What it says on the tin.
Some ranting, some advice, some archaic reference, and a lot of cussing. My take on how I think fanfiction should be written and some of the biggest problems with it right now. Because I may not be the best at writing, but...
Prologues and Epilogues are fun. No one knows how to use them, but they're fun.
So like,,, a Prologue is not a Spicy Chapter 1. It has a place and purpose, but that purpose is never used correctly.
90% of the prologues I've seen for fanfiction are unnecessary and boring as fuck. Y'all are basic. And annoying. But it's why I love you.
A prologue is not a place to info-dump. A prologue in itself should be an entire event that exists outside of the main story's plot. Usually, this event somehow either caused the plot of the book to happen or effected it somehow.
That said, that doesn't mean your prologue gets to be the backstory of your OC and how she got her mystical unicorn fart powers. Infodumps are bad. It's an infodump to tell me every single piece of backstory before your main plot. However, you can have the smoking gun. For example, if your OC was experimented on HYDRA and got her powers that way, your prologue would make total sense to be telling the event of how she ended up in HYDRA's hands. Nothing more, just that scene and now we know she was taken by HYDRA, but we're still interested to learn everything else about her.
If you feed someone the dessert before dinner, they're not gonna care about the main course. Hold off on infodumps, make people want it.
Don't be Tolkien and make prologues an infodump. I will repeat the horrors of infodumps until people believe me. Fuck off.
There are a lot of interesting things you can do with a prologue. For example, writing it in the POV of a character we will never see again, who just runs across your OC. Like, let's say your OC is a pickpocket. (side note, I'd say something about the commonality of pickpocket/thief OCs, but I love them too much to care, so rock on) Write your prologue from the POV of someone realizing she just robbed them. That event affects the main plot by establishing your OC as a pickpocket, but it's not too much.
Is your OC a SHIELD agent? Your prologue could be their agent file. A lot of information, but it's in an interesting format and not too much.
Another cool prologue and one I never see used in fanfiction could be what seems like a random scene but is actually the end/climax of the book, making the rest of the story feel like a flashback in hindsight.
And if I can skip your prologue and lose nothing, congrats, you don't need a fucking prologue.
Which is another thing.
You. Do. Not. Need. A Prologue.
Does it serve a purpose? Yes. Does every story have a need for one? No. So stop making it happen.
Also, prologues should be about half the length of your chapters. If your prologue is three chapters long, you wrote a part one.
With epilogues, most of the same logic applies. Make it short, make it sweet, make it necessary. It should be like hot fudge on a sundae. You don't need it for the sundae to exist, but it makes the sundae a lot better.
An epilogue is not an "and they lived happily ever after uwu" cop-out. We got that from the last chapter. I don't need the wedding scene of your OC and their love interest reading vows to know they were in love for the entire fucking story.
An epilogue is what comes after. It's showing how things all came out. A wedding epilogue is dumb, but an epilogue of them the day after their wedding, holding hands as they stare at the sunrise and drink coffee, that's cute. It tells me they got married and shit, without forcing it down my throat. I don't see the outcome, I feel it. The calm after the storm, so to speak. It's the wrap up that releases all the tension of an action-packed story.
Epilogues leave things to the imagination. Y'all don't need to lead the horse to water and dunk its head into the damned water. Things should be up to interpretation. Make me think about it. Believe it or not, readers are capable of complex thought. Sometimes.
If you're writing a series, an epilogue can also double as a pseudo prologue to your next book in the series. It introduces the idea of a new story but doesn't quite start that story. Get the reader hooked, not frustrated. An epilogue of a series could just be an excerpt of a part of the next instalment. Be creative.
And if you don't need one, don't fucking use one.
I think people like the Aesthetique of prologues and epilogues, and just use them for fancy embellishments that were never needed. Stop. Get some help. Just write the natural flow of the story, and you'll know if you need a prologue or epilogue.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
