An often-cited bit of wisdom is that editors and agents do not like prologs, and that is true. Usually someone in love with their prolog will counter will examples of novels that started off with the dreaded bit of pre-story as evidence that the wisdom is not true.

Of course some books do have prologs but it is still true that agents and editors shy away from them because the prolog is an overused and misused tool.

I myself fall into avoid the prolog camp, but I do have one novel out of submission that utilizes the technique and so here are a few of the rules I think about when considering a prolog.

1) It should not include the main character.

If you have a critical event that involves the protagonist of the tale and that is part of the main story and not a prelude to it. I have seen some people want to take an event and make it a prolog because it takes place much earlier than the rest of the story but that alone does not mean it is a prolog. Chapter one can be decades before chapter two but if it is vital and involves the main character, then do not partition it away in a prolog.

2) It should not be an encyclopedia of world building.

A very common thing seen in unrequired prologs is deep history of the setting; the recounting of kings and emperors of old, of the blood feuds, and the magical disasters that befell the people in ancient times. What that lacks is any real sense of character, it’s dull, plodding, and when I encounter it in a book I skip over it and I cannot think of a time when I did and I missed that information, Some of you may be pointing at the classic The Lord of The Rings  but I remind you that the film has a deep history prolog, one that is rich in voice and tone, but that the novel’s prolog is in an authorial voice and is more concerned with the narrative fiction of the ‘lost text’ approach than with the in world backstory. Dune  a novel with an extremely deep backstory leaps straight into the text without a prolog.

3) It should tie directly to the story central plot and themes.

This is sort of the opposite rule to guideline number 2. Instead of history and world building, use these valuable font pages to establish critical plot elements, things that will impact the characters as they navigate their troubles and inform the readers to the nature of the hurdles you are throwing up for the heroes.

Think about the prolog to A Song of Fire and Ice  the first novel in the Game of Thrones  books. It deals with a patrol of rangers, none of our main characters. The rangers encounter the ice wraiths and except for one die at the supernatural threat. For the rest of the story the reader knows the danger lurking beyond the wall. Even after the survivor flees and then in chapter one tries to warn everyone of the magical threat but is not believed, the reader knows what is going one. When learned wise men lecture other characters that there is no magic in the world, we know that there is. Without that prolog we would be on the wrong foot, tending to accept the wise old men at their word.

These simple guidelines are not the sum total of how to approach prologs and there are numerous ways to violate them and still make it work, but such a trick is not easy.