UN-killer openings

Agent Kristin tells what knocks 90% of submissions off her desk and back to the writer.

Killer Openings.

I agree. I've judged a few contests, seen the slush, and had unsolicited books sent despite the "don't do this" statements on my FAQ page. Many, many, MANY of them had the same flaws mentioned on this blog.

If you're thinking agents/editors don't actually read submissions and just pick the top three off the pile to grant immortality to that month, think again. It's a dumb-ass way to run a business, any business. Those top three subs might be terrible!

They really DO want to find the next Big Writer--but writers have to meet them more than halfway by subbing something worth buying.

It ain't up to chance--it's up to the writer to WRITE WELL.

And even when you've sold books and have an agent, you still have to work hard on the openings. I had that in mind for my latest proposal. It collected 7 rejections before finding a home and took a good 6 months to do it. That's on the fast track, too, with my agent nagging them.

But hey--a contract! A check!

Leah Raeder said:

For example:

- The crime thriller prologue that gives us a snapshot of the killer. Way to spoil the mystery.

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I just did a crit on one of those at my writer's group today. Yikes. Could have done without it.

- The crime thriller prologue that gives us a snapshot of someone who's not the killer. Red herring cliché.

- The epic fantasy prologue that tells us the story of the world's creation and/or the advent/warring of the gods.

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Only Tolkien ever got away with that, and that's because he's...well...Tolkien. And anyway, I wanted to know more about Hobbits!

- The sci-fi prologue that tells us about the Amazing Technology That Changed Everything (TM).

- The historical fiction prologue that sets up the legitimacy of fictional insertions/changes by giving us a history lesson.

I could go on.

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Good lord, this is why I always tell writers to just start the danged story!

Thank you!

I've been forced to write prologues twice (work for hire books) and hated them, kept them as short as possible. I still think the things were not necessary to the books, but the editor was the one signing the check.

I've a new series that *does* need a prologue, though. It is absolutely necessary for the reader's orientation.

It's going to be ONE paragraph and that's IT. No more than 50 words, if that much.

I'll ask the editor to not put the word "prologue" anywhere near it.

I should have been more clear. The Tolkien prologue of which I spoke is in Fellowship of the Ring, not the Hobbit. I don't remember the Hobbit having one, it's been a couple decades since I read the books.

Next, those books were written a long time ago and if submitted today would be rejected for being too slow, wordy, suffering from viewpoint shifts and other flaws that 21st century editors pick on, including myself.

BUT--they are the books fantasy writers draw their tropes from, not unlike writers swiping from Shakespeare. (And HE swiped from earlier writers!)

As an aside, Gone With the Wind would be roundly rejected as an historical romance for deviating from the love story and not having a Happily Ever After ending, never mind the stuff throughout that was accepted behavior back in the 1920s/30s when it was written, but is hideous racism today. GWTW had no prologue, by the way.

Fame<Infamy -- It's not that there is hate for prologues but that agents don't want to see them in a query. That's why Agent Kristin mentioned the trope.

When submitting a proposal and sample chapters, the unspoken rule is send the chapters from the body of the book. If the agent requests a full, THEN you send in a prologue. The agent will determine if it's necessary to the whole of the book and keep it or ask you to rewrite it as chapter one.

Proposal + samples are a resume. They check it over, decide if they want more, then you're called in for the job interview. That's when you dress up, groom up, and bring all you have to offer to the table, which includes a prologue.

But be fully aware that a lot of readers will still skip them in the bookstore!

I didn't read Tolkien's prologue until AFTER I'd finished reading the whole trilogy and was re-reading it. By then I wanted to see what he had to say about Hobbits.



And please, people, let's NOT turn this into an "I love/I hate prologues" thread, because there are several on AW already. Pick one and shift the discussion there.



This is about killer openings and what it is about 90% of them that causes an agent to toss a MS into the "return" pile.

My first novel lacked a prologue, but the first five pages were a dismal snore.

As hard as I slaved over those words, the feedback I got told me I had to chop them and start farther in when things were actually happening.

When the MC reached a "catch his breath" point, I skipped a space to indicate that, then proceeded with the rest of the book. Looking at it now, those pages could easily be a prologue, only I didn't know at the time. The books I enjoyed most (except for Tolkien) didn't have them and just jumped into the story.

That said, I now have to look over my latest opening on a new novel and see if I can jazz it up more.

Because even if it's published I have about 10 seconds to convince a reader browsing the first page to take this book to the store register.

THAT'S the real hard sell!

And you can blame George Lucas for the introduction / infodump designed to explain the history of what's going on prior to the opening scene. Most of them read like clunky versions of the Star Wars title crawl.

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Which he took from the old movie serials from days gone by. Back then you needed those to catch people up who came in on the middle of the series.

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How about jigging boobs that explode--was that an episode of House or Nip/Tuck or Boston Legal??

Maybe it was Night Court. Gee, I miss Judge Harry and the gang.