It's not uncommon

[james_davis_nicoll]

For me to decide whether or not I like a song during its opening chord. I would like to be able to reassure writers I am not similarly judgmental about written material.

That said, the inclusion of a prologue automatically bumps down how good a book can be two categories because it says right off the writer is undisciplined and is going to waste my time.

On an unrelated note, I think more novels need to have the subtitle "A novel" because sometimes I become confused and think I am reading a grapefruit.

Comments

[pameladean]

I don't know what editors are doing nowadays, but when I was a new writer in the early 80's, it was very difficult to publish a fantasy novel with Ace Books or, once Berkeley ate them, with Ace/Berkeley, without being told to add a prologue. Either the actual opening didn't sound enough like fantasy and they wanted a clearly fantastical prologue so readers wouldn't throw the book in the ocean; or else there was background information they didn't want just scattered subtly in, and so they wanted a prologue for that. This carried over to Tor when a lot of Ace editors decamped there, but with less force. I managed to avoid a prologue for Tam Lin, but it was certainly suggested several times.

This may be partly just a matter of what was in fashion, but they were really keen on prologues.

P.

[harvey-rrit.livejournal.com]

Tor wanted a prologue for THE GOLIATH STONE.

They'd changed the title, they'd regrouped the text to make fewer chapters and deleted the best heading quotes, and they'd insisted on changing the emphasis from intelligent nanotech to falling rocks.

What they got was as in-your-face a prologue as I could get my collaborator to agree to.

They have not asked us for the slightest change since.