We’ve talked before on Go Teen Writers about what a prologue is, how tricky they are to use correctly, and that some readers skip them altogether. Here are links to those posts:

#WeWriteBooks, post 15: Prologues

Does My Book Need a Prologue?

But what about if you’ve decided that a prologue is right for your book, and you want to write a stellar one? There are lots of wonderfully crafted prologues in published books, and we haven’t talked much on the blog about what qualities a prologue needs to be amazing. (Thank you, Camille, for this post suggestion!)

Here is the best tip I can give you about writing a prologue:

The number one job of your prologue is to BE INTERESTING.

While chapter one has all these boxes we need to check (introducing the main character in a likeable and intriguing way, setting up the storyworld, setting up the conflict, etc.) if you ONLY check the “It’s interesting” box for your prologue, that can be enough. While your prologue can pull some of the weight that chapter one usually does, it doesn’t have to in order to “work.”

The job of your prologue is to hook your reader. You might do that with a one-paragraph prologue, like this one from Jill’s Thirst:

“Six days into our wilderness survival adventure in the La Plata Mountains of Colorado, Comet Pulon passed by the earth. We had no way of knowing that it had come much closer than expected, that it had forever changed our planet, and that it had left a killer among us. Oblivious, the twelve of us camped in a clearing, cheered as the bright yellow fireball soared overhead, roasted marshmallows, and toasted with canteens of water we had purified ourselves.

And as we celebrated in awe of nature’s majesty, the rest of the world began to die.”

Thirst, by Jill Williamson

This is a brilliant prologue. Not only is it interesting, but it sets up the apocalyptic storyworld for readers in one intriguing paragraph. The reader is now intrigued, and they’re ready to be launched into the action of chapter one. As the main character is discovering what happened while he was away on his wilderness trip, the reader already knows.

And while it’s a good idea to be concise in your prologue, you don’t have to be that concise.

Shannon’s Winter, White and Wicked opens with a prologue as well. Hers is probably a thousand words, and it also gives the reader details about the storyworld. This can be tricky to pull off in an interesting way. Shannon’s prologue is in a similar style of how Frozen 2 opens, with an important legend being told to the main character when they were a child. What makes this interesting in Winter, White and Wicked is the main character’s resistance to the story, as well as how she keeps trying to get away to be with Winter. And I love the intriguing way Shannon closes her prologue:

I flatten myself against the wall and Winter laughs, a rumble that sets the icicles ringing overhead.

“Foolish child,” Mystra grumbles.

“She’ll be back,” Leni tells her. “She always comes back.”

“My dear girl,” Mystra says, the window squealing on its hinges. “I’m not entirely sure she was ever here.”

Winter, White and Wicked by Shannon Dittemore

That last line is such a beautiful and compelling invitation to turn the page, isn’t it?

You might not need or want your prologue for sharing details about your storyworld. Instead, you may want to use it for sharing a different perspective.

This is common in books that are primarily told from one POV, and it can be helpful (or just interesting) for the readers to see this glimpse into another character’s thoughts.

J. K. Rowling does this in some of the Harry Potter novels, where she opens with a not-Harry POV character. (Though it’s worth noting, these are always labeled as Chapter One, not as a prologue, even though they function more like prologues.)

Frequently her prologue-like chapter ones are told from the POV of a character on the opposing side of the story, which we otherwise don’t have much visibility to. Though not always. Like in book four, Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire, the first chapter is told from Frank’s perspective, and he’s not a bad guy. Just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. But the purpose of the perspective remains to show us some of the bad guy’s plans.

A quick word of caution: There are some prologues that work for book four of a series that wouldn’t work for book one. By book four, readers are already bought in. We understand why the Riddle house matters to the story, even if we don’t know who Frank is.

If you read many mysteries, you’ve maybe noticed that the prologue is often told from the perspective of the character who becomes our “dead body discovery” in chapter one. This is an interesting way to give the reader more details about the mystery than the main character has.

In the YA mystery I just finished, Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson, the prologue is told from the POV of our about-to-die character. She’s interacting with the killer and tries to leave behind clues about what’s happening. In later chapters, as our sleuth comes across the clues and tries to decide if they mean anything, us readers are piecing things together alongside her. We also care more about the case being solved because we’ve had insight to this character. We feel like we know them a little bit, therefore we want to know what happened to them, and ideally we want to see justice.

Another good reason for using a prologue is to show readers a scene that doesn’t fit within the timeline of the story. Frequently, this is a meaningful event that happened to the character as a child or several years before the story started. This isn’t a bad way to start a story, but it might be one of the easiest to misuse.

The first scene in the first Harry Potter novel is primarily told from the POV of Uncle Vernon and takes place when Harry is one. (Though, again, this scene functions like a prologue but is actually chapter one.) This scene gives us insights into Harry’s story that the readers can’t have if we’re exclusively in his head.

In Jenny B. Jones’s Save The Date, the book’s prologue is set two years before the main story. The scene Jenny chose is the main character going into a date believing her boyfriend is about to propose, and instead he breaks up with her. A prologue like this can be very helpful if you have an abrasive main character. Seeing this sympathetic side first can help soften their edges.

Sometimes authors grab an interesting scene from later in the book, and make it the prologue. While I’ve seen this work well (I think all four books in the Twilight Saga begin this way) they can also feel like cheater openings if they’re being used to cover up a lackluster chapter one. However, just because a technique is often used poorly doesn’t mean that you can’t do it well!

Remember the number one job of your prologue? To be interesting!

That’s all your reader cares about, really. They don’t care about your story structure or your adverb usage or where you start your story . . . in theory. They care about being interested in what they’re reading, and all tools—like prologues—are ultimately about delivering an interesting story.