Aaaaand it’s Monday again with a fresh start. As ever, it’s time for a Fantasy with Friends post; all the prompts are hosted at Pages Unbound, if you’d like to join in. This week’s prompt is on the discourse about prologues:

There has been ongoing discussion on social media about whether readers actually read or enjoy prologues. Do you think prologues add value to a story, or do you wish the story just started with chapter one? Are there good and bad ways for an author to utilize a prologue in a fantasy novel?

There are good and bad ways to do just about anything when it comes to writing a book. Good ways might include setting the scene, providing some ancient history that proves important to the story, introducing characters who become important later, etc. It can be a good way to tantalise the reader, but it can also feel like a bait-and-switch if you swap straight to other characters right after the prologue and it isn’t clear at all how things will connect (or whether they ever will).

I definitely do read prologues, because they should be there for a good reason and be part of the story. If they aren’t, that’s definitely a problem! But usually they are, and skipping them seems like shooting yourself in the foot by omitting part of the information the author intended for readers to have — I don’t really understand the decision to skip them, honestly, and I especially feel like rolling my eyes when people who skip the prologue then complain things don’t make sense.

There are definitely times when it feels like it could’ve just been a part of chapter one, or that it’s unnecessary… but that’s an individual book being not that great, not a sign that prologues in general are pointless.