What is the difference between exposition and prologue

All it basically tells the audience is these two great families in Verona are fighting, to the death, and two young loves will die over it.

Keep listening and maybe you'll learn something. Exposition is simply a word the describes the kind of writing that does what a prologue does, but it takes place within the larger story, rather than before it. If you ever read Harry Potter, whenever Dumbledore spends 3 or 4 pages droning on about the Order of the Phoenix before Harry was born It just an information dump that provides background info to make the current story make sense.

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Who is in the wrong? The folklore and fairy-tale prototype of a complete exposition, including all the main elements, is something as follows:.

Once upon a time there lived in the North Country a certain poor-man and his wife, who had two cornfields, three cows, five sheep and thirteen children. A literary text may also contain elements specially designed as starting points. These are the epigraph and the prologue. A prologue is a beginning detached from the rest of the text. It forms an introduction to a novel or a poem given in a separate chapter not immediately connected with the course of events narrated but interpreting them in a general way.

This introductory explanatory function may be achieved in many different ways. It describes the reaction of George's family to his death, whereas the event itself is narrated on the very last page of the novel. An epigraph is even more detached from the text itself than the prologue: it is a quotation of a motto, put at the beginning of a book or its part, generalizing or echoing or commenting on the main idea of the text.

The decoding of the epigraph is apt to be underrated. A novel may begin with a kind or general epigrammatic statement. This pokes fun a little at the grand, sweeping imagery and language of many epic fantasy introductions.

Even as he pokes fun at genre tropes, Pratchett gives us broad and detailed facts about his world. Tolkien gets all the explanatory detail out of the way in his prologue. When we encounter mention of hobbits or the ring, we already have background — a frame of reference. Tolkien keeps his prologue interesting with anecdotes and imagery. They seldom now reach three feet; but they have dwindled, they say, and in ancient days they were taller. He was surpassed in all Hobbit records only by two famous characters of old; but that curious matter is dealt with in this book.

These make his world more vivid and real. He also hints explicitly that this information about some Hobbits riding horses is relevant to the coming story. The prologue thus conveniently teases coming events. The prologue describes exciting events in summary form.

While relevant, they are not the main action of this story:. For just as he ran he put his hand in his pocket, and the ring slipped quietly on to his finger. So it was that Gollum passed him without seeing him…. We thus get detail relevant to the coming story, in action-filled yet concise form. The men bind her again.

Differently this time: left thumb to right toe, right thumb to left. The rope around her waist. This time, they carry her into the water. Reading the above examples, how can you write a gripping foreword that adds to your story by introducing key events? Hinting at the events that are already underfoot in an epilogue is a useful way to keep readers intrigued and on the lookout for your next installment. So clearly, there are more reasons not to write a prologue than there are reasons to write one.

Be very critical of your prologue to be sure you should include it. Just as a great prologue can make a book, a bad one can ruin it completely. If your prologue is boring, readers will skip it. We all know that the first pages of your first chapter are extremely important. The two should work together to be as intriguing as possible to yank the reader in and not let them go. After your prologue, your reader should be so intrigued that they immediately jump into the first chapter. This is what pushes readers to buy more books, increasing your overall book sales and hooking fans.

George R. Martin did a great job with this in his infamous series Game of Thrones. The series opens with a prologue of men venturing beyond the wall to investigate certain occurrences. This will often make them skim the prologue, skip the prologue, or skip the book entirely. Prologues are a great story-telling tool when used properly. Make sure you need a prologue before you include one, keep it brief, keep it interesting, and keep it Absolutely Necessary. A great prologue means nothing if it only ever sees a folder in your computer that you only open every seven months.

If you really want to finish writing your book and even self-publishing your book someday, a kick in the butt to get it done will help.