This is sort of what we call a process entry.

[mrissa]

One big difference in having timprov out in Boston for the week is that my process wibbling to him goes on IM and can be transferred here more easily when it amuses us.

mrissa: So I have to ask you: how unforgivable is the sin of prologue?
mrissa: Is it less unforgivable if the prologue is in Carter's voice?
timprov: I'm not good with sins.
mrissa: Lots of people aren't; that's why they call them sins.
mrissa: And not "stuff we're all good with."
timprov: What sort of prologue?
timprov: What happens in it?
mrissa: Carter...um.
timprov: The hell you say.
mrissa: I might.
timprov: Is Tesla there?
mrissa: Carter is drunk and runs into
mrissa: No not Tesla!
mrissa: Perhaps possibly some stuff that he won't understand until--

mrissa: See, this is why I wasn't thinking more carefully about this.
timprov: Hee.
mrissa: Because now instead of "Must I have a prologue?" the question is, "Well, hell, how do I fit the new plot thread in with the rest of the book."
timprov: Absent a prologue?
mrissa: No, no, present a prologue.

mrissa: Unless I just declare it Chapter One Dammit.
mrissa: By fiat.
mrissa: "I am ze auzzor! I outrrrrrank you!"
timprov: Carter drives a Fiat?
mrissa: Fiat makes pickups?
timprov: "It's kind of like an El Camino, only me and my cousins made it one summer. There was beer involved."
mrissa: (Table of contents: Chapter One Dammit, Chapter One, Chapter Two....)
mrissa: Heeheehee.
mrissa: Phrases the world never needed: "it's kind of like an El Camino."
timprov: "It takes a lot of beer to come up with the idea to turn a perfectly good car into an El Camino knockoff. It still takes quite a bit if it's a Fiat."
mrissa: "You can haul, like, a couple of 2x4s in it if you don't mind them sticking up. It's not really a hauling things sort of pickup."
mrissa: "Or a driving over rough terrain sort of pickup."
mrissa: "So to recap: like an El Camino."
timprov: "But you can tow a boat behind it, as long as you stick to Fisher Price."
mrissa: "I think it's too big for Elmer's canoe, even."
mrissa: "But I'm too big for Elmer's canoe, so no worries."
mrissa: Poor Elmer.
timprov: Yah.

Comments

[timprov.livejournal.com]

Aside to numinicious: I tried, I really did.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

What did you try?

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

I see no more sense in declaring prologues sins than I do in declaring the same of adjectives or adverbs. They are a legitimate narrative structure, if one that's often used badly (http://www.swantower.com/marie/essays/craft/prologues.html), and if your story needs one, then go for it.

(And yes, I felt that way even before I started writing books with prologues.)

[timprov.livejournal.com]

I should think that was obvious.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Oh, right, Tesla insertion.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

And I'm usually Captain Suggestible, too.

[timprov.livejournal.com]

He was notably not into that sort of thing.

[brooksmoses]

*laughs really quite a bit*

Also, for what it's worth Fiat actually does make pickups. But I figure this one is about the right imagery for this. (Though see also this Fiat, which is sort of a rough-terrain-and-beer sort of Fiat although not a pickup [yet].)

[columbina.livejournal.com]

It's nice seeing that other people have the sort of IM conversations I do with nonelvis.

Nice, as in, "Oh, good, these people are crazy too."

[miz-hatbox.livejournal.com]

You guys are cute.

[coalboy.livejournal.com]

I really do like the title "Chapter one, dammit".

[brooksmoses]

I should also note that there's another layer of amusingness for me because, in the online place where I usually have conversations of this sort, oneironaut goes by a handle of "Tesla". (The place started as a staff out-of-character room on a MUSH, and the convention there was for all the staff handles to be names of famous inventors or scientists. Many of them have stuck, even though the actual place has moved three times.)

[diatryma.livejournal.com]

I giggled madly.