In defense of Prologues
Prologue
In this essay, I will:
- Defend the holy Prologue against all enemies, foreign and domestic, on ludicrous charges, as outlined above.
- Cite several examples of superb, necessary and even life-sustaining Prologues.
- Cement my status as a fan of Prologues by insisting that all submission package materials put before this MY group be accompanied by a(t least one) Prologue.
Chapter 1
I was wandering along by the banks of the river one day when I
Chapter 2
Ducks
Ducky ducuyk ducky duckys.
ducksssss.
Chapter 3
Neither a duck nor a river.
mysterious!
Chapters 5–450,708
Some words. probably.
Chapter 450,709
Google something like “why everyone hates Prologues” or “why Prologues are bad” or “why Prologues, NOT the climate crisis, will kill us all” and you will find any number of people writing or speaking at some length about how Prologues are “bad” or “throat-clearing” or “info dumps” or “probably worse than being flamethrown in the face while your genitals are chainsawed off.”
These people are wrong, bad and stupid. In this essay, I will:
- Defend the holy Prologue against all enemies, foreign and domestic, on ludicrous charges, as outlined above.
- Cite several examples of superb, necessary and even life-sustaining Prologues.
- Cement my status as a fan of Prologues by insisting that all submission package materials put before this MY group be accompanied by a(t least one) Prologue.
Further, I shall defend the holy Prologue with undeniably the sharpest and most essential tool — nay, weapon! — in any writer’s arsenal: the incisive, informative, invincible noun.
Part 1: In which I defend the holy Prologue from all enemies.
Why do we — well. Not “we” anymore, since I debated myself on the issue (and won, to be sure). But why do some lesser species of human, such as Merovingian apologists, Montana Surf Club charter members and fans of the New England Patriots, insist that the holy Prologue should be abstained from because it is, to borrow from old Finno-Ugric — and this is not an exact translation, alas — “bad”?
Because they are, in a word that isn’t inexactly translated, wrong, bad and stupid. Just look at this defense. (You are already doing so, which removes from you the need to do anything. Saves you more time for reading Prologues.)
Part 2: In which I cite several examples of good Prologues.
From time immemmorial to the curenttime period in which we find ourselves living and wondering why I started this sentence like a horrible history paper in which I am going to argue that the Kardashians are redeemable human — wait, I misspenned something. Misspelled, even. Mispenned is good, though. Mispenned, or misspend? … different words.
Anyway. That paragraph right there?
Not.
Relevant.
To
Anything.
But prologues?
Sorry. But Prologues? Very relevantto everything. More relevant than spaces.
Anyway,
Many Prologues in human history have been good and right and just, and as their defenders will tell you, they should not be thrown into vats of acid to warn the other Prologues to shape up and become Chapter 1s.
Chapters 1? … probably not.
Anyway, here is a list of Prologues that that should not be thrown into vats of acid to warn the other Prologues to shape up and become Chapter 1s. The relevance of the links is a clear sign that Google thinks the holy Prologue should be maintained throughout literature.
Part 3: In which I require that submission packages to my group include a prologue.
Do it.
Prologue to Epilogue
Yeah, you need these too.
Epilogue
I’ll cover these next year.