A Prolouge

Lots of people have prologues. And most of them have problems with their prologue. The two biggest problems are that some prologues are irrelevant, and some are too relevant to put outside the story. I'll be covering both of these problems.

I'm going to talk about the latter problem first, because it's one that I've actually had. My prologue was so important to the story, I couldn't risk having people skip over it. People skip prologues all the time. And they might miss something big if you put it in your prologue. The kind of obvious solution is to include your prologue in your first chapter. As long as it;s important. If it isn't, keep it in prologue form.

Now, if your prologue is something like "Long ago in a far away land, [the entire history of your world]." Then you have a problem. This is just an info dump, and ain't nobody got time fo dat. Cut it, and scatter the history through your book. 

One more thing: if your prologue is in a vague, omniscient point of view, with lots of things left unexplained, I refuse to read it. I just refuse. This style is just off-putting, and while some people are into it, I find it a cheap substitute for suspense. Give me a scene with a point of view, a narrator, and a point.

I don't have a lot of experience with prologues, so this is the extent of my advice. But I hope it helps.