On Prologues & Epilogues
Wikipedia defines a Prologue as…
an opening to a story that establishes the context and gives background details, often some earlier story that ties into the main one, and other miscellaneous information
An Epilogue is the opposite, in that it comes at the end of the story and “rounds things off” or adds context to the ending.
Some of my books have prologues. Not all, but some. Same goes for epilogues.
Kissed by a Rose has both a prologue and an epilogue. In this case, the prologue takes place just before Adam leaves for Westmouth and covers his discovery that his movie star idol will be attending not just the same university but be on the same course.
The epilogue takes place in the far future and… well, that would be giving things away.
The Lies We Lead has a prologue that sets up Bobby’s current home life status and provides some history.
You could say that the whole thirteen chapters that make up Part One of Eternally & Evermore are one long prologue in the sense that it takes place in the past and sets up the history (or some of it) between Will & Amy.
But the reason for this post is The Paul Robertson Saga.
Book One – A Good Man – has both a prologue and an epilogue. Both take place in the future and feature an older Paul reflecting on his past following the funeral of his friend and mentor. Together they frame the story.
Book Tw0 – A Tortured Soul – has neither a prologue nor an epilogue.
And now Book Three – A Wounded Heart -has just a prologue, again set in the same future as the prologue & epilogue to A Good Man.
But the thing is, someone that beta-read the book for me questioned the need for it. The concern was partly that it “gave too much away”, but I disagreed with that. I don’t think it gave away any more that the prologue and epilogue from A Good Man. In fact, I think it adds context. I won’t say what context yet, but I think it does serve a purpose.
The other main concern was consistency, since A Tortured Soul didn’t have either a prologue or an epilogue.
And I’ve thought a lot about that. My beta-reader does have a point.
But the more I thought about it, the more I think the A Good Man epilogue is, in a way, actually the prologue to A Tortured Soul. I won’t try and explain my thinking here, it would be full of spoilers for those who’ve not read the books, but I’d be interested to hear what people who have read both A Good Man and A Tortured Soul think about this idea.
I’m seriously considering actually making this change – to move the epilogue of A Good Man to the prologue of A Tortured Soul. I need to think about it some more, but I think it’s something I’m ultimately going to do.
