Today we learn that even disguised as a chapter, a prologue with no information is still a faux-logue.
What I gleaned about the story: Kameron McBride has just inherited an run down property on the edge of nowhere. But when she gets there, she’s going to find more trouble than just dry rot. There be evil in them thar hills.
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Note: The cover title is unreadable at thumbnail sizes due to the decorative font choice. I also had a minor problem with the wording. The common phrase is “Missing, presumed dead,” not assumed, so I kept trying to puzzle out the intended word play, but maybe there is none.
Analysis: There’s a sentence that begins: Once the good Lord took Miranda away… I read this as a speculation about the future, something that might happen soon, once that pesky Miranda has been dealt with. But it turns out it was a reference to the past—the old man’s life after the death of his wife. A past perfect would have cleared this right up. Ever since the good Lord had taken Miranda away… But as written, the temporal whiplash yanked me out of the story.
Note: There were other editorial head scratches in that same part of the text. One line read: It crossed his mind it might be his only friend… Huh? What kind of “it” can cross his mind and be his only friend? Turns out, each “it” was a reference to a different noun, which caused a minor stumble. There were a number of these low-grade grammatical joggles along the way. Most of them were not quite enough to disrupt me on their own, but authors need to know that, taken together, these are like background hiss on a recording. They’re persistent, they slowly wear on the audience’s attention, and they give the whole thing an air of the substandard. These are not the kinds of thoughts you want going through a reader’s head during those crucial first few minutes.
Analysis: The opening chapter is a single short scene, set seven years in the past, and does not involve the protagonist. In short, it’s a prologue trying to sneak in using its big brother’s fake ID. So regardless of what the heading says, I’m judging it for what it is: a prologue. But unfortunately, this prologue conveys no information. An old man living alone on a farm is visited by some tough guys, who walk toward him menacingly. That’s it. And by now, you all know how I feel about informationless prologues.
Analysis: It was a minor issue during the faux-logue, but now it’s singing louder. She does this. She does that. She goes here. She goes there. Seeing it in yet another book reinforces my growing belief that declarative sentence parades are caused by a focus on the physical movements of a banal experience. In this case, the protag is simply entering her apartment—opening doors, pushing elevator buttons, etc.—with no exploration of her emotional state or any analytical commentary or analysis of the bigger picture. It’s just dragging me through an all-too-familiar experience with nothing for my conscious mind to grab hold of. And with no handle-holds for my imagination, I fall right out of the story.
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Hello, I’m back again to ask more about prologues. Sorry if it is a bother.
You make it clear that a prologue should contain information if it is to be included. This makes perfect sense to me. My question is about whether or not the information included in the prologue must be immediately decipherable to the reader.
I’ll try to clarify my question by relating back to this current post. While I haven’t read the book assessed above, you write: “An old man living alone on a farm is visited by some tough guys, who walk toward him menacingly”. I can understand how this may seem like no information at the time of reading, but what if, for example, the narrator learns halfway through the book of the old man. What if we learn that this old man has been killed some time ago and the narrator is trying to determine who may have committed the crime. What if the the author intends to lead the reader towards thinking that it was the tough looking guys, but the author doesn’t want the narrator being exposed to this information?
Basically, what I’m getting at, is that it seems information in prologues might be hidden, or not immediately perceivable. I’m wondering whether or not you think the above scenario would justify the prologue being included. I would appreciate hearing your thoughts on the subject if possible.
Once again, thanks for the service, it is very helpful.
I’m glad you’re getting some value from the reviews. Thanks for saying so. As for the “hidden relevance” issue, I have no problem if the significance of the information conveyed in a prologue isn’t immediately apparent. In fact, I think it’s more effective if the relevance is not immediately clear. But as I’ve said many times, if that information can be reduced to a single line of exposition in the main story, it should be. In my view, prologues need to convey info, but they need to be more than that, too. They need to give the reader an experience that they must witness for themselves to properly understand. They need to have substance and import. There’s a simple metric you can use. Will the reader still understand the story if the prologue is removed? If the answer is yes, you should probably lose it.
You’re right, you have said that before. Somehow I keep getting caught up on little things. I’m not entirely sure why I find the prologue vs. no prologue problem to be so difficult, but I appreciate your explanation and insight nonetheless. Thanks!
You did a round up of thoughts after you hit 50 books. You must have done 100+ now, can we expect another summary of your thoughts on the whole IorD subject? It was interesting.
Yes, Belinda, I am planning another retrospective analysis article, but it probably won’t get written until the holidays. That kind of analysis takes some time and thought to pull together, and those are two commodities that are in short supply right now. :-)
I have a question/comment/criticism, one of those three, about the name “Declarative Sentence Parade”. I wonder if it’s really the right name for the problem that is getting to you? After all, an “exploration of her emotional state or any analytical commentary or analysis of the bigger picture” is likely to include mostly declarative sentences as well. From your description here it sounds more as though the problem is with declarative sentences limiting themselves to the immediate and the physical, possibly with a similar structure each time as well.
You’re right, Michael. The DSP label is no longer a great fit, but that’s because my understanding of the problem has deepened since I started calling it that. Now I have the dilemma: do I update it to keep it precise, or keep the old label to maintain continuity? I’ll give it some thought.