is the prologue of my novel a bit long? please read and review my summary!?
May 13, 2010 by
Filed under night vision reviews
ok, i want you to remember–i am going to give you a SUMMARY, NOT the REAL THING. please do not think i am writing a strange play when i say the scene changes.
okay, this is going to be longer than i intended, beware.
okay, i am 11, and i have loved to write stories. i am in a horizons class, so i have been with my current teacher last year and this year. ever since i entered he classroom i tihnk i have become a better writer. in fourth grade i wrote a chort story called ’silverwhisker the shadowlynx’ it sucked. last year i wrote a 21 page story about hermit crabs, as i have them as pets. well, now i am writing a novel, about my newest pets–rats.
this is definitely my best one so far, but i am afraid with my prologue, which i have handwritten and edited many times, is a bit too long and not completely prologue-like. here is a summary.
a small rat pup is half asleep, his mind going over a meeting with a wolf, which he considered wonderful, earlier that day. his foster parents, rock and stone, are asleep. He is thinking about what had happened (he sees a wolf hunting a rabbit alone, is curious, goes up to the wolf when he is eating, the wolf values his bravery in coming up and speaks to him, offering him a bite of the rabbit.) then he is awaken by an acrid smell, and tang in the air. Fire! his foster parents scramble up and usher him out, he faints, and the scene ends.
the next part is far away, to an old female named Spina, leader of a disorganized rat pack. she speaks with her herbist, an old packrat named Ember, out in the forest. Ember goes into a trance, because she is a seer and often has strange visions, or just understandings. She says a young black rat will come to the pack and help in some way. Spina is disbelieving, but she trusts her herbist. they begin discussing what to tell the pack, and after a while the scene changes.
it is back to the young rat, who fell over a small waterfall at some point and doesn’t know where his foster parents are. he wanders around looking for shelter, sleeps under a bush, and when he wakes he smells wolf. Delighted, after his earier encounter, he takes a peek, but then he realizes it was two wolves. one was the same he’d met earlier, and the other was a stranger, trying to hunt him. the familiar wolf persuades the newcomer to look for bigger prey with the rest of the pack, as wolves normally do, and talks to the rat again, sympathizing with his plight. He warns the rat to leave, as wolf territory was dangerous, as a wolf wouldn’t think twice about killing a rat in normal circumstances. the rat stays another night, and then leaves on a journey. two months, or ‘moons’ later, chapter one begins.
dang, i was trying to be brief! see what i mean? i am afraid no one will want to read a long prologue, and it is important to the story. it can’t be chapter one though. (oh, and i know many of these things are incorrect as in what would really happen, but it is only a story, with only a bit of realistic areas.)
what do you think? does it matter? remember–i gave you a SUMMARY!
I like it. As to your original question, it can be as long as you want it to. I once read a twenty three page prologue (super small print).
it can be as long as you want it. but you should go back over it and try to take out the really unimportant or unnecessary things.
First, I have to ask you: Why is your summary a prologue? Why is it not the story itself? Generally, a prologue precedes the body of the novel and describes some event which occurred previous to the beginning of the story or somehow prepares the reader for the story to come. Your proposed prologue, which, as you say, you’ve just summarized, is too long because it isn’t actually a prologue. My suggestion is that you edit and make it more concise, then move the remainder into the plot for book which you are planning to write. Good luck!