Tuesday's Writer's Tip Prologues and Epilogues #BWLAuthor #MFRWAuthor #Prologue #Epilogues Wwriting

 What is the advantage of using a prologue in your story. A prologue is a small scene that sets the problem for your characters. The prologue is also the past. The story must move forward after this. For the prologue to be effective, the scene should be short, telling and point to what the characters are facing in the present part of the story. I seldom use prologues but there are times when this short scene is needed to produce tension, or interest in what is occurring in the character's presence.

Epilogues are seldom used these days. Often just making what would have been the epilogue into a final scene in the book works. In the past, epilogues were often lone and gave the characters what happens in the future, making this a long, long scene. 

At present I am using an epilogues in the story I'm currently working on. But this is a single scene and is used for a rather shock element and involves only a shadowy character seen in the prologue.

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Meandering On Monday with Janet Lane Walters

Meander 1 Seems to me that many prologues aren't needed. Often they contain information the author needs to know and that the reader could discover at another time. Been reading a number of them lately and for most of them I've not wanted to read more of the story that might follow. I know there are reasons to have them. I've even occasionally used one but more often I've written them and then left the prologue out of the final version of the story. I think what a writer has to do is decide if the material in the prologue can be fitted into the story in some other way. Through dialogue, through a short flashback during a  part of the story when one of the characters is trying to come to a decision or through flashes of memories. Enough said.

Meander 2 Time. Sometimes it seems as though I don't have time to finish everything I want to write. Then new ideas come into my head and I wonder if there's time to write everything I'd like to write. Probably not but one just keeps plunging ahead.

Meander 3. Progress. Have nearly finished Rekindled Dreams and am coming to the end of The Amber Cage. Started Melodic Dreams the third in the MoonChild series. Interesting story and I'll see where it leads. Hope to finish the first two before the end of this month and then bring out the last of the alternate Egypt stories so I can put the three books out before my birthday. That's months away, so there's a chance.

Wednesday - Plot - flashbacks, prologues and epilogues

A bit aboug flashbacks. A look into the past can be just a line of memory, a passage of exposition, a conversation or a genuine flashback that is a scene that has taken place in the past. The first kinds of looking at the past seldom cause problem, but the long scenic flashback can pull the reader out of the story. One of my favorite writers used this in one of her books where perhaps a chapter or two were in the present and then one in the past. I'm sure she was just trying a technique but for me the story was so disjointed I began to skip the past scenes and focused on the current story. When the information is vital, try to find another way of presenting the information. Used judiciously a memory of the past can hold clues to the present problems in the story.

Prologues and epilogues are generally better left off. For the prologue if there is information that is vital to the story use a prologue but remember to make it vital and short. If the material in the prologue goes on for pages and pages, this may mean the story has started in the wrong place.

Epilogues tell something that happens in the character's futures. I've never been partial to them. This is my own view but often they're found in romance novels and make me feel the writer is trying to convince me that this romance really works. Something to think about. If a writer is planning a sequel to the book, an epilogue can act as a teaser for what is to come.

Remember to use these three additions to the plot judiciously. Keeping the reader turning the pages is a good thing. Having something that causes them to stop reading isn't good.