Out of Order Prologue?

[Eternal Daydreamer]

Um, hello. Uh, I was wondering something. (No, it doesn't have to do with description, thank Serebii Joe.) It has to do with the prologue of a story.

Would it be possible to have, say, a prologue that has part of the climax of a story then have the rest of the story build up to that point and beyond? I would like to know if it would make little sense to do such a thing. I'm trying this out in a new story I'm going to publish on Fanfiction.net. It's still being written but I was wondering if it could be done well.

Another thing I was wondering was: if this is done, how much of the plot should you spoil? I don't really know so I'm kind of in the dark about this sort of prologue.

Any ideas or tips would be very helpful to me.

~ED

 

[Saffire Persian]

Um, hello. Uh, I was wondering something. (No, it doesn't have to do with description, thank Serebii Joe.) It has to do with the prologue of a story.

Would it be possible to have, say, a prologue that has part of the climax of a story then have the rest of the story build up to that point and beyond? I would like to know if it would make little sense to do such a thing. I'm trying this out in a new story I'm going to publish on Fanfiction.net. It's still being written but I was wondering if it could be done well.

Another thing I was wondering was: if this is done, how much of the plot should you spoil? I don't really know so I'm kind of in the dark about this sort of prologue.

Any ideas or tips would be very helpful to me.

Yes. ^^ I did that in a story of mine myself. :/ The Prologue was actually the climax of the story -- though it didn't resolve it. Then the first chapter, I went back to the beginning and started to tell the story from there, and it would ultimately lead up to the Climax point, and go from there.

I see nothing wrong with it, provided you have a reason, and use the Prologue to your benefit well.

 

[IceKing]

The technical term for your planning on doing is called Media Res I believe.

There's nothing wrong with it all, it definetely can work to your advantage in order to hook your readers in at the beginning and ensure that they keep on reading. Though obviously, it won't work in every fic. If the climax contains massive spoilers, then you would probably just want to start normally. I started later in the story for one of my fics, A Scarlet Christmas, as well, though not the climax. My aim when I did that was to get the reader's interest and start making them ask a lot of question that (hopefully) they would read on to anwser

I would suggest not spoiling too much of the plot, but just to show a little sneak peak of what's to come. Of course, my suggestions could be completely off, I am, by means, no professional writer. Perhaps someone more experienced than I will post as well. The only other fic I have seen with Media Res was Into the Fire by Elemental Charizam where he started the fic off with charachters in incredible danger. He hasn't progressed that far and I'm pretty sure it won't be updated, so I don't think I'll ever know how it works out in the end. Perhaps he will give an anwser? Then again, I doubt theres enough room for sarcasm in this thread =P

I hope my advice helps somewhat. Be sure to get your fic posted here as well as fanfiction.com!