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Excerpt question
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From the description I'm guessing the prologue is just world building?Unless it's pretty intense world building I personally wouldn't be very interested in 25 pages of pure world building when I have no investment in the story yet. I'd be more intrigued by an excerpt with a hint of the plot and the characters. You might want to consider taking the excerpt from one of the first chapters instead?
I've got to agree with Claire.It might be better as an appendix.
Well, it's world building and the early history of the earth. Many major historical events are touched on. My first thought was to come up with an excerpt from this portion and then another that introduces the main character and then a third that introduces an exciting scene out of the book.
Perhaps, though, if people feel this would be too much I should trim the prologue excerpt off.
What is the main theme of the book? Once that question is answered, find a chapter that best illustrates that theme and take the extract from that.
A work of this type is like one of those six-foot long subs from Subway Sandwiches. You got a lot of stuff there!But don't put it all into the book. Look at that sandwich. Which is the best, most yummy slice? Give us that.
Give us as LITTLE AS POSSIBLE of everything else. It will astonish you, how little worldbuilding and background your reader really needs. You put a lot of work into it, you say? It would do your reader good to know how many miles a day a train of pack mules can travel when laden with coconuts? We don't care. Put it all into the appendix. Or, better yet, put it onto your web site and let the fanboys go wild.
More practically: think about when you put it up on amazon.com. You will have the Look Inside feature, yes? What will the prospective buyer see, when she Looks Inside? If it's a bunch of history and genealogy, then will she buy it?
Thanks S.J that is a simple way to explain it.Brenda, those are some very good points I had not considered.
I did think it was a little long once I finished it too, honestly. There really isn't anything that I could cut out and things are scattered in and around the whole thing that explain things in the book that would otherwise be confusing or strange to the reader.
These things are not something I felt would be in the proper place to have explained in mid story so I put them there.
Perhaps would it be better to have the history AFTER the whole novel instead of as a prologue? Then the things that don't make complete sense would be explained if and when they finished the book and the additional text at the end?
I have a prologue of nearly 25 pages which is the history of creation in my world. How much of these 25 pages would be a good amount for an excerpt and how much would be too much?