My WIP has a prologue. Is this a Very Bad Thing?

I mean, it isn’t a long biblical series of begats. It’s a scene, and (I humor myself) amusing, and the hero and heroine are both in it. The action just takes place eight years before the rest of the book. And the heroine is still a child. It’s rather important background for the rest of the story, and I’ve tried to think my way around it – so far with no success.

Do an editor’s eyes glaze over when she sees the word “prologue”? Will she just throw me back on the slush pile?

Show of hands, please.


5 comments to “Does a prologue mean The End?”

  1. CM
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    1
    · November 26th, 2006 at 11:41 pm · Link

    You know what I think. Keep the prologue.



  2. Alice Audrey
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    · November 26th, 2006 at 11:45 pm · Link

    Go to your bookshelf. Drag out books like the one your are writing. Do any of them have prologues? Each one that has a prologue made it past an editor.

    I don’t know about you, by my bookshelf is full of prologues. In most books if I see a prologue I simply skip to the first chapter. Not in Romance novels. In Romance, prologues are worth reading.

    Keep the prologue.

    Alice



  3. Sara Dennis
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    3
    · November 27th, 2006 at 10:12 am · Link

    As long as it a) really is a prologue and not just a first chapter you don’t want to call a first chapter and b) is important to the story, keep it.

    From your description, it sounds like it’s both of the above. Nooo worries.



  4. Lynne Simpson
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    4
    · November 27th, 2006 at 6:26 pm · Link

    I’m a big fan of well-written prologues in fantasy as well as romance. If it feels right to you, keep it!



  5. Cynthia Falcon
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    5
    · November 28th, 2006 at 7:16 am · Link

    My story has a prologue too! So I say go for it 🙂

    By the way, if you would like to link to my new blog (with an excerpt of one of my WIP’s prologue), it can be found at http://cynthiafalcon.wordpress.com.
    I got sick of spam I was receiving on blogspot.