This post could have had so many titles: Prologue perils Prologue pitfalls Does your novel need a prologue? … no, really, does it? But I settled on How (not) to write a prologue because it seems unfair (and I'm probably profoundly unqualified) to impose an all-encompassing prologue ban. If I were to impose such a ban, it wouldn't be because I hate prologues; it would be because they are so often written terribly badly and end up detracting from, instead of adding to, a text.