Storywriting: Prologue or No Prologue?

[STRATCOM]

Esteemed foreign author, native Vestian authors have compiled a bestselling guide to fiction writing that you may find useful. An excerpt is below:

Chapter 3
On Exposition

When beginning a story, do not succumb as other authors do to the dreaded 'info-dump.' While you may think it useful to get all of your worldbuilding and backstory out in one slogging page or chapter, your reader will not appreciate having to sit through the opening credits before coming across anything interesting to read. Many will put down the book outright and seek Fuel Duty or something else more stimulating than reading your info-dump.

Instead, your thought should be action, action, action! - every step of the way. Readers will not sit through a description of the beautiful post-modern architecture you have dreamed up for the book, but they will be enthralled to read about it when the position of windows and support beams determines whether your sniper protagonist lives or dies. They will find your description of your homebrewed culture to give them the same taste in their mouth as mandatory history class readings, but once a cultural quirk becomes a diplomatic misunderstanding becomes a potential war brewing, they will be exceptionally interested at the very same words!

Keep in mind that your readers are not dullards - they have some capability to infer, or they would hardly be reading fiction books. Use this to your advantage by letting the exposition lightly shade the action instead of drown it. If your story starts off in the aftermath of a war, it is not necessary to give bullet points of the causes, cultures, major battles, and location of the treaty table. It will be quite sufficient to toss the reader a line or two about the war as your protagonist runs through the mined DMZ to escape the degenerate robber-baron democracy, clutching his well-worn copy of On Pure Total Meritocracy.

Even from the single previous sentence you already have a good idea of who the war was between (a robber-baron democracy and a Pure Total Meritocracy), why they fought (ideological differences), and the kind of war they fought (a stalemate bloody enough to create a DMZ with mines.)

Follow the 90-10 rule when it comes to showing and telling exposition: 10% of the exposition you thought you would need will do 90% of the job for the reader and the story. The vast majority of your worldbuilding will sit on your own journals and notebooks until it becomes immediately relevant to a story - and that's ok. The 10% will do the job, and for those readers who enjoy to dig and get background perspective (including you, or you would not be writing detailed worldbuilding!) your exposition will make sufficient allusion that they can begin to tie the threads together and theorize in interesting ways.

Already from cutting down your exposition, you're building excitement for your next book.