NATION (Terry Pratchett). What I could learn about writing from Terry Pratchett would be its own website. How to Tell a Story. How to Develop a Story. How to Maintain Tension. But what interested me most in NATION, once I got past the pure pleasure of reading it, were the lessons on How to Break the Rules.

Rule One. Never Start with a Prologue. In the case of NATION, he got by with even more. The prologue is a legend. I did this on one of my earlier novel attempts and found a prologue to be a ready target for editors and agents at conferences. I quickly learned to agree that Prologues are Evil so we could move on in the discussion. Second, in my ‘sharper than a barracuda’s teeth and wiser than me’ crit group, the prologue was met with horror. No agent will buy that!! (see point one) because they are only going to read the first pages. So, although it was an integral part of the story, I got rid of it.

I miss it. I love legends. But, you can’t see why a prologue is important if you only read the first pages. It makes me curious. Of the books that do start with prologues, and there are many, how many of them sold first then had the prologue added because it just made sense? I don’t have a clue – but an interesting question.

Rule Two. Start with the main pov character. In NATION, we meet Mau on page 12. The first part has nothing to do with the main story until … well, until the end. So, how would a new author go about selling this? “Dear Ms. Agent Who I Have Researched and I Really, Really Think Would Be Wonderful for My Work: Here is chapter 1, as you requested in your guidelines, but it actually has relatively little to do with the main plot line so just keep reading.”

This is not a complaint about agents/editors/or even those they hire to read the slush. I know they have to get through it all somehow. The question is, how do we, as writers, convince them that we Know the Rules, but in this case It Just Doesn’t Work because of the way this story needs to be told.
I say this as I am preparing to dump Chapter 1 in my current w-i-p and go back to the original Chapter 2 beginning. I listened, I tried then tried again, but it isn’t working. NATION gives me hope. If it worked once…

Thanks, Mr. Pratchett, for a wonderful read and for breaking the rules. I’ll let you know how it ends.

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