WRITING PROLOGUES AND EPILOGUES FOR YOUR NOVEL

WRITING PROLOGUES AND EPILOGUES FOR YOUR NOVEL: NECESSARY?

Prologues are those page or two (or more) introductions to a novel before you get to chapter 1. They serve multiple purposes, and are part of the novel, though not part of the main narrative. Prologues allow authors to provide readers with backstories. They maybe introduce themes that will trickle in through the novel. They can, and often are (however overt of subtle) be a foreshadowing of things to come. They’re also a good way to introduce readers to the world in which they are about to enter for the next two hundred, three hundred, or, in certain genres, five, six, or even thousand-page novels. But are they necessary?

One prologue that works well is the one that begins Ken Follet’s Pillars of the Earth:

It was still dark when the first three or four of them sidled out of the hovels, quiet as cats in their felt boots. A thin layer of fresh snow covered the little town like a new coat of paint, and theirs were the first footprints to blemish its perfect surface. They picked their way through the huddled wooden huts and along the streets of frozen mud to the silent marketplace, where the gallows stood waiting.

The prologue goes on for a number of pages, and we learn that the gallows is waiting for a man from another land to be hung. In the crowd is a young pregnant woman who is pregnant with the accused’s child. The accused, however, has no motive for the killing, and thus we’re ostensibly watching an innocent man be murdered. Once the man is hung, the young woman falls to the ground, cuts the head off a cockerel, splatters the blood of the cockerel onto the dead man’s three accusers, and puts a curse on them promising they will all suffer and die. The end of the prologue has the cockerel running in circles under the dead man’s body. The woman runs off into the forest. I don’t know about you, but I’m hooked. I want to know what the three witnesses suffer, and what the accused is accused of doing and why he was put to death. What’s the evidence? What’s the relationship with the dead man and the pregnant women? Who are the witnesses? In this case, the prologue pops, doesn’t get in the way of the narrative of the novel, and drags us, the reader, in, without being obtrusive to what’s to come.

Epilogues are the last little bit of your novel, and they’re meant to provide readers with a wrap up of what was not achieved in the narrative of your novel. They let you know what happened to our hero, or our antagonist, or the world they lived in for the duration of the novel. It may answer questions you did not answer during the conclusion of the novel, as well as often provide readers with what’s to come for your characters, especially if you’re planning on a sequel or prequel to your novel. They may hook the reader to find out what happens next, in the way the bad guys in movies move their hand a little or open their eyes or whatever once the main characters move on, thinking everything’s well and the bad guy’s dead. Personally, I’d rather have my reading experience end where the novel ends, not after some additional few pages where we learn the future. But as I’ve said in many of my posts about writing, if it works, it works. The ending of the novel (and the fabulous movie) A River Runs Through It, Norman Maclean, who’s thoughts are voiced by the late, great actor Robert Redford, says this:

Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters.

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If you’ve read the novel, you know that Maclean/Redford is now old, and is providing the reader/moviegoer with a wrap-up of his life. Spoiler: His brother Paul was beaten to death, those he loves have destroyed their lives, and in nature Maclean finds his peace. The epilogue works, in large part, because it’s subtle, and, dare I say, spoken by Redford in the movie and just done so well by its author, Maclean, that you can only marvel at the feeling his words provide you and leave you feeling after the final line, “I am haunted by waters.” I get a chill every time I read that line. Every. Single. Time.

Writing Prologues and Epilogues for Your Novel

So, the question, is this: Do you need prologues or epilogues in your novel(s)? As you’ve likely guessed, the answer is no. And then the next question is, Should you have prologues or epilogues in your novels? Well, in all honesty, that’s up to you. I’ve read plenty of great novels with prologues and epilogues that have added something to the narrative (like Maclean’s haunting one up above), and plenty that, personally, I’ve found the author has inserted because he or she couldn’t figure out (or didn’t try to figure out) how to put what they’re trying to convey into the novel.

The thing about writing prologues and epilogues for your novel is that they better contribute something to the reader’s experience without feeling artificial or forced upon the reader to try to fill the gaps you were unable to fill. Epilogues can’t provide what the novel lacks. Turning epilogues into sort of deux ex machina type insertions because you were unable to wrap things up in the denouement (see Freytag's Pyramid), because you couldn’t figure out the resolution, the untangling of the novel’s plot, become a “cheat” the author uses to end the novel at a specific point. They lessen the impact of the novel’s overall experience and enjoyment, because you’re telling your reader, Sorry, I didn’t know what to do so here’s my lazy way of wrapping things up. And that denigrates all of the work you’ve put in to making your novel the best novel it can be.

“Short story writer Perlman debuts his first novel, a beautifully written, complex intergenerational drama that examines the ways family relationships shift when trust is broken.” - Kirkus Reviews

Cully Perlman is author of a novel, The Losses. He is also a Substantive Editor. Reach out to him if you want to discuss improving your novel so you can get it publication-ready.

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