The curse of the prologue rears its ugly head once more.

As writers, we hear all the time that we’ve got to hook readers in just the first few pages or else. We’ve got to hook agents in the first few pages or else.

Whether you’re looking to get published or just hoping to hook your reader, first impressions are vital. Compelling opening scenes are the key to catching an agent or editor’s attention, and are crucial for keeping your reader engaged.
JEFF GERKE, THE FIRST FIFTY PAGES

This month I snagged from the New Release shelf:

Evil Bones by Kathy Reichs

Evil Bones is the 24th Temperance Brennan novel by Kathy Reichs.

Wow. 24th?

I pause on this because any series running that long will have a clunker or two. Even my beloved Poirot had a lousy mystery here and there.

The prologue focuses on an elderly woman who should not be driving in a rainstorm. She constantly puts herself down through all the prayers and panic in the weather. While this emotional/environmental pacing works fine, the prose here gets…odd. For example:

Unless something unexpected happened to alter the usual script.

This line is set up in a way that shows the elderly woman would think like this.

Come again? No human being thinks lines like that, especially grandmotherly ladies keen to bake an angel food cake for the church.

Brake now! A cluster of panicky neurons bellowed.
Waiting until you can safely pull off! a more rational gaggle countermanded.

Bellowing neurons countermanded by a gaggle of neurons….

Come again?

These awkward descriptions made it very difficult to care what was going on with this woman, and considering this book is a thriller, I should care about what happens to this vulnerable old woman. But this is a prologue, and with such awkward prose I’m just powering through to see what Chapter 1 is like.

And sure enough, Chapter 1 is different. It’s first-person narration from Temperance the protagonist, bemused by a frog she hears outside her office. She’s supposed to be annotating reports from all her cases that year, and she lists some major categories of those cases involving skeletal remains, how they’re found, etc.

Typically, exposition like this could turn readers off, but after that awkward prologue, I found this approach refreshing. I’m a first-timer with this series, and within a page and a half I got a good sense of this character, her personality, and her field of expertise. Plus, by page 3 of the first chapter, Temperance is called to visit an old lady who crashed her car in a storm because she was shocked by an animal mutilation. Why on earth did we need the prologue when the first chapter was going to warp us over to the scene of the crime anyway?

Yet another case of the prologue doing no favors. The first chapter could have hooked us and reeled us in for the inciting incident without a problem. Readers do not have to see preludes to The Incident, especially when that prelude is prioritizing elements barely tangential to the storyline. Let readers imagine the prelude on their own terms, or allow unreliable character narrators to share their perspectives. It’s just another way to shower the plot with fresh layers of mystery, keeping readers moving forward, ever curious about what hides in the storm.

Let’s see what next month’s find will teach us, shall we?

Coming up, I’ve got more author interviews, more adventures in the Story Empire, more music, and some bucking of trends. Stay tuned!

Read on, share on, and write on, my friends!