I'm always baffled by the prologue-hatred when I encounter it, and aghast when people say they don't read prologues. To me that's like skipping Chapter 1 in a book without a prologue (not that I think a prologue and a first chapter are the same thing, as was being discussed upthread!!). I mean, I figure if a writer starts a story someplace, that's where I need to begin reading, and if I don't, I miss vital stuff. I just assume that I'm in the hands of a competent writer who wouldn't put unimportant stuff in the book at all, especially not in such a crucial place.
I haven't been proven wrong yet re: prologues, but maybe I'm just missing all the books where they don't work as well. (Full disclosure, I've been known to use them when need be.)
I think it's a matter of whether it works for your story or not. Until this thread came up, I never really gave prologues or epilogues much thought.
I self published my first novel through Amazon. When prepping my story for upload I read a mess of how-to books about formatting, and what to avoid.. and one how-to author strongly advised against them because, according to him, the kindle reader would sometimes skip the prologue and automatically start at chapter 1. So, in my book so I used my first and final chapters as a prologue and epilogue (setting mood and reference). After publishing, I learned that Amazon doesn't have a problem with these sorts of entry and exit structures. What's done is done though, so live and learn I guess.
My current WIP is in response to questions of my early readers that asked, "what happened next?", so it will be a sequel to the first. I've never done a series book before and am struggling a bit to bridge the two works. If a reader picks up my second book without reading the first I don't want him to get lost, but if they have read the first book I don't want too much redundancy. I'm discovering that series books pose an interesting problem.
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