You're probably wondering what the above quote from the sound of music is doing here. Well I worked on my prologue yesterday, which of course comes write at the beginning - (ed. lol i meant right at the beginning). I had had a really good idea for it and had been looking forward to writing it but it turned out to be much more difficult than I expected.
So what was the problem? Well I knew where the MC was, I knew what she was doing and i knew what was going to happen to her. my problem was that my reader knew none of these things. they didn't know who she was, they don't even know her name at this point so why would anyone care about her? And if they didn't care why would anyone read on?
As usual once i got going I was ok and i came up with what i thought was quite a dramatic opening, well at least i think so. The prologue starts at the end of the story and something is about to happen to the character which is very unexpected, and something you would not normally find at the beginning of a story - the end.
What makes it all the more dramatic is the mc knows what is about to happen but the audience doesnt know and they don't find out until the last lines of the prologue.
My goal here was to shock my reader to make them want to read on to find out how the character got to this point in the first place. If it was a murder mystery it would be a why dunnit and how dunnit rather than a who dunnit. I wanted them to react to my writing with words to the effect of OMG!
So how did I do it?
I set my scene and did it as simply as possible not wishing to dwell too much on long descriptions. Long descriptions can come later in the novel for now the basics were enough as vagueness can also work in your favour allowing the reader more artistic licence and free to imagine what they wish based around the simple start you give them. After setting the scene I had the mc do an action- she walked down some stairs- again giving only a minimum description of the environment. The other reason for this is I don't want people to necessarily know at this point where my character is. I then had my MC reach her destination and sit down as requested now i was able to give some more detail but only on what my mc was thinking and i used her thoughts to open up the picture more and more until you realise what is going on.
It's a bit like doing a jigsaw in which you don't know what you're making, in that you gradually build up the picture piece by piece until it's finished and then you've got the full picture.
All writers do things differently and others may not agree with the way I have done my prologue and may have other ways of doing it, what do you think? I can post the prologue here if anyone would like to read it- if you'd like to see or comment on anything please feel free to use the below comments facility.
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