One of the weirder debates I got sucked into on a Facebook book group was about the necessity of prologues.
One poster stridently announced that they always skipped the prologue, as it never contained anything useful.
I was gobsmacked.
In pretty much all of my books, the opening murder takes place in the prologue. Some would argue that's fairly useful. Most other participants shared my view, but the original poster would not be moved in their opinion.
To this day, I can't decide if the person was a troll, or just as mad as a box of frogs.
Some members of the group claimed they disliked books with a prologue, even to the point that they will avoid reading them.
"Just start at chapter one!" they implore.
Suggestions that if it really offends them that much, they could just mentally renumber the chapters so that the prologue is called chapter one, fell on deaf ears.
The thing is, in my DCI Warren Jones books at least, the prologue isn't chapter one. My novels are, for the most part, set out in a linear fashion. I divide the story into sections, typically headed with a date. So for the initial murder to take place on an as yet undisclosed date, it needs to exist outside that structure. The prologue deliberately doesn't have a date attached, so that if I wish, I can tease with an opening scene that may not be referenced again until well into the book. In my sixth book, A Price To Pay, the prologue has a woman running through a darkened forest being shot at and chased by dogs. The scene ends before we find out what happens to her.
The story then progresses to chapter one, where DCI Warren Jones is called to a murder in a massage parlour. As the book unfolds, readers will be wondering about that woman, looking for hints at what her fate is ,or the role that she will eventually play.
I'd suggest that skipping the prologue because of some irrational prejudice is going to seriously impact your understanding of what's going on and rob you of that anticipation.

Lee Child, creator of the phenomenally successful Jack Reacher series, said at a literary festival that one of the reasons he made Reacher a drifter was to avoid the constraints of a traditional police procedural. Specifically he mentioned how a typical police procedural would start with the detective being called to the crime scene and the case unfolding from there.
It was a valid observation. Any police procedural that wishes to be realistic has an inherent structure. A Reacher novel can start from any point. In The Killing Floor, Reacher steps off a bus in a Georgia town, orders pie in a diner, and is promptly arrested. The Enemy opens with a heart attack, One Shot with a man carrying a rifle driving to a car park.
And that is the other reason why I always have a prologue. Each of my books starts differently. A Price To Pay has the woman in the woods. Forgive Me Father has two teenagers breaking into the grounds of a ruined abbey. The first in the series, The Last Straw, has the blood-soaked discovery of a body, the second, No Smoke Without Fire, starts with somebody released from prison.
Of course I strive to make chapter one original each time as well, but with one or two exceptions it usually starts after the discovery of a victim, when Warren is called to the scene.

But That's Not The End.
One of the distinctive - and sometimes derided - features of Golden Age crime is the big final reveal. Agatha Christie's Poirot novels are (in)famous for their closing 'library scene' (or similar), where all of the suspects are called together and Poirot goes through their motives one at a time, before discarding them. Eventually, whoever is left, is unmasked as the killer. It's an effective and enjoyable device, not least because he ties up all the loose ends.
But of course it isn't really appropriate or realistic for most stories. Gathering all the suspects together can feel contrived, and the tension of the reveal aside, isn't especially dramatic. And attempting to wrap up everything in a neat bow can rob the final denouement of its momentum, as you seek to explain exactly what the final clue was that led to the killer.
But skipping that explanation isn't a good idea. Your readers have earned the right to know exactly how the case was solved and perhaps even the motives behind the crime. Some readers like to 'play along', and will want to see if their thoughts mirrored the detectives. Simply having the killer presented, followed by The End, would be unsatisfying and frustrating.
So that's where the epilogue comes in. The problem is that it can feel like an after thought. You need a way of getting across what you want to explain without it feeling like a list of bullet points. My own device is to have Warren debriefed by Assistant Chief Constable Naseem. He is openly collecting details of interesting cases for his future memoirs. It is usually a chat in his office a few days after the conclusion of the investigation. It has evolved over the years, with it becoming more philosophical in tone. I sometimes use it as way to foreshadow what may happen in future novels in the series (Out of Sight ends on a teaser about Warren's future).

Most books have some sort of epilogue, but it may not be marked as such. It could just be the wrapping up at the end of the final chapter. I label mine epilogue simply because I like the symmetry of a book starting with a prologue and ending with an epilogue.

What are your thoughts on prologues and epilogues? Are they important to a book or a distraction? Do you use any particular devices?
As always, feel free to comment here or on social media.
All the best, Paul.
Epilogue:
Are you a writer with a tip to share? I love having guest bloggers. Feel free to contact me via the email or social media links.

Today's Tip is another strategy to help move you on if you are suffering from writer's block.
I've suggested before how a simple free-write activity can be enough to jump-start your writing engine for the day. Here is my take on another activity that is a popular starter activity in creative writing classes.
Use, as your prompt, a random image.
Writing Exercises is a great website - here is a tool for generating random images.
https://writingexercises.co.uk/random-image-generator.php
What can you write about that picture?

• Is there a story to be told?
• Is there a conversation being had?
• Is it just a way to stretch your powers of description?

Remember, it doesn't matter if the prompt doesn't relate to what you are writing. This isn't about adding to your manuscript's wordcount. If a few minutes doing one of these exercises is enough to get your creative juices flowing, then it's time well spent.
To keep yourself focused, consider some constraints.
Don't spend too long choosing an image. Depending on the image database, the first picture might not be suitable (eg a logo or icon set), but commit yourself to using one of the first 5 images.
Give yourself a time limit. What can you get down in 10 minutes?
Don't lift your pen. Write any old nonsense, just go with the flow. Don't stop and start to overthink it.
At the end of the activity, open your manuscript and start immediately. Try and get at least something down whilst you are still warmed up. Fingers crossed, once you're up and running you'll keep going.
Good luck!
Have you got any suggestions about overcoming writer's block?
Feel free to comment here or on social media.
Happy writing,
Paul

For the past two weeks [#TuesdayTip89 #TuesdayTip90], I have been focusing on the dialogue we place in our character's mouths, and making it realistic and appropriate. I will be concluding the series today with some more concrete suggestions about how to go about doing this.
Keep an eye out for a future post, where I will be looking at dialogue attribution - the stuff outside the speech marks that tells us who is speaking and how they are saying it.

Suggestions for writing authentic dialogue.
Not everything needs to be said: The first rule is to remember that you aren't transcribing what a person says. AI-powered speech recognition software means that automatically generated subtitles are far more accurate than they used to be. But what gives away those that aren't edited by a human before broadcast is their slavish attempts to faithfully render every utterance the actors make.
Natural speech is full of pauses, repetition, mis-pronounced words, stutters and verbal tics like um, and ah. Unless you are using this as a way to signpost that a character is nervous, or drunk etc, cut them out. Otherwise, you'll drive your readers mad!

Rehearse it. I have learned a lot from conversations with my audio narrator. One of his most important tips is not to write sentences that are so long that they leave the reader gasping for breath! Even if you aren't planning on having your book narrated, remember that your character can only speak for so long without pausing for breath. The easiest way to test this is to actually read the dialogue out loud yourself - if you run out of breath, you need to break it up into shorter sentences!   

Break it up anyway. Even an inspiring superhero-style monologue gets dull if it is too long. On screen there will usually be things happening and movement that keep the viewers attention. In books, you need to break the monologue into more manageable chunks.
Supergirl loves a good monologue to inspire the people of Earth. Written down, they would last for several paragraphs, so if they were in a novel, every couple of paragraphs would need some sort of break. This break can be invisible to the reader, but it keeps them focused for example:

"People of Earth! Blah, blah,  blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah."
She looked around the room. "Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah."
Around her, the audience started to stir.
" Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah!  Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah!  Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah!"
Stepping back from the podium, she acknowledged the applause.

Listen to people from that part of the world: If the character that you are writing is from somewhere different from where you come from, then making their dialogue sound authentic can be a challenge. An easy way to 'tune into' their modes of speech is to find video or audio clips of people speaking on YouTube. Or listen to programs on local radio - this is far easier these days, now that the BBC Sounds app archives programs from regional stations. Shows with phone-ins can be very useful, although you need to be careful to make sure that 'Brian from Sutton Coldfield' was actually born and bred there, and didn't move there from Liverpool ten years ago for work.

Ask advice: Sometimes you just need somebody to tell you if what you've written is authentic. Social media can be a terrific tool for this. Depending on whether or not you want your dialogue snippets to be visible to the world (you probably don't want the denouement where the killer is revealed to be out there), you can ask for feedback from native speakers by either posting the lines of dialogue and asking for native speakers to give their thoughts, or putting out a request for someone to contact you privately. You'd be amazed how helpful people can be - folks hate it when their region is portrayed inaccurately and are usually tickled pink if you put them in the acknowledgements or name a character after them!

Do you have any suggestions about how to write authentic dialogue?
Feel free to comment here, or on social media.
Until next time,
Paul

Welcome to this week's Tuesday Tip. Last week's post (#TuesdayTip89) looked at the importance of making sure that your character speaks authentically for the region that they are supposedly from. This week, I want to focus on accurately portraying their age, background and education level.

Consider their background: A couple of years ago, I read an excellent story that was really gripping with a terrific twist. But one thing really jarred - all the characters sounded as if they had the same background. The cast varied from wealthy, university-educated barristers, to teenagers on a poor housing estate.  Yet they all spoke like the author (who I have heard at literary festivals). It was strange that the editor didn't pick up that a fifteen-year-old kid who bunked off school used grammatically perfect English that was indistinguishable from the forty-something solicitor representing them. I'm not saying the author should have filled the youngster's speech with slang and dropped consonants, but it could have been made to feel far more authentic. It reminded me of 1940s dramas where everyone from the lord of the manor to the scullery maid spoke in "BBC English".

Make it age appropriate: The age of a character is another determinant of their vocabulary. Unless your speaker is consciously trying to sound young and cool, or extremely formal, their vocabulary can often give clues to their approximate age. As we age, our speech changes (listen to the Queen speaking in the fifties, and then listen to her now), but only to a degree. We can get set in our ways, especially if we continue socialising and working with same people for many years. Leaving aside racially-charged language, which I have previously covered (#TuesdayTip62) there are words and ways of speaking that we continue using, and which may elicit an eye-roll from the younger generation.
Something that has always fascinated me is calling someone "love". If I were to use that term in school, or to a woman I don't know in her thirties, I would be regarded as patronising at best and sexist and offensive at worst. It would probably earn me a quiet word from my line manager at the very least. Yet take a wander around a London marketplace and it is normal for sellers to address women (of any age) as "love". It's a term of polite endearment. Unquestionably some women do find it offensive, but from what I've seen most folks regard it as normal. They would object if it was used in the office, but rarely bat an eyelid when a sixty-something grocer hands over a bag of vegetables and says "there you are, love."
Writing younger characters is more tricky. As a teacher, I'm probably exposed to more teenage slang than most, but even I struggle to keep up with the latest phrases and sayings. And I learned a long time ago that trying to emulate their speech is embarrassing for all concerned. The language also evolves at a dizzying rate, with words coming into and going out of fashion very quickly. Even if you get it right, it really ages a story, which may or may not be a good thing. My recommendation is to maintain a light touch.  

​Consider the situation: We all moderate our language, and even pronunciation, for different situations. Leaving aside profanity, which may or not be acceptable in that context, we often speak differently at work than we do at home. I've taught alongside people from all over the UK (and some from outside the UK). When observing them in the classroom or interacting with kids in our little corner of England, they often (me included) speak differently. It isn't a huge change - and is largely subconscious - but it is noticeable. Even in the staffroom, the way we express ourselves is different than with family and friends, We used to joke that we always knew when one of our colleagues had spent the weekend with her parents, because it took until lunchtime on the Monday before we could understand her again!

​Does your character have a "telephone voice"?

I will be concluding this series of posts next week with some suggestions on how to go about writing authentic dialogue.
Until then, do you have any tips?
As always, please feel free to comment here or on social media.
All the best,
Paul