To Prologue or not to prologue...that is the question.

For the past week I've been busily jumping back and forth between my original manuscript and the one with all the editorial marks and highlights and comments attempting to correct the myriad of things the editor thought was wrong or needed work. For the most part, I've been perfectly fine with what she wanted. Oh, sure, I didn't agree with her that dialect as used by a character was bad and it was obvious she didn't get the fact that in a couple of places characters were using 1920's slang, but overall, her comments made sense. Except...for the prologue.

I'll admit, I generally like prologues. I find them interesting and they make me want to read more to find out how they fit into the grand scheme of the story but I have come to find that this is not universal. In fact, many despise prologues and some of those despisers include publishers. My editor and agent apparently feel the same way because they told me to lose the prologue.

This makes me unhappy. I like my prologue! In some ways, it's my favorite part of the whole story! It's action packed, mysterious and is the key to later events. Too bad, I was told, put that information elsewhere. So, I'm trying to figure out how to do that. The whole key to this story is the main character doesn't know this information. If I put in in how they suggest (i.e. the MC sees this happen later in the book) it could necessitate rewriting the entire second half of the book! I really don't like that idea.

But, on the other hand, if I am using an agent it is because I trust her judgement on these things. I think it's safe to say that overall, she is more in tune with what publishers are looking for than I am and if she says they hate prologues, who am I to argue (despite the fact that the last two books I read had them!)? I shall attempt to insert the scene later in the story but in such a way that the MC either doesn't see anything too crucial to later events or doesn't understand what she's seen.

And if that doesn't work, I'll just delete the word "Prologue" and replace it with "Chapter One" and see what happens!