take two

Common consensus seems to be that I'm doing a disservice to the prologue by labeling it as such since many editors/readers dislike prologues. The fear seems to be that many people will skip or skim it because they will think it's unimportant.

My argument has always been that it needs to be a prologue partially because it is set a few months before the rest of the narrative, but moreso because the POV shifts in each chapter and Chapter 1 is also from Amy's POV. I had toyed with an intermediate chapter from Brett's POV but couldn't think of what should go in that chapter and didn't want to waste space.

The good news is, I had a brainstorm today for that section. I realized that the prologue is only 1700 words, roughly half of my other chapters. If I write another chapter of that legnth, I can have the first two chapters be shorter, introductory chapters so that the reader can get to know each character individually. Then once they meet, the chapters can be longer.

I'm actually thrilled, because now that I'm half way through the story, I can think of lots of things that belong in Brett's introductory chapter. So my job for today is to write what will now be Chapter 2.