I'm aware that this is a drum I beat a lot and is probably deathly dull for most, so feel free to skip.
There's a difference between published and unpublished books, as well, if I can say that without sounding mean.
I don't think it's mean at all. I think it's actually part of the point. The stuff that you don't publish is still in flux. You're still working it out. 99% of it is going to suck, and that's true if you're a newbie just starting out, or if you're JK Rowling. (She had
a wonderful tweet on the subject yesterday.)
I've seen a lot of prologues this past year for SFF, in a few of the fb groups I'm in. I can hand on heart say I thought all of them were unnecessary/starting in the wrong place, and almost every time the author insists "but how else can I explain ____ about my worldbuilding" etc. Well, that's the challenge of sff. One I read recently was literally someone being given a coming of age verbal exam to explain the magic system and the history of the world. No, just no.
This isn't a prologue problem. This is a problem (that yes, is very common for fantasy writers in particular) with worldbuilding. As in:
This isn't how you do it. You are not writing an encyclopedia. You, the author, may care very much about the intricacies of your magic system, but your reader just wants to be entertained. (When you DO become Rowling, you may publish your own Guide To The Big Magic System and it will sell madly.)
so yeah, I see great prologues in novels sometimes. but in the context of unpublished authors, they're more often a pit to fall into. I'd put them in the same category as the Waking Up With Amnesia opener (perfect in Amber, deadly for most new writers). I don't feel bad about trying to talk people out of either when I can't see good reason for them.
But you're talking about two different things here. You're talking about a specific dramatic setup vs. a piece of narrative structure. To haul out another awful analogy: it's like telling your friend she can't wear dresses when really she just looks awful in that yellow one.
Infodumps are (almost always) bad. Infodump prologues are (almost always) bad. (Almost) everyone looks lousy in yellow.
'kay, maybe one person ever will understand that analogy (and is about to argue with me over the merits or lack thereof of the harmonic exciter), but the point is: there are tools for the job, and it's the job of a creator to understand what those tools are, when to use them, and how not to use them.
For me, this is exactly it: you have to use the tools badly before you can learn how to use them well. You have to write a boatload of lousy prologues before you figure out how to write a good one. (The original prologue I wrote for my first book was eviscerated so badly on SYW that I stopped writing for three days. It was deadly dull and they were completely right.)
The thing that always tweaks me about the "prologues BAD" argument is that it always ends up focused on what agents will think, or what editors will think, like the word PROLOGUE on your partial will make an agent throw it out. (And I'm not going to argue that there aren't agents who
would just stop at the word PROLOGUE, although I'd hope a professional would at least try a few paragraphs. FWIW I'm also aware of agents who get irritated as hell if they discover you've left out your prologue, because they want to read the book from the start.)
IMO that kind of thinking can absolutely choke your creativity, because instead of focusing on what's best for telling
this particular story, you're focusing on some non-existent formula for getting published.
Writing, like most art forms, is honed through practice, and that means you're going to write
a lot of words that will never, ever, ever see the light of day, even if you end up massively successful someday. So maybe instead of viewing every story as something we have to jam into a mold that will give it the Best Chance To Get Published, we should just...have fun. Play with prologues. Play with tense, POV, surrealism, structure. The most amazing stuff can happen when you're playing.
(Also, modulo some genre rules, there is no mold, and deliberately trying to make your work more conventional isn't going to make you stand out from the crowd.)
I feel more like it's the main body of the novel is your legs and the prologue is your shoes. When you walk across the living room, it helps to have legs, but shoes aren't needed. Some people don't allow shoes in their living room, others do. Some insist that they could not possible walk in their living room without shoes. But to walk across your living room, it's the legs that you really need. Shoes are an extra layer you put on the ends.
(I'm aware that this is an ablest analogy)
(Yeah, my arm/leg analogy was ableist as well, and I apologize for that - I will do better.)
See, I don't really agree with this. I do think some stories need prologues, or they're fundamentally not the same story.
I've read some prologues that work OK but aren't really necessary (just read a series book where the author used the prologue to summarize the three years between the end of the last book and this one, but while that was convenient it was entirely unnecessary for the understanding and enjoyment of the rest of the book), but sometimes they serve a critical purpose.
