Prologues in Historical Fiction
By Victoria Fortune
I have to confess I love a good prologue. Some people can’t stand them. Get to the story, they say. But the best prologues don’t feel like they are impeding the story. Instead, they whet the appetite for the main course to come.
Publishing professionals are known to be wary of prologues, which is understandable considering how many poorly written ones they’ve undoubtedly read. But the number of bestsellers and award-winning novels that include them attest to the fact that prologues can serve a story well.
The critical questions to ask, when considering whether to include a prologue: Is it necessary? Does it pique the reader’s interest in the main story? Does it provide information the reader needs to know before entering the main story? Could the information be included as a chapter in the main story?
For writers of historical fiction, there is a particular danger in falling prey to the info dump-- attempting to front load the world-building by inundating the reader with a lot of carefully researched period details to set the scene. This type of prologue, without any action or connection to the central conflict, will bring most readers to a screeching halt.
The best prologues contribute to the story, rather than getting in the way of it. One of the main reasons to include one is when there is vital information that does not fit into the structure of the story, such as a critical event that happens long before or after the time sequence of the main narrative. Some common uses of prologues:
• To foreshadow events to come.
Some of the best prologues tell the end of the story, and the main narrative takes readers back to the beginning, leaving readers eager to see how the character got from A to B.
• To provide a catalyst for events to come.
Often an event that happens prior to the timeline of the central conflict, that sets the story in motion.
•To provide backstory or background information critical to the central conflict.
Background information should be kept to a strictly need-to-know basis and should have a clear connection to or impact on the central conflict.
• To establish the main character(s).
Particularly common in first-person novels whose narrator has a very distinct voice and/or perspective.
• To offer the POV of a character who won’t be a key player in the narrative, or will appear later, but who can offer insightful perspective on the main character or conflict.
• To set the tone for the rest of the novel.
A prologue shouldn’t be used solely for this purpose, as the first chapter can do that; but whatever other purpose it serves, a prologue should also set the tone.
Prologues often accomplish more than one purpose, as in the following examples by some masters of historical fiction:
In Nobel-prize winner Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day, a chapter-long prologue introduces the unique voice and milieu of the first-person narrator, Stevens, a British butler in the post WWII era. It also provides the catalyst for the events to come, when Stevens’ takes his employer up on his suggestion to borrow the car and go on a holiday. Much of this is established in the first paragraph:
It seems increasingly likely that I really will undertake the expedition that has been preoccupying my imagination now for some days. An expedition, I should say, which I will undertake alone, in the comfort of Mr. Farraday’s Ford; an expedition which, as I foresee it, will take me through much of the finest countryside of England to the West Country, and may keep me away from Darlington Hall for as much as five or six days.
The prologue goes on to provide readers with backstory that will prove critical to the conflict—the extent of Steven’s professional pride and deference to his employers, the setting, Darlington Hall, and its illustrious former owner; and the fact that there plans visit a former employee and possible romantic interest with some hope she will return to the house, providing a goal for his journey. Far from getting in the way, this prologue is an essential part of the story, piquing the reader’s interest in the journey ahead. Yet, as the journey itself provides the structure for the rest of the novel, this scene stands apart, and makes most sense as a prologue.
In the bestselling novel Where the Crawdads Sing, Delia Owens offers an entirely different type of prologue. Just one page long, it introduces the reader to the marsh--a setting so essential to the story it could be considered a main character-- and to the lyrical narrative voice. Lush with descriptive detail, the prologue also conveys the the motifs of light and dark, life and death that underlie themes of the story.
Marsh is not swamp. Marsh is a space of light, where grass grows in water, and water flows into the sky. . . . Then within the marsh, here are there, true swamp crawls into low-lying bogs, hidden in clammy forests. Swamp water is still and dark, having swallowed the light in its muddy throat.
The prologue then reveals that this is a murder mystery:
On the morning of October 30, 1969, the body of Chase Andrews lay in the swamp, which would have absorbed it slowly, routinely. Hiding it for good.
Having introduced the setting and tone and foreshadowed the central conflict, Owens can then jump back 17 years in Chapter 1, and take time developing the main character, Kya, from childhood. Is the prologue necessary? Perhaps not. You could skip it and still follow the story. But the beauty of the language and the setting invites readers in, and the dead body promises the drama to come.
Pulitzer-prize winner Colson Whitehead’s prologue in The Nickel Boys also serves numerous purposes. It provides essential background knowledge the reader needs to know about the reform “school”, Nickel Academy, that is the setting, and the boys who were sent there.
Even in death the boys were trouble.
The secret graveyard lay on the north side of the Nickel campus, in a patchy acre of wild grass between the old work barn and the school dump. The field had been a grazing pasture when the school operated a dairy, selling milk to local customers—one of the state of Florida’s schemes to relieve the taxpayer burden of the boy’s upkeep.
The details that follow--about the business complex planned for the site, the archeologist’s excavation of the graveyard, the state of Florida’s investigation of the abuses at the school—ground the story in history and provide verisimilitude for the setting, which is based on a real school where thousands of boys were incarcerated and abused. The prologue goes on to introduce the main character, Elwood, a former “student” at Nickel, and reveals that the discovery of the graveyard is the catalyst for the ensuing story: it compels Elwood to finally revisit Nickel and unearth what happened to him there.
Clearly, prologues can serve very effective purposes. The following are resources with more guidance on writing prologues, the do and don’ts, and additional examples:
Prologue or no prologue? An answer for historical fiction writers
What’s the Difference Between a Prologue and a Preface, Foreword, or Introduction?
The Great Debate: To Prologue or Not to Prologue?
How to Write a Prologue That Sets the Tone and Captivates Readers
What is a Prologue? And How Can Authors Use It? (with Examples)
