Obviously this question depends to a degree on the specific work, so let's get that out of the way. I posted the first chapter of a novel on SYW, and a response that I got from more than one person (and what I was concerned about anyway) is that there's not much indication in the first chapter of what type of book it is or where the story is going. This shows particularly in the fact that it's a horror novel, but there's not an indication of that even extending to the first few chapters. However, there is a lot of setup in those chapters that will come into play later, and also I wanted the book to slowly build to its climax, sort of like this post seems to be doing. So here's the question (at last): Would it be best to streamline the first few chapters and add a prologue? I've seen this in quite a few novels in the genre where it begins with some event that serves mainly to say: "you're reading a horror novel", and then moves on with the more or less mundane events that serve to set up the rest of the story. Instinct tells me to go this route, but I also don't want to fall into the trap of doing something just because I've seen it elsewhere. Even in other genres, how do you handle this sort of thing?