total prologuia
23 Jan 2009 01:28 amIn the past twenty-four hours I've gone through three books: Ludlum's Prometheus Deception (DNF), Liu's Soul Song (near-DNF), and Robb's Innocent in Death. I won't go into why I did, didn't, or only barely finished each of them but I will say the use of exclamation points in Ludlum's book -- man, I think the guy used up the entire publishing house's quota for at least two years.
All three, curiously enough, used prologues. Liu's prologue follows a pattern I've seen in other stories that are heavy on the romance but don't have actual meet-up until the second (or third) chapter. She uses the prologue to introduce one-half of the couple, and the pattern seems to be that the POV-character met in the first chapter is automatically the other-half of thedestined intended couple.
Robb/Roberts, following mystery-genre rules, introduces the victim in the prologue. She at least has the decency to not actually kill him; she just introduces him a little bit before death. With the first chapter, then, the story lands on the detective/cop POV as she arrives to investigate the reported dead body.
Ludlum's prologue was the most awkward. It's a clandestine operation gone wrong, no names given and no significant POV noted. Chapter one starts... five days later. It was such a short break that I found myself thinking of chapter one as, uhm, a second prologue. Especially since chapter 2 or 3 then starts five years later. I ended up feeling like I'd read three prologues before I finally got to the actual story.
( Each prologue isn't just 'this is action taking place before the story' but a specific pattern that sets you up and/or reinforces the genre... ) ( Also, if you're wondering about the DNF for Ludlum... )
All three, curiously enough, used prologues. Liu's prologue follows a pattern I've seen in other stories that are heavy on the romance but don't have actual meet-up until the second (or third) chapter. She uses the prologue to introduce one-half of the couple, and the pattern seems to be that the POV-character met in the first chapter is automatically the other-half of the
Robb/Roberts, following mystery-genre rules, introduces the victim in the prologue. She at least has the decency to not actually kill him; she just introduces him a little bit before death. With the first chapter, then, the story lands on the detective/cop POV as she arrives to investigate the reported dead body.
Ludlum's prologue was the most awkward. It's a clandestine operation gone wrong, no names given and no significant POV noted. Chapter one starts... five days later. It was such a short break that I found myself thinking of chapter one as, uhm, a second prologue. Especially since chapter 2 or 3 then starts five years later. I ended up feeling like I'd read three prologues before I finally got to the actual story.
( Each prologue isn't just 'this is action taking place before the story' but a specific pattern that sets you up and/or reinforces the genre... ) ( Also, if you're wondering about the DNF for Ludlum... )
