Prologue Problem

Alice.S:
the main character in my book is 18, but in the prologue she's 8, and the way I’m writing the prologue (in 3rd person,) she sounds 8, can I do this??

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You can write your novel in any way you choose, provided it's readable. The only things I'd say are:

1. At some point during the writing process (it can be after you've finished the first draft) revisit whether you actually need the prologue - does it add anything that literally can't be handled any other way? For example, many writers use the prologue to convey backstory that could be told further in the text.

2. Keep the narrative voice consistent. If you're writing something from the point of view of an 8 year old girl, make sure she sounds like an 8 year old girl, ditto an 18 year old narrator. That means making sure the vocab is appropriate to the age group.

MM

You can do anything you want, as long as it works )

Get the story written; set it aside for a few months; come back and read it and decide then if it "works" for you. Then, after your revisions, put it before readers who can tell you if it "works" for them.

If it's 3rd person, it should be the voice of the narrator.

If the narrator is eighteen, and looks back to when she was eight in the beginning, then it should be from her eighteen-year-old perspective.

If the narrator is eight in the beginning, then jumps forward to when she is eighteen, then the language should reflect an eight-year-old's in the beginning.

In other words, what maestrowork said.

Ask yourself if the prologue is necessary. If so, why isn't it part of chapter one? Can it be done as a flashback instead?

I think you could do it either way.

I initially wrote a prologue from my protagonist's POV around that age. It was good, and crucial to the story. But I ultimately decided I didn't want to start with a prologue. So instead I shattered it and sprinkled the shards throughout the book. The result was another dramatic thread building up slowly and pulling the reader through.

Just offering that as an option to consider.

maestrowork said:

If it's 3rd person, it should be the voice of the narrator.

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Let me differ with this slightly.

In my opinion, if it is Third Person, Omniscient Narrator, it is in the voice of the narrator.

If it is Third Person, character's POV, it is, or can be, in the character voice.

But terminology is slippery stuff.


In answer to O.P. -- prologues are great things to play around with.
What everyone said about finishing the first draft and reassessing the need for a prologue

A lot has been posted about the pros and cons of prologue in other threads. You hear the same points made over and again that prologues aren't necessary, they're better done as backstory or flashback, readers skip them, and so on. But a prologue can be an effective device in the proper genre--I'm thinking Robert Ludlum's use of it to set the plot in motion, to introduce a character of whom the protagonist is unaware, etc. This works for the thriller story because it's all built on suspense, surprise, and the reader's foreknowledge of things the protag has to discover for him/herself.

I don't have a lot of respect for Ludlum as a writer, but he was a superb spinner of stories. Last year I read an award-winning literary novel whose plot hinged on tragedy that occurred in the protagonist's childhood. She keeps alluding to that event and others, but does so as she carries us along in the present. So there was no need for a prologue.

My point is that the use of prologue belongs in the hands of the adept, and since you are asking the question, I presume (perhaps wrongly) that you haven't a lot of publication to your credit. Join the rest of us, myself included, who often begin the thought process with a gripping prologue and are so taken with it that we feel compelled to keep it.

The advice to finish the book and then reconsider is well placed. Keep the prologue, but write the rest as though it weren't there, and then go back and see if it's so hang-all vital.

Good of you to ask the question. You'll get a variety of opinions, I'm sure.

job said:

In my opinion, if it is Third Person, Omniscient Narrator, it is in the voice of the narrator.

If it is Third Person, character's POV, it is, or can be, in the character voice.

But terminology is slippery stuff.

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It is. But it need not be be omniscient to be in the narrator's voice.

Third person comes in many flavors. But perhaps the most common one is for the novel to have a narrative voice of its own that is heavily colored by the voice of the POV character.

When the psychic distance from the POV character is large, then it will sound more like the voice of the novel. When we zoom in close, it sounds more and more like the POV character, until, at the closest--when we are in internal monologue, it is identical to the voice of the POV character.

I often write 3rd person with multiple viewpoints. Every POV sounds different, but there is still a narrative voice that is identifiably the voice of the novel/narrator that runs through the pages.

And, you're right--the terminology sucks.

job said:

If it is Third Person, character's POV, it is, or can be, in the character voice.

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Sure, but I personally don't like that. Say you have three different POV characters, one 8, one 16 and one 35, and you have three narrative voices that are the characters'... to me, it's very distracting. It's neither a cohesive narrative voice nor first person -- to me, it's neither here nor there.

I favor sticking to one narrative voice. Don't confuse narrative voice with POV. To me, there's always an "invisible" narrator somewhere, whether it's 3rd limited or omniscient. Like David said, you can zoom in and out of the viewpoint, but I think there should always be a cohesive narrative voice.

In the OP's case, I think it would be weird to have an 8-year-old's narrative voice in the prologue. If you want to use the 8yo's voice, then why not use 1st person? That, too me, is more direct and less distracting.

maestrowork said:

Sure, but I personally don't like that. Say you have three different POV characters, one 8, one 16 and one 35, and you have three narrative voices that are the characters'... to me, it's very distracting. It's neither a cohesive narrative voice nor first person -- to me, it's neither here nor there.

I favor sticking to one narrative voice. Don't confuse narrative voice with POV. To me, there's always an "invisible" narrator somewhere, whether it's 3rd limited or omniscient. Like David said, you can zoom in and out of the viewpoint, but I think there should always be a cohesive narrative voice.

In the OP's case, I think it would be weird to have an 8-year-old's narrative voice in the prologue. If you want to use the 8yo's voice, then why not use 1st person? That, too me, is more direct and less distracting.

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Ah, I guess your original response differs from me after all. I thought by "narrator" you meant whoever was telling the story at that particular time.

I always prefer the narration be done in the voice of the POV character in the particular scene. I've never found it distracting at all.

Erinmiller77 said:

Ask yourself if the prologue is necessary. If so, why isn't it part of chapter one? Can it be done as a flashback instead?

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I agree. I started one story with a prologue but half of my beta readers said they never read the prologue - they flip straight to chapter 1. So I changed it and it works.

To me, a narrator and the POV character are two different things. Otherwise, it'd be like Bob Dole talking about Bob Dole. I've always favor a separate narrator, or what David said: the voice of the novel on the whole.

maestrowork said:

To me, a narrator and the POV character are two different things. Otherwise, it'd be like Bob Dole talking about Bob Dole. I've always favor a separate narrator, or what David said: the voice of the novel on the whole.

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Well, if it's third person, and in one scene the POV character is a child and the narration is done with little words and exclamation points and misspellings, then the next scene the POV character is a law professor and the narration has lots of big words and technical-sounding sentences, doesn't that mean the narrator is whoever the POV character is at the time?

I see this is many Stephen King novels, particularly Rose Madder and The Stand. Completely different narration in The Stand from the beginning when the wife is getting woken up to that of the hicks at the gas pumps.

David I said:

It is. But it need not be be omniscient to be in the narrator's voice.

Third person comes in many flavors. But perhaps the most common one is for the novel to have a narrative voice of its own that is heavily colored by the voice of the POV character.

When the psychic distance from the POV character is large, then it will sound more like the voice of the novel. When we zoom in close, it sounds more and more like the POV character, until, at the closest--when we are in internal monologue, it is identical to the voice of the POV character.

I often write 3rd person with multiple viewpoints. Every POV sounds different, but there is still a narrative voice that is identifiably the voice of the novel/narrator that runs through the pages.

And, you're right--the terminology sucks.

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You are so right. Bad terminology and generally not worth trying to pin down.

Now me ... I don't believe I introduce an actual 'narrator voice' or 'voice of the book' anywhere into the mix.

So far as possible, for me, anything that does not obviously belong to a POV character is written to be 'invisible'. Without distinctive voice.

My disagreement was that your statement did not make clear that character POVs and any 'narrator voice' are all part of Third Person. This is just to expand on what you said a bit.

maestrowork said:

Sure, but I personally don't like that. Say you have three different POV characters, one 8, one 16 and one 35, and you have three narrative voices that are the characters'... to me, it's very distracting. It's neither a cohesive narrative voice nor first person -- to me, it's neither here nor there.

I favor sticking to one narrative voice. Don't confuse narrative voice with POV. To me, there's always an "invisible" narrator somewhere, whether it's 3rd limited or omniscient. Like David said, you can zoom in and out of the viewpoint, but I think there should always be a cohesive narrative voice.

In the OP's case, I think it would be weird to have an 8-year-old's narrative voice in the prologue. If you want to use the 8yo's voice, then why not use 1st person? That, too me, is more direct and less distracting.

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I'm going to avoid using the term 'narrative voice' when I'm talking about how the character sounds when we're in deep character POV. OK?
I'll just talk about it as character voice.

When I try to think about the character sounding like a narrator my brain bleeds.


Now as to whether a character can, at different times in his life, have two very different 'voices' ...

I do a dream sequence where we're briefly in the POV of my character at age 4.



Here she is at 19

"They are a mad dream, these Boulogne plans. A chimera. I never saw them."

Even as she said it, the Boulogne plans were clear in her mind – the many pages stacked together untidily, the dog-eared edges turned down, maps covered with smudges and fingerprints, lists in small neat writing. I will not think of this. If I remember, it will show on my face.

"Sauvignon gave you the plans in Bruges. What did he tell you to do with them?"

He told me to take them to England. "Why would he give me plans? I am not a valise to go carrying papers about the countryside ..."


A simple, straightforward adult voice.

Here she is at 4.


The prison courtyard was dark, full of bobbing lanterns and loud voices. She could not get to Papa. He was in the wagon with the other men. They grabbed at Papa. Shoved him.

"It's the little girl." someone said.

"Dieu. Get her out of here."

It was not right. Papa should not look like that. Jerking like a fish on a string. Kicking and swinging. His face was ... ugly. Not like Papa. Black and ugly with his mouth open.

They tried to grab her. Darkness around her and stone walls. She ran and ran, back the way she had come, into the prison. "Maman. Maman. Où es-tu?"


Which is meant to be a child's voice -- confused, not able to express complex thoughts clearly, not understanding.



That little girl who grew up to be the 19-year-old in the first snippet is, in effect, a different character with a different voice.

I think most readers will be able to follow this.

Whether, like you, the readers find this a distraction, I could not say. I took larger chances of displeasing the readers, here and there, and would advise a writer who wants to use deep POV on the same character at different ages -- go ahead and try it.

This really makes me want to read the book...

ORION said:

This really makes me want to read the book...

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Mine? or O.P.'s?

If it's mine, thank you very much. Drop by the blog. There's an excerpt right up at the top meant to either convince everybody the book's worth worth reading or send them skittering away, quick like.

maestrowork said:

Otherwise, it'd be like Bob Dole talking about Bob Dole.

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That's called "illeism". I was just tickled to discover there was a word for that, because now I can be talking about something and say "but what Caliban believes - if you'll pardon the illeism - is blah blah blah." That way, I get to look weird, pretentious, and condescending all at once. Which saves a lot of time.

CDarklock said:

That's called "illeism". I was just tickled to discover there was a word for that, because now I can be talking about something and say "but what Caliban believes - if you'll pardon the illeism - is blah blah blah." That way, I get to look weird, pretentious, and condescending all at once. Which saves a lot of time.

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Awesome.

CDarklock said:

That's called "illeism". I was just tickled to discover there was a word for that, because now I can be talking about something and say "but what Caliban believes - if you'll pardon the illeism - is blah blah blah." That way, I get to look weird, pretentious, and condescending all at once. Which saves a lot of time.

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That clicking sound you hear is dozens and dozens of folks googling "define illeism" all at once.

David Ledbetter said:

But I ultimately decided I didn't want to start with a prologue. So instead I shattered it and sprinkled the shards throughout the book.

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Ooh. NICE analogy.

job said:

That clicking sound you hear is dozens and dozens of folks googling "define illeism" all at once.

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Ouch, you got me. As quoted from www.reference.com "Illeism is the act of referring to oneself in third person."

Job, I agree with Patricia...your excerpt made me want to read the book. Now I have to go check out your blog. Sigh.

-Feathers

miles said:

Well, if it's third person, and in one scene the POV character is a child and the narration is done with little words and exclamation points and misspellings, then the next scene the POV character is a law professor and the narration has lots of big words and technical-sounding sentences, doesn't that mean the narrator is whoever the POV character is at the time?

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I'm saying I personally don't like that kind of narrative voice. If it's not 1st person, I don't understand why the narration has to be in the character's voice: why exclamation points and misspelling? Why suddenly the next chapter it's all proper and well-grammared? It's not 1st person for a reason. There's supposed to be a narrative distance.

The prison courtyard was dark, full of bobbing lanterns and loud voices. She could not get to Papa. He was in the wagon with the other men. They grabbed at Papa. Shoved him.

"It's the little girl." someone said.

"Dieu. Get her out of here."

It was not right. Papa should not look like that. Jerking like a fish on a string. Kicking and swinging. His face was ... ugly. Not like Papa. Black and ugly with his mouth open.

They tried to grab her. Darkness around her and stone walls. She ran and ran, back the way she had come, into the prison. "Maman. Maman. Où es-tu?"

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See, that doesn't make sense to me. This reads like 1st person. So why would a 4-year-old say, "she ran and ran?" Again, it's like Bob Dole saying, "Bob went to the store and Bob Dole bought an apple." Besides, I doubt a four-year-old would be articulate enough to actually write that. So why use a four-year-old's voice in the narration? When you assume the voice of the character, IMHO, your narrative has to be different because, for example, a 4yo wouldn't know the intricacy of human relationships, for example, or the deeper meaning of certain things. In that sense, to me, the narrative voice and the content create a discrepancy. It's neither 1st person nor truly 3rd person. It's not even Bob Dole talking about Bob Dole. It's someone trying to sound like Bob Dole talking about Bob Dole.


Instead, I prefer a neutral narrative voice -- neither infantile nor scholarly -- that is consistent throughout the book. Sure, you can "sink deeper" with the character's POV -- for example, referring a character as "Papa" instead of "her father." But to me, there's always a 3rd person narrator, even if it's unnamed and undefined.