To Add or not to Add

Send the first five pages, exactly as requested. If that's prologue, send it. If it's not good enough to hook a reader, why is it in your manuscript?

My current WIP has a prologue that has a murder, but it doesn't involve the MC. So for me, I would have trouble deciding whether to put the prologue, which I love and I do think hooks the reader, versus the first 5 pages of chapter one, which introduces my MC and his voice a bit more and introduces the case he's working on.

I'd be worried about a 5 page prologue... that sounds more like a short chapter one. But if it has action and things happening in it (rather than just the typical bad prologue of 'In the kingdom of X there had been years of war... blah blah blah' which is not good writing) then it should be included because it a) shows how well you write such things and b) IS relevent to the story and probably leaves a nice cliffhanger (or should do) which makes the reader want to find out what happened...

The first five pages includes the prologue.

Just to add - the purpose of a 5-page sample is to demonstrate that you can write prose that is not only literate but draws the reader in. If someone picked up your book, read five pages and thought "meh", you've failed to make a sale. You don't get to stand in the bookshop and say "Um, excuse me... If you skip ahead to chapter one, you'll meet the hero and it gets more interesting...".

The agent is basically replicating the same process with prospective clients. Hook 'em or lose 'em.

I sent in the first five pages, which included four pages of prologue. I did okay.

lauralam said:

My current WIP has a prologue that has a murder, but it doesn't involve the MC. So for me, I would have trouble deciding whether to put the prologue, which I love and I do think hooks the reader, versus the first 5 pages of chapter one, which introduces my MC and his voice a bit more and introduces the case he's working on.

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This makes me wonder: why can't you drop the prologue, and start with the MC, but have him doing something interesting enough to hook the reader? It sounds like you may not be starting the MC in the right place, if what he's doing is less interesting than the prologue and if the MS depends on the prologue to hook the reader.

Anne Lyle said:

Send the first five pages, exactly as requested. If that's prologue, send it. If it's not good enough to hook a reader, why is it in your manuscript?

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This.

Yeah, I got nothing to add to that.