What do a suitcase and an umbrella have in common? As we slogged through our years of homeschooling, my daughters and I occasionally lightened up the day with a storytelling game. We each scribbled some random words on slips of paper, stirred them a basket, and then withdrew two or three to start a story…
Writers often debate the merits (and demerits) of prologue and epilogue—the figurative bookends of a story. Why? Many readers find them distracting, misleading, disconnected, and unnecessary. I’ll confess I just finished a book which I otherwise enjoyed, but whose prologue (written from the villain’s point of view) I completely forgot until I reached the epilogue….