Jean wrote:
"I'm reading an otherwise decent novel now that took an event
from mid-story and turned it into a prologue. That doesn't
work, at least not for me."
These are the kinds of prologues that bug me, too. They seem
to function as nothing more than teasers. I don't think it's
a coincidence that they are often the preview printed at the
end of the paperback printing of the writer's previous book.
These strike me as a failure of nerve. Instead of writing an
involving first chapter, the author simply grabs a bit of the
climactic action to hook the reader, then goes back to the
beginning.
Mark
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