To prologue or not to prologue?

I have heard that prologues are out of vogue these days.  Apparently they have been used so much that agents and editors are shying away from books that contain them.

I have read some rather scathing comments by authors on writing blogs about the laziness of readers who dislike prologues.  Authors seem to feel that if they think the prologue is necessary, then the reader should dutifully agree.

As a reader, I dislike prologues.  As a writer, I dislike them as well, although I can understand why they are sometimes desirable.  They can be used to frame the story and provide background that is often difficult to include in a fast-paced, third-person limited point-of-view which is practically a requirement for publication nowadays.  A well-written prologue can draw readers in.

However, in general, I think prologues are a tease.  It's like the author is saying "Here's my story.  No, wait!  Here it is."  As a reader I tend to skim them quickly in order to get to the "real" story.  Most of the time, you can read the whole story without the prologue and fill in the one or two missing pieces of info by yourself, or just flip back later and find out (if it's really bugging you) whom the Queen's mother's uncle's sister was having the affair with.

What also bugs me is that the main character in the prologue is rarely the main character in the story.  You start to care for someone, and then find out that they were introduced just for the purpose of exposition.  I think that as authors we have to make some tough decisions about what and who our story is about.

This is something with which I'm currently struggling.  I have two point-of-view characters, one of whom starts the book and one of whom is the focus of much of the main conflict.  While I do go back and forth beween the two, they tend to dominate in different sections.  So I'm really telling two stories.  And my question is:  Should it be just one?  If so, which?  And if not, how do I effectively balance them both?    And then there is the ultimate, persistent dilemma:  Do I want to go omniscient?

This brings me back to the prologue question.  My first chapter was initially a prologue.  It explains some history between the two main characters that is essential to understanding their relationship.  Originally that history was just hinted at, but my readers were confused, so I decided to "show, not tell" by writing the prologue.  I mean, first chapter.  "Showing" has effectively ratcheted up the interest and tension at the start of the book, but it has also introduced a whole other dynamic with the additional POV character, as well as a time gap of a few months between chapters.  I decided to leave it as is, and just let the story flow from what I now realize is the natural starting point.

So my question for you, particularly if your book opens with a prologue, is: 

Where does your story really start? 

If you want to fully engage your readers from the first page, do you truly want to have a prologue? Can you include the essential details somewhere else in the story?  Does the prologue flow well with the rest of the book, or feel detached from it?

If you were a reader... would you read your own prologue? Or would you skip to the "real" beginning?  Or even worse, put the book down?  Be tough.  You can bet your readers will be.

Monday, Monday

So, how is everyone feeling today?  We all know Monday is the pits.  At least this one was.  Cold and rainy. I'm dragging my tail from staying up too late all last week writing and blogging.

This is the Writer's Hole, so it's important to know that you can complain if you want. Go ahead. Get it all out.

I was feeling a little better about my manuscript, ready to stop re-re-re-re-revising my first chapter and move onward, until I got a new writing book in the mail.  It's called Flogging the Quill: Crafting a Novel that Sells by Ray Rhamey, who has a fantastic blog by the same name.  I came home, opened the box from Amazon before I'd even taken my coat off, made a cup of tea and read the first 38 pages right there at the dining room table.

Rhamey's book is excellent.  He has a totally readable and yet razor-sharp analysis of how to craft compelling fiction.  It's unlike any other book on writing fiction that I've seen.  As I read, I realized that I have a lot farther to go than I thought (well, to be more accurate, than I hoped) before my manuscript is ready to send out.  And that I have to revise the first chapter again, especially the first page. It's still not compelling enough to make a reader - let alone an agent - want to know more about my story.  The story is there... just not right on the first page.

Two steps forward and one step back.  That's the writing life. Thoughts, anyone?

FTC Disclaimer (not) - I didn't get anything from Mr. Rhamey for talking about his book on my blog. I bought it from Amazon.com.

The Writer's Hole

Dear Readers,

You probably figured I couldn't stay away for long. You were right. But I want to create a whole new concept for the blog.

I want to call it "The Writer's Hole." Like that little hole you want to crawl into when you're feeling discouraged and hate the manuscript you were in raptures over just last week. I need a cute header... a Winnie-the-Pooh-like illustration of a little door in a tree trunk - that kind of thing.

I've always secretly wanted to live inside a tree trunk.

Anyway, the new blog is going to be not mine, but OURS. Anyone who wants to post something can do so. Just email it to me and I'll put it up. But I don't have time to add photos or edit the text, so just be sure it's edited beforehand, and appropriate. No profanity (you can use @#$#@! if you want), nothing offensive. And focused on writing fiction.

I also welcome short passages for which you want feedback. I'll post some of mine, too.  But it may take me a little while to put things up depending on how busy I am.  I want this to be a way we can encourage each other, but I also want to be a good steward of my time.

Please post comments with ideas/questions! I look forward to hearing from you.

Christine

Is writing a gift or a calling?

Yesterday I got involved in a discussion of writing and whether it really is a "calling" from God or not. I apologize for getting a little defensive on the topic. It is one that I have struggled with mightily over the years. I was asked whether, if God asked me to stop writing and serve Him another way, I would obey or cling to what I perceive as my "calling."

The answer is Yes. Yes I would obey Him in whatever He asked of me for a season, but yes, I would also cling to my calling because I know it is a lifetime call. How do I know this? Because it is not just what I do, but a part of who God created me to be.

I think it is safe to say that there are at least two kinds of writers - those who write for intrinsic reasons, and those who write for extrinsic reasons. (There are probably others who fall somewhere in between.) Intrinsic writers like myself have been scribbling stories since we were old enough to hold a pencil; it is as essential to us as breathing. Extrinsic writers pick up the craft at some point in their lives in response to some external stimulus or need. They may write for the rest of their lives or for a season, but for them it is more of a choice than it is for the intrinsic writer.

As an intrinsic writer who spent a decade denying my gift in order to focus on my other responsibilities, I can attest to the fact that doing so makes me miserable and unfulfilled. God has consistently placed people and opportunities in my path to draw me back into using my talent. It has taken a lot of convincing for me to accept that such a seemingly selfish activity, which takes so much time and energy away from other things and has such an uncertain outcome, could ever be of value to God. But He has never stopped "calling" me. There is no more appropriate word for the clear, consistent urging of the Holy Spirit over the years. Therefore, while I would agree with the person who originally posed the question that we are called to obey God in all things, including how we use our gifts, I would argue that sometimes the gift itself contains a call - a call to obediently develop that gift throughout our lifetime.

One thing that encouraged me was a comment from a pastor friend, who observed that whenever we use the gifts that God has given us for no other reason that the pure joy of doing so, we are actually worshipping Him!

So these stories of mine are an act of worship, strange as it may seem. The obedience part, for me, is not a question of whether or not I should write, but in having the faith to keep at it no matter what. Even if I only manage a paragraph a week. Even if it's garbage. Even if I never get published. I need to cling to what I know I have to do, because God has placed within me a call I cannot extinguish. However He chooses to use my work in the end is fine with me.

But He can't use my writing at all if I never write.

Name of a Name of a Name

I was in high school and working on my first novel when my dad saw a baby name booklet in my room and had a minor heart attack. My mom, who is also a writer, laughed and told him he was not about to become a grandfather, it was for naming characters in my story.

I have never been great at coming up with either titles or names on my own. Right now I am really struggling with the name of the fictional country where the story I am writing is taking place. (The book itself is called The Legend of the Golden Gryphon which isn't terribly original either.) Thank God for Google... it turns out that several of the names I had so painstakingly thought up are actually in use by a role-playing game or are a brand of something. I did find a fantasy name generator on line that is pretty interesting, but I want a name that actually means something, not some random arrangement of consonants and vowels. I also want to avoid unintentionally swearing in another language.

Everything I think of sounds stupid, but I keep reminding myself that Narnia, Gondor and Rohan must have sounded stupid the first hundred times someone said them, too. I'm starting to think that, like Tolkein, I'll have to invent my own language just to come up with new names, but then I don't want things in my book to be too wierd or unfamiliar. I want the book to be comfortable and easy to slip into, like a favorite robe.

Actually at one point I had toyed with calling it Croatan (or some derivative) and having it be the place to which the Roanoke settlers disappeared, but abandoned that idea. Though, actually, it's not a bad concept now that I think of it again - what if the settlers had created an improved monarchy based on their English roots, rather than the representative republic we now have? But I can't call it Croatia, for example.

Anyhow, some of the names that are NOT taken are

Celadon (a lovely shade of light green), which could be transformed to Celadonia, although it sounds a lot like Caledonia which is a real place

Montaria (based on Mount Airy, New Jersey, get it?) which is also a postal district in Portugal but I don't think they'd mind

Halduran - which is composed of the Norweigan root "Hal" meaning rock and the Latin word "duran" (enduring), (which is similar to Aldaran, the planet Princess Leia lived on in Star Wars, probably based on the same linguistic roots - ironically the "enduring rock" was blown up by Darth Vader)

I really like the "enduring rock" idea, and thought of just calling it Duran or Durin, but then again Durin is the name of one of the Dwarf Kings in Middle Earth. Tolkein beat me to it. The balrog of Moria is referred to as "Durin's Bane". Duron is a brand of house paint.

See the problems I'm having here? Any ideas, people? Anything at all?

Now I know why Thomas the Tank Engine lives on the island of Sodor. I always thought that name sounded really stupid, but at least no one can confuse it with something else.

P.S. As I was composing this, I found a feminine name meaning "Rock" on a baby name website - Sela. So, I thought, what about Selador? Guess what, I googled the word and found a reference on Wikipedia to a famous interview with J.R.R. Tolkein discussing how the words "cellar door" could be transformed into a name - you guessed it, Selador. So everyone would think that I stole it from him!

Do you see the brick marks on my forehead? I'm beating it on a brick wall.

Time to go braid some yarn for dollhouse rugs. I need something mindless to do - I've had it for today. Maybe I could just call the place Dalharug and be done with it. Or better yet, how about Yarnia?

Not enough ideas

I often hear other writers say "I have so many ideas, I don't know which one to choose! My head is just full of them."

Lucky them. If I have an idea, I hold onto it for dear life. I've had exactly three in the past five years. All of them turned into projects, but I can't say that there was any competition.

I am not one of those writers whose mind is full of characters and plots jostling around crying "Pick me! Pick me!" I don't watch a movie and think "What if I made the main character a man instead of a woman, put him in Arizona instead of Alaska and made him a doctor instead of a fisherman? What would happen then?" Instead I think "Gee, Alaska has really nice scenery."

This is because for me, writing (and life) has always been about the scenery. I can't help it if I grew up in one of the most beautiful places on Earth... Northeast Ohio. No, I'm not kidding! Deep, snowy winters; rainy, dreamlike Springs; lush and seductive summers; riotous and abundant autumns. We roamed the fields and woods. We caught frogs in the pond, bass and bluegill in the lake and crayfish in the stream. There were blackberries, blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, elderberries, wild grapes, apples, plums and walnuts, not to mention the tomatoes, beans, cucumbers, zucchini, peppers and tomatoes in the garden. And the flowers! Snapdragons, pansies, jonquils, roses, tulips, lilies-of-the-valley, spring beauties, jack-in-the-pulpits, the elusive mayflower, lilacs, buttercups, indian paintbrushes and Queen Anne's Lace. We made mint and strawberry tea for our dolls, played Little House in the Prairie in the woods and, when we were older, sang Olivia Newton John songs on the picnic table with an invisible microphone. Winters were spent huddled around the fireplace or the furnace vent and, more often than not, we were snowed in for Christmas.

For me, writing starts with a sense of place. Of setting. The characters have to be extruded from this into personalities distinct from their place and time. This takes a little effort, but when it happens they become like real people living inside my head: talking, dreaming, falling in love, making decisions, taking up quests and even dying regardless of what my plans may have been for them.

I am currently reading a book by a successful author on how to write a novel. He postulates that the way to write a novel is to plan out the entire book not just down to the chapter level, but in terms of what will happen in every paragraph. Now, he is definitely a successful writer because his books are everywhere, so this method must work for him. To me, it sounds about as exciting as writing a term paper.

Perhaps he is one of those "idea" guys. Perhaps he has so many possibilities in his head that he just has to pick some and put them in his outline. Perhaps ideas flow faster when you are working under contract. I wouldn't know.

But personally, I have no idea what my characters are going to do until they do it. I just give them a starting point and go along for the ride. I know I will have to go back to the beginning, which is probably somewhere in the middle, and restructure everything eventually. But for now I'm just along for the ride and enjoying every minute of it.