writer great; it's command of language.
Memphis Trace wrote:kraptonite wrote:Yes. It is simple, we should simply run like Bolt, compose like Mozart, paint like Rembrandt, sing like Beyoncé , play chess like Kasparov and write like Brontë.
Aspire to greatness.
Memphis Trace
Nothing wrong with study, practice and aspiration. Although, emulating greatness is not the journey, but the destination.
Which is why I suggested the following first step to the destination:
Even then, the kind of advice I hear that agents and other failed writers are offering is to only include a prologue if it's well done. Have you ever heard of anyone offering the counsel to only include a Chapter 1 if it's well done?
Meanwhile, I would counsel every aspiring writer to read books that have prologues to see what is possible. Here is an incomplete list I've read:
Empire Falls by Richard Russo (Pulitzer Prize Winner)
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (Pulitzer Prize Winner)
Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen (winner of and nominated for several prizes and NY Times bestseller)
True North by Jim Harrison
The Bones Seth Greenland
Shining City by Seth Greenland
The Angry Buddhist by Seth Greenland
Open question to the author community, (and out of genuine interest):
Which 'great storyteller' do you emulate and what is it about that particular 'storyteller' that made you imitate them?
Rather than reading books to imitate great storytellers, consider reading books by great storytellers to appreciate and envy them. If you are interested in appreciating something, chances are you will unbeknownst absorb some of the artistry subconsciously.
Memphis Trace
kraptonite wrote:Open question to the author community, (and out of genuine interest):
Which 'great storyteller' do you emulate and what is it about that particular 'storyteller' that made you imitate them?
Rather than reading books to imitate great storytellers, consider reading books by great storytellers to appreciate and envy them. If you are interested in appreciating something, chances are you will unbeknownst absorb some of the artistry subconsciously.
Memphis Trace
I agree. Personally, I read books for pleasure and to further my education.
However, my question "Which 'great storyteller' do you emulate/imitate to make yourself great," was asked in order to expand upon the following prescribed edict...
It makes more sense to look to the great storytellers for guidance. Emulate the greats.
Don't you agree?
...to which I did not strictly subscribe to at the time it was written (when I replied); but has since been expanded/amended/reworded/diluted to mean, 'influenced by the greats' (which I agree with) rather than 'emulate the greats' which if taken literally in the literary sense is a foolish attempt at impossibility (IMO). Anyway since the retraction of the 'we should all emulate the greats' directive, the subsequent question I asked, is now a moot point.
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TheNextBigWriter Premium → Opening stories with prologues and dreams
