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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/44600
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/44600
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Prologues are usually boring, because they are almost _inevitably_ history lessons that have no suspense or action and they **feel** like a history lesson, right after lunch, and a snooze fest.

You would be better off skipping it, and giving an actual origin story: Think, for example, of Spiderman. You start out in Peter Parker's normal world, before he is a superhero, learn about his family, him being in love with a girl he is NOT destined to get, etc. Then he gets bit by the spider, and transforms, and gains reasons to fight crime, and becomes a hero to the girl, etc, etc, etc.

Origin stories are interesting, the normal world for the character is interesting. Even if you already know Peter is going to BE Spiderman (Spiderman is on the cover), as a reader the origin story has conflict, and you wonder exactly what will happen, and you keep turning pages to find out what happens next.

"What happens next" is the essence of a good story, a "page turner" has readers literally turning pages! Why? To find out what happens next! Not to read yet more history lesson, and background, and how he felt in school, etc.

Show us the background, with scenes and conflicts, danger and heartbreak and elation and victories, don't give us a dry lecture about the past. Most of it, we just don't really need to know.

For example, if some incident X makes Joe terrified of dogs, we pretty much can infer that by seeing Joe terrified of dogs. We really don't need a reason, and the backstory can be one line from Joe to a friend, "A Rottweiler bit the hell out me when I was a kid, and I can't get over it, man, no matter how much I try." But ONLY when it actually happens in the story, and that should ONLY happen if it is important to the story.

Say it influences the plot by changing Joe's decisions, or it creates a personality difference in Joe that changes how other characters feel about him, or treat him, or sympathize with him. If this fear makes him (or others) change their plans. Or it makes Joe want to change and finally do something about it. If it doesn't move somebody in a different direction, or define their personality in a way that matters, it can be left out because it literally _doesn't matter_ to the story.

You can do this even if the backstory is far in the past. For example, notice the first scene in the first Harry Potter is shown in present tense, Dumbledore and others immediately after the murder of Harry's parents. But then JK Rowling just starts the 2nd chapter "Nearly ten years had passed since [main event of the first chapter]", and focuses on Harry thereafter.

That is a little clumsy; but does help to introduce the magic and wizardry early in the first act (any kind of superpowers should be teased early). It is kind of a prologue in scene's clothing.

But if you don't want to have a scene like that, you can have your character reveal elements of their backstory in _dialogue_ with somebody important and new in their life; somebody they are saving, or are partnering up with, or seeking assistance from, a romantic interest, etc. In other words, you can introduce what is called a "foil", somebody that doesn't _know_ the MC's past, so when the MC tells them, the reader learns it too.

Just don't make this telling an alternative way to infodump. It is a conversation, not a speech or interview. The foil should never really say "tell me more" or "go on" or anything similar. Quite often, in real conversation, one person's story reminds a listener of their own story or some story they heard, and that is their reply. Sharing, not interviewing. Or asking a question that turns the speaker in a new direction, so the listener doesn't feel like a prop; it feels like they have some control over what they are talking about. But dialogue is a different art; we have posts here on this stack about how to do that.

Original score: 9