how to write a prologue that GRABS YOUR READER

we're sisters best friends and authors on a mission to help you stoke your creative fire and live the life of your dreams we believe that purpose fuels passion and that creativity is your secret weapon for mass construction there's never been a better time to bless the world with your dream realized you're listening to the kate and abby show what's up guys welcome back to the caton abbey show this is episode 32 and today we are talking about how to write an amazing prologue prologues are a topic that i have gotten a lot of questions about um how do you write a good prologue what uh what creates some good um tension some good conflict right away in a prologue that pulls you into the story and just how to pull off writing a really good prologue or opening of your book if it's not opening with chapter one something else that gives the reader a little something extra at the beginning of your book a lot of times prologues are backstory but not always um sometimes it's like a past event sometimes it's a future event sometimes it's something that's currently happening somewhere else or even to the main characters so prologues are kind of all over the place but we are going to cover a variety of prologues in this podcast and discuss how to write a great prologue no matter what genre you're writing and i have the prologue expert sitting next to me here k.a evans who uh writes prologues into every book that you've written right yeah i feel like every book that you've written has prologues yeah unless it's like a contemporary i mean you've written yeah they all have i think every single one you're a fan of prologue i am i do i it just gives you that nice little something extra to intrigue you at the front end of the book something that's going to pull you into the story and make you want to stay right um like yeah i mean like when you think about it most films if they were in the format of a book start with something like a prologue whether it's narration or whether it's a little piece that's um backstory that would be like if it was in a book format it would be a prologue something that's like oh hair is here's the setup it's kind of the setup for what you're about to experience from the rest of the book so i think if you have if you have a desire and a reason to have a prologue it can be a great thing for your book it can really help add that little bit of extra to help pull your readers in and want to know more right exactly i think a problem that a lot of writers run into with prologues is that they make them too unrelated to the rest of the book or just too abstract and strange and confusing to the point where you don't know what's happening in the prologue and then worst case scenario you read the book and you still don't know how the prologue was relevant but how does that happen to you when you've read books um i don't know i can't think of like an exact case study at the moment but i'm sure there are books out there like that um but a lot of times it's just that the payoff is like extremely late in the book and then you're like oh that was the prologue that was what the prologue was about um which can work in some cases but in most cases i would advise writers to make sure that there is a direct correlation between the prologue and chapter one or at the very worst like chapter three or chapter four like don't wait too long before you demystify the events of what happened in the prologue yeah at least hint at it yeah because i always use this analogy when we talk about writing is it's the cookie trail it's the trail of cookie crumbs that you're following into the wood here's a cookie you eat it and then you walk a little ways then you find another one that's the payoff the walking distance is the stuff you have to get through to get to the next cookie now if you consistently have you can even walk a little ways but as long as there's a cookie waiting for you you feel like hey i've been rewarded for that now what if you you get to the last cookie and then you go a long ways and then there's nothing that's when readers close the book because they feel like i can't find the next one i don't see where this is going and there's no payoff for what i've read so it's like question answer question answer cause and effect cause and effect yeah yeah otherwise you feel let down yeah you feel let down and you feel like where is this going like there's been so many times when i'm watching for me it's more film related because i really don't read any fictional books other than abby's but i am watching a film and i'm like what am i watching like an hour and a half in and you're just like you think back to the beginning and you're like how did i even get to this point and i don't even know what the objective is anymore yeah so you don't want people to arrive at that point especially when it's the beginning of the book the thing that got them interested in the first place and then they don't have that anymore they're there for that thing so it's the prologue is not the place for you to just be abstract and poetic and edgy in the beginning and maybe some people get it maybe some people don't like no that's that's not what the prologue that's not the time and place for that this is the time and place where you can grab the reader and really pull them in and be like oh i can't wait to hear more of that and then you have to keep that consistent throughout the book you have to have the next cookie in the trail has to be soon after the first one or else they're going to get disinterested or they're going to retrace their steps and leave and you don't want the reader to do that you want them to keep going you want them to trust you it's a trust relationship where they have a cause they have an effect they have a question they have an answer they have a reason to keep following the story exactly yeah i think that's such a great point and really the first few pages which is where your prologue will be it really is what sets the stage for the rest of your story and the tone i think is important um if your prologue is is really like abstract and poetic and it's just like you know weird for the sake of being weird uh and just poetic and strange then that's going to be setting the tone for the rest of your book and the rest of your book might not have that tone you know um so i think that people make assessments really quickly about whether or not they're interested in something like the first five seconds into it is is when your brain decides are we gonna keep going yeah if we keep going then maybe the first five minutes will go by and if we're not like pulled in completely like we have to know what happens next you'll probably lose our attention so taking that into account it's like do you want this to be this is your first impression of your book basically um and i think about it when i'm making videos as well it's like every time i make a video i try to make it my best video so far because i tell myself this could be the first video someone sees of me that's a great way to look at it you know this could be the first impression someone has of me so i better make sure it's good not just like oh well you know it doesn't have to be that great because it's you know i have other videos out there that are good it's like no this has to be the best because this might be the first impression someone has of you right um and i know that that's like a high bar to set for yourself but that's how what you should set for yourself when you're writing as well it's like okay first page first chapter that's going to be the first impression someone has of your book in your story so what's the tone that you really want to set here what is the how do you want to set the stage and i feel like you do a great job of that in all of your books um so what would you say what are the things that come to mind when you're thinking of because i'm really like genuinely interested in because i didn't i have never written is there a lot of 100 days no it just starts oh okay yeah i really think of that as a prologue yeah i really don't write them very often because they feel less suited to contemporary yeah i guess so like fantasy there's always like this it feels like prologues just feel good yeah like you should write a prologue yeah and i recently wrote an epilogue which was the first time i think i've done that and that was kind of fun yeah that's there's another podcast yeah but what's like what are the things that go through your mind when you're thinking of like okay i'm gonna start the story i want to write a prologue that's not necessarily um relate directly related to what's happening in chapter one but it's gonna set the stage well i think of what is going what is most important later on what's a really important aspect of this book that has not yet been revealed for example um the second book of my series the blood race book two worlds beneath starts with a prologue that's actually through the point of view of the villainous character that's revealed later on and that is a giant part of the plot of that book so i pull him into the prologue and now you're seeing something that happened in his past that actually connects to the main character hawk who you've already gotten to know through the blood race book one so you realize ooh who's this person that's connected to this main character that i already know and love and that's somehow back in her past and how is that going to be revealed so number one how is it important what's a really important element to the story that i can pull out and draw to the front and then it's going to be woven in throughout and kind of give them that trail again the cookie trail to follow and consume and be satisfied by as they make their way through the book second would be um like how can i make it into what would be intriguing to me what would grab me don't think of anything else don't think of what your reader would be intrigued by don't think of what readers in a certain genre would be intrigued by ask yourself what would grab me by the throw and pull me in so much so that i couldn't put the book down because you are the ultimate reader of the genre because you're writing it your specific book you're the writer of this book so you are the ultimate reader of this book and you need to ask yourself what would intrigue me the most and that should be part of how it opens that should factor into the prologue so it needs to be relevant it needs to be something that's going to appear again and again later in the book and it's going to be something that would intrigue you like crazy yeah that's what that's my advice for myself i mean i'm sure there's tons of other great advice that could be given on this topic but that those are the two things that i keep in mind personally that's really excellent advice and i love that you said um is it gonna appear again and again because that's like you know what your example with worlds beneath um which i was thinking of and that it it comes back and appears again and again and so you have like sort of the same style as the prologue coming back and reappearing in different places in the book and leading you more into the story and the plot and it becomes a major part of the plot twist which is incredible by the way you all need to go read it amazing it will mess you up but anyway um so i think that is that is such great advice because a lot of times the prologues of of other books that i've seen won't be related to a lot of things that happen later or it won't like come back again and again like that and then it does it loses that satisfaction because we love putting things together yeah like the human brain loves doing two plus two is four instead of just you know here's four you know we like actually putting together the pieces and constructing this puzzle um and that being said you can't make it too confusing so that nobody gets it obviously right but we get a lot of satisfaction because you don't want to use it right exactly you don't want to use the epilogue at the end to explain flat out what the prologue was supposed to be exactly and a lot of people have figured it out by that time yeah exactly and and that being said a lot of times people will use prologues as like it'll be a future event that's in the prologue i've seen that done a lot and that can be cool but you want to make sure that it is still it still has that why does it matter feeling and you're not just confusing readers right out of the gate right i feel like it has to be something pivotal in order for that to work nicely yeah because sometimes it's just like what is this present yeah is this future is this past right it can be more confusing than you feel like ebenezer scrooge trying to figure out which ghost is which and you don't want people like wondering where in time and space yeah they are right that messes people up when they're like didn't that already happen flips back through oh was that supposed to be a future scene ahead of time like yeah and then i think it's like it falls flat and it's not right that's not what you want people to be doing so it would have to be really clear i think a lot of times the thing that saves it is making sure that the perspective is like a voice narrating a past event like looking back on this event you know i mean like the the only example that that's coming to my mind right now is the beginning of tangled when he's like this is a story of how i die yeah that's that's a great that's a good book so looking at that as a case study the whole opening of that movie up until the part where i think the disney logo comes up and rapunzel starts singing the opening song story is backstory but also basically the prologue of the movie yes yes so it's the prologue so chapter one is opening with rapunzel singing the tower with her lizard in fact every single disney movie i think is like a pattern that's like the prologue and then the logo comes up so pretty much everything before the logo is like that's a great point yeah huh that's there's there's such a scientific formula to disney movies funny makes me so happy that's great we should we should talk about that sometimes yeah we should but like yeah so the whole thing from the opening scene to that point is prologue right and all of it's necessary because if we didn't know that then so imagine tangled without that you'd be confused you'd be like right what is happening yeah exactly so it's it's pivotal because it's it's capturing a pivotal moment when rapunzel was told stolen from her parents by this witch right so you need all this is how the witch has powers this is why your hair glows okay i get that now and now so those are pivotal moments that basically the inciting incident of the whole thing the greater whole yeah so we need that so i think but if it was like just a flashback of when rapunzel was born and look how much her parents loved her and then it fades to black and then opens you'd be like yeah something's missing i feel like just so you don't want it to be just a disembodied scene that makes you maybe have a more abstract take on what's happening you want it to be a pivotal moment that really mattered and that fuels the rest of this what you're about to see what you're about to read yeah and so that the backstory is way more important than like the future scene i mean it's like a cool hook to have flynn being like this is the story of how i died but imagine if like the first thing you saw is the scene where he climbs up into the tower and gets stabbed by mother gothel and you'd be like what's going on right you know and it would kind of spoil the events for later yeah so i feel like a lot of i mean i've seen a lot of books do this that's like the prologue is like the big exciting scene at the end um and then we rewind and it's like okay so i know what's gonna happen at the end and i'm also confused because was that the end or was that the past or what's going on exactly you know so i think if you can there's definitely an equilibrium to be found there yeah i'm not saying that you can't do the future scene thing because you can and i think there's a way to do it um that makes it feel natural and actually does pull readers in but i would say to make sure that you're careful with how much you are confusing the reader right because you have to understand they don't know anything exactly they don't know anything at all so you're setting the stage i mean the first line is like the first opening picture right you're giving somebody yeah so you better make sure that that picture is clear and relevant to everything that's gonna happen if it's something like i did this once in a work in progress that i have that's unreleased is i pulled something from a future scene and used it as the prologue but the scene what was happening in the scene anyone would be able to understand even if they didn't know the story because of what was happening it was only with one character doing one action so we could understand like okay she's leaving a note for this person and then leaves and then we're like oh what does it say why is that happening and then that that action is going to reoccur throughout the entire story right and so then we get to see and it's actually that particular scene was a pivotal moment pulled to the front that helps to tell the rest of the story so it has to be something that's pivotal but something that people will be able to understand without a lot of description so like for example if it's like excuse me like a sci-fi fantasy or something and you want to pull like the big climax with like the aliens battling these you know other creatures well no one knows what those things are yet so you're going to need like so much describing of like what things even are that it's going to be very confusing whereas if it's a contemporary or something i just thought of the perfect example yeah what is the greatest showman okay like the very beginning of that film yeah how it opens with like the greatest show song yeah the circus is happening a great example and then it goes right into the backstory and it's just so smoothly done and it's like you can kind of look at it from two perspectives i've heard people i've heard people interpret it as like this is a flash forward moment and then we like we smoothly zoom back to his past or it can be seen as how i've always interpreted it as that he's like imagining all of that and then it comes true later but it still is the future scene thing and it sets the tone for the whole movie because that's pretty much how the whole movie feels right it's like loud loud and colorful and singing and sparkles yeah exactly so yeah so it sets the stage it gives you the promise of something that you're going to be experiencing later on but it also is so smoothly ties into the back story and it's just it's beautiful yeah that's a perfectly great example you know great i don't know how you'd write that as prologue in a book but yeah that's a prologue of that film that i feel is like a future scene done really well and i'm sure there are a lot of others but i've seen some that are just so confusing that it's like you see this person and it's in the future and then you're not told that you went back in time and then you're watching them again you're like wait when did they do the other thing and it's just it's really confusing sometimes so i think making it as clear as possible and showing people how this is relevant and that's really all you need to do yeah it really is and yeah the making sure that it's relevant so regardless of what you do because there are so many different takes on this you just have to make sure that it's relevant to the story because sometimes a prologue is like it feels like it's another book pasted at the front and you're like what is this i don't understand what it is or like using you know a piece of like a prophecy that's going to be later in the book which i actually did that in worlds beneath paired with something else to help it make sense because if that was just by itself you'd be like what does this mean it doesn't really make you care about it right there has to be an emotion there has to be some emotion to make you grasp onto it and to make it kind of yeah absolutely which i think you did such a good job of in in the prologue of world awesome i'm glad is that you really have a lot of emotion and conflict happening in that scene and then that pulls you in you're like oh i can see how this is going to be relevant and then i just see more and more of the picture um and that's really what makes it satisfying right the relevancy because you have to see why it matters right it has to be like the slow unveiling of a statue now you can like unveil a little bit and someone's like oh what is that and then throughout the book you have to slowly be pulling it down more so but some people wait and they're like here's a little piece and then the person is standing there for five years i don't even care what this looks like anymore and then at the end they rip it all off exactly it's like no that's not satisfying we want to slowly see it come about like yeah like the example that keeps jumping in my head as an example of a bad prologue and i know you haven't seen this but the king arthur movie the new one the one that came out a few years ago or whatever is an example of a prologue that was so like so much information at the very beginning that you felt like you were almost halfway through the film before the title even came up and it was really that was like the prologue moment of the movie but it was so confusing and it left this big question of how this one big important element happened that literally was not revealed until like the very end of the film and i was i've like thought about it so much because i'm like that would have been so good if that was more of a slow reveal throughout rather than like oh here's this little confusing thing that will just torture your mind for the next two hours until we finally show you at the end this is what it really was but by then it's like it's not satisfying anymore right you know what i mean yeah because you feel like you've been stood up yeah you do you feel like you've been stood up that's a perfect analogy you're like even if the person shows up really late they're like oh you know i'm sorry but good things are worth waiting for you're like no you're not that much of a good thing but yeah exactly the people don't want to wait that long yeah they feel betrayed when it doesn't people the reader loses trust yeah which we really need to do like a whole podcast on like the balance of that i think because um i know we've discussed it at length between ourselves before is like how much uh should you um satisfy the reader so that they keep so that they're hungry for more but like not uh like stringing them along with this plot and then like there's no payoff right so i feel like a lot of people get confused with those two things because they're like oh well i can't satisfy them completely because then they'll just be bored and they'll be like okay well that's done that's resolved you know yeah there's an equilibrium there right like the what pops my head immediately and yeah we definitely need to talk about it more is like imagine if restaurants function that way and they're like well we can't like let them eat like until they're actually full because then they won't ever come back to this restaurant ever again so instead of giving them the sandwich they ordered let's just give them a quarter of the sandwich and then that way they'll come back again because they're still hungry yeah it's like no people are never gonna come back to your restaurant what you do is you give them something really good and then they'll come back for more give them something really good and they'll just keep coming back for more and that's what you have to do as a writer it does it's it's not about like letting them still be hungry they're going to get hungry for more anyway that's why people don't just watch one tv series they watch one they love it and now they want to find another one that they love just as much they people don't just read one book and become a super fan of it they want to read more books like that right exactly that's why platforms like goodreads exist so that people can find more books that they can be obsessed with there's always room for more with the reader or the viewer what they want what satisfies them and makes them hungry for more at the same time is giving them something excellent yeah exactly well said and and yeah we should do a whole podcast on that because i feel like there's a lot to talk about there really um in in this the balance just finding the balance between that because you can frustrate your reader without using them and so there's definitely a a balance there um and it has to do with characters i think it's like really the what it all comes down to is keeping your characters really conflicted so that they are making mistakes but they but the audience still loves them so much that they can't look away mm-hmm so yeah there's definitely a balance there that's 100 true yeah so i think we gave some good advice about prologues today yeah we did i i think so too i think we we put a lot out there we'd love to hear your guys's thoughts so if you're watching on youtube um this the video version of the podcast is available on my youtube channel okay uh emma said kmins.com nope youtube.com kmns so if you're watching or head on over to the video and leave a comment let us know what you think of prologues have you written a prologue do you love prologues do you hate them what's your relationship with prologues and what's what are your takeaways from today we would love to hear about that if you if you'd like to support this the show where can they go to do that patreon.com the kate and abby show you can support the show get a shout out on the show shout out by the way to our amazing patrons angela sarah and rachel and yeah if you want to head on over to my youtube channel you can check out my writing videos as well that's youtube.com slash abby evans and yeah definitely definitely go follow abby her videos are like the best every wednesday she posts like the best writing videos out there oh thank you thank you guys for being here i hope you got something out of this one and until the next episode stay soaked and rock on

Channel: K.A. Emmons

Views: 11,185

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Id: b1VMRZUeSKs

Length: 26min 56sec (1616 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 23 2020