I've never understand the hatred of prologues. Shakespeare used prologues! Film and TV use prologues! Fucking Star Wars uses prologues! Sometimes you've just gotta *clenches fist* set the scene with a thematically divergent POV or narrative voice to show what's what up front.
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Replying to @fozmeadows @dongwon
I think it's because there are a *lot* of really bad Tolkien-esque prologues, especially in 80s and 90s fantasy, of the form "Here are the circumstances of the hero's birth at tedious length" or "Here is some myth/lore stuff about the creation or the world".
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Replying to @DjangoWexler @dongwon
Yeah, those tend to be bad. But I always compare a good prologue to the sort of opening scene that happens before the title card comes up with a good movie: something that sets the stage for what comes later, but which is too short and/or divorced from the main POV to mesh w/ it.
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Replying to @fozmeadows @dongwon
You also need to be careful with film analogies I think b/c visual "flash" (in the hands of a good director) can carry you a lot farther than the equivalent in text w/o any character stuff.
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Like if you tried to do the beginning of "Saving Private Ryan" in text, which is like ~20 min of spectacle, I think you'd probably lose the audience.
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Replying to @DjangoWexler @dongwon
Oh for sure, it's a different medium; I just think it makes for a good comparison when the All Prologues Are Bad crowd start talking about how you should just start at the beginning instead of ever seeking to frame or contextualise it, especially with SFF.
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"It" being the story you're trying to tell.
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