Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Prologues/Epilogues – Love or Hate Them? Why?
Hi everyone! I hope you’re all well. Today is Wednesday, and it’s time for another post in the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge hosted by Long and Short Reviews. If you’d like to participate in the challenge, you can find the list of topics for 2026 here, and if you’d like to read others’ responses to this week’s topic, you can do so here.
Prologues/Epilogues – Love or Hate Them? Why?
This is tricky, because whenever I open a book and see the word ‘prologue’, my initial instinct is to skip it. However, my OCD brain would never allow me to actually do that, so I end up slogging through. And don’t get me wrong, sometimes I think they are needed to help set the overall tone and backdrop of a story, or even to foreshadow events to come, but more often than not I wonder why the information couldn’t have been sprinkled throughout the book.
The main issue I have with prologues, I suppose, is that they are so often used as an infodump for world and character building. I think many writers believe it’s best to get the ‘introductions’ and ‘setup’ out of the way so the story can begin—but for me, worldbuilding is more interesting when it’s slowly revealed along with the plot. It’s the same for characters too. I want to get to know a character and their backstory over the course of the story, and not have to wade through a long, mired prologue full of superfluous information. I wish more writers trusted readers to wait.
I find epilogues to be more acceptable. With an epilogue, you know you don’t need any of the information in it (usually) to understand the story, because the story has been told. I see an epilogue as an optional little continuation or a flash-forward that isn’t necessary—but can help to tie up any loose ends. But that is, of course, only if they’re done well, and sometimes they aren’t. In any event, I’ll read them.
Anyway, that’s enough from me for today. What do all of you think?
Thanks very much, as always, for reading my post!
Until next time,
George
© 2026 GLT
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