Everybody Hates Prologues

Except writers. Writers love prologues.

By Allison K Williams

I’ve heard from agent after agent: Don’t send the prologue. When you query, start with Chapter One. Memoirs, novels, narrative nonfiction–skip the intro and get us into the story you’re telling. Yet, plenty of great books have prologues. So why can’t we?

In a published book, the first pages have gone through a much longer process with writer, agent and editor, to make sure they suitably set up the story or the subject. In...