How long do you think a prologue should be?

[idontevenkn01]

I'm currently writing for the prologue of the new upcoming chapter, and it currently features a prologue. I know prologues are typically frowned upon because they feature lots of exposition, but mine is sort of tricky, since the text doesn't actually feed you information about the character, but it's more of a mysterious narrator introducing you to the world through a sort of poetic prose.

It is a fantasy comic, so since prologues tend to be sort of conventional, do you think a prologue spanning about 10 pages would be overkill? It was intended to be only six, but to keep true to the pacing, some of it has spilled over into other pages.

So what do you think? How long should a comic prologue be? Are you a fan of them in fantasy stories?

[shazzbaa]

"Prologue" doesn't mean the same thing to everyone. I think the more important question is, is anything happening?

If something is actually happening and characters are doing things, it can be as long as you want.

If nothing is happening and it's just narration, it's usually better to be as short as possible. That kind of prologue sounds more like saying "here's all the stuff you need to know before I start the story" which you want to avoid if you can, and try to introduce that information within the story instead. Ten pages of that would be an awful lot of nothing happening.

[Kamikaze]

Personally, I'm not a fan of prologues. When I had to make one for my own comic it drove me INSANE. I hated the idea that we needed one at all, so I did a smart/stupid thing and made the prologue into a story in of itself. It's a 22 page action sequence. I used it as a means of showing the reader what the world looks like, what the main character will be facing, setting up the stakes, and giving a view of the technology and teamwork that will be expected later down the line.

Those first 22 pages were the first comic work I EVER did. Looking back I think I could have stripped that down substantially, but hindsight is 20/20. >_>;;

The good news is that our readers love it that way. They like getting thrown into the action head first, and loved that there wasn't any narration, and we trusted them enough to figure it out on their own. That's something that I find a lot of creators seem to forget. They don't trust their readers. In school I learned the 1st rule of visual storytelling is, "your audience is stupid." I find that idea to be demeaning to the reader. It does make MY job harder, but it makes the readers appreciate and enjoy the comic more.

Why spell out everything through narration? Why not do something different and let that information unfold through your story? You can set up rules, expectations and ideas through your characters and how they interact with their world. It's harder for sure - that exposition dump is a real thing you gotta find creative ways to work around, but if it's done right it makes more a MUCH more satisfying read.

I'm with @shazzbaa, if it's straight up narration keep it short and only touch on the bare minimum. Let the details come out in the story, or even better, let some of the details be disputed. Maybe one character believes and says, "You guys, this is totally what went down!" While another character may say, "Surely not! My educated opinion says it happened this way." So when you actually find out the real story along the way it reveals more about your characters and how they could both be wrong, or both be right in their own way!

I hope that was helpful? :o

[AnnaLandin]

First question - do you really, honestly need a prologue? Or is this info something you could just provide to the readers in bits and pieces over the rest of the story? Do you really need a "okay here's how the world works" for people to care about the characters?

I know prologues are typically frowned upon because they feature lots of exposition, but mine is sort of tricky, since the text doesn't actually feed you information about the character, but it's more of a mysterious narrator introducing you to the world through a sort of poetic prose.

If it doesn't provide me info about the plot or character, it really can wait. I don't crack open a novel an expect a big intro to the exact workings of the world it takes place in; that's background stuff. That's the stage and scenery; the readers are here to see the play and the actors, not the backdrop.

It is a fantasy comic, so since prologues tend to be sort of conventional, do you think a prologue spanning about 10 pages would be overkill?

Yes, 10 pages is too long, especially if you're only providing worldbuilding-info. If your hook for this story - and seeing as it's the first pages the reader comes across, it is the hook - is ten pages of background info, why should people bother to scroll through it to get to the real story?

How long should a comic prologue be?

As short as humanly possible. If you can do it in 3 pages, good. If you can do it in one, even better. If you can skip it all together and just feed the readers the info within the body of the actual story, for the love of all things unholy, please do.

Are you a fan of them in fantasy stories?

As you might have guessed, not even the littlest bit. I have yet to come across a worldbuilding prologue - and to this I count "here's a myth about the gods", "this is the exact reason race A and race B are at war", "this is how magic works" or endless pages of "poetic" worldbuilding-babble - that actually gave me something I couldn't have discovered in the story itself, or that actually made me care. I skim prologues, if I read them at all. In 99% of the cases, skipping the prologue has cost me absolutely nothing in terms of being able to understand the story.

[Devika]

Convention is a bad reason for a prologue. There are too many stories where you can just skip over them with little to no loss at all. Worse, they sometimes just kill all the suspense from the start - because we know too much. Prophecy, blah blah - you just gave us the whole story! If you want one, there needs to be a really good reason for it, and it needs to be good.

Most readers care way more for characters and them acting out the plot than for the worldbuilding. So look at your first chapter after the prologue and do a test: How much of what's happening here needs the exposition beforehand? What if you told the first chapter entirely without the prologue? Could you just add a few hints in dialogue, environment, their actions, that fill enough of these gaps? And then fill it in slowly over the coming ones? Mystery is a good thing!

And if you decide to have a prologue (which some stories do need): Does it NEED to be narrated? Can you SHOW it somehow instead? Example, Harry Potter. We get to know just the most essential things with minimal dialogue: 1. Something happened to Harry's family, 2. Something beyond the ordinary exists in this world. These two are also the hooks that pull the reader in and tide them over the somewhat more boring everyday life that happens before magic shows up again. (But don't get me wrong - the contrast between mundane and magic is needed!) Is your prologue a hook, or just a mandatory boring lesson before the real fun starts?

One rare example of a clever narrated prologue is the one in Earthsea. It's very short (one page or so I think) - but it changes the reader's perspective on the whole story. It's made clear from the first page that we'll be following the story of someone who becomes a great person, and as such the reader sees the following story not as a "will he become some famous bigshot?", which, given the genre, is pretty much a given, but instead the reader is told "yes, he willbecome a bigshot - here's the story of how that happened!". And we enjoy the ride instead. A word of caution though - this is dangerous territory. It's overused, easily gets corny, and falls flat if the story is insufficiently epic.

So basically, I suggest taking another hard look at your story and question what you're doing because of convention, and what you're doing because it's actually needed.

[J.Z.Castillo]

My prologue is literally 3 pages long (I think it's less than 15 squares?). To me, if you are making a prologue it has to be long enough to catch someone's attention but short enough to not be a chapter... but that's not a rule, by any means, it's more of a personal preference. You can see the prologue I made here, maybe you'll get some ideas.

[DMBrigman]

I'm not a fan of prologues either, they typically give information that isn't super vital to the story. I prefer to learn about the world from the characters, which is why I read comics to begin with, it is all about the characters!

Truthfully, I had considered a prologue for my story as well because that is just what everyone does! After reading advice and thinking it over I just started straight into the story. No complaints so far, but this is my first web series. I think because we spend so much time world building we feel we have to let the reader know this stuff, but ultimately if they don't know all the history they can still get through the story just fine.

[quietsnooze]

My prologue for Radio Silence was 20 pages, so basically a chapter in itself. My format was a vlog by one of the characters, and it quickly went through backstory of how the group got together so that I didn't have to spend ages on stuff that wasn't vital to the progression of the story. The information is important to setting up the story, yes, and that's what SHOULD be included in an introduction, not just information for info's sake. It can be exactly as long or short as it needs to be for the flow of your story.

[velldonnabarb]

From my opinion as a pure reader, if you can do without a prologue, please do. If you can't, keep it short. Be ruthless in trimming it down.

I have a dirty secret: I seldom read prologues. On a good day I might skim through it, but the first chapter is where I put my focus on. Now if the story captures my interest, I might one day go back and check out what I missed in the prologue. Maybe.

There are exceptions, prologues that immediately smack me in the face and leave me dazed and entranced, but 99% of the time a prologue in a webcomic is unnecessary.

[KoreanTacos]

If Final Fantasy 13 has taught me anything it should take up half the story...

But joking aside I actually don't like the idea of calling it a prologue. I know it's an establishing portion of a story, but you could say the same thing about a chapter. I believe if the prologue does its job and establishes what's going on then make it as long as necessary.

[Celestinaat]

Mine is four pages* long: to set important rules and to pin protagonist's problem.
That's all.

*Technically speaking, these are 2 pages, I just had to post parts of the second page separately.