What percentage of books have a prologue?
I’m speaking specifically of fiction books, though if anyone knows anything about non-fiction books, that would be interesting to know as well. I am a writer and am writing a few books. I know I don’t need to put a prologue in my latest book, but I’m just curious as to how many books have prologues.
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Ha! I’m moving and just had to pack up my books from my library. Being the complete nerd I am I ended up doing more reading than packing. :’(
As I was flipping through, I think I saw almost all my books have prologues, and almost all of those have epilogues.
Could just be my books as I do tend to go heavy on the fiction. I’d say about 80% of them had a prologue. Just a rough guess. :)
Where are you two getting that silly little number? Hmm?
brrr.. from the so called experience
It’s common knowledge to my people.
Oh well, in that case. :P
Most books I know of have a prologue, only if because it is not necessarily something that must be said, but something that should be said. I know, being a fellow writer, I enjoy putting a prologue, but rarely, if ever, an epilogue, My writing is very poetic in tone and voice, so I want my last words of the book to be, the last words in the book.
I would agree with asmonet, about 80–85% have them. It all comes down to the writer, the story, and a lot of times, the publisher. Sometimes they want you to have one, “just to clear somethings up,” or “hook the reader without giving much of the story away.”
24.7888888889222213884500875765559%
See, that’s what I said but I broke it down to layman’s shorthand.
@pupn
GA for sarcasm ! LOL
Apparently, the total percentage of epilogues resembles pi.
It just keeps growing, and growing, and growing!
@gailcalled:
so, is that 25% in “smart talk?”
Isn’t that our friend, the repeating decimal?
I choose to believe that it is!
“I reject your reality and substitute my own!”
By the simple act of observing the number I have, thusly, changed it into 25%
@jvoar; Rejecting reality doesn’t change your decision to use sophistry. :- o
Well, I guess the best answer to my question is that no one knows exactly… :)
Thanks everyone for answering!
and lurve to jtvoar for quoting mythbusters
@jtvoar; It is a clever maxim, but think of the ensuing chaos if everyone had his own reality, other than Freud’s little bubble of solipsism that surrounds us all.
(The electrical outlets here in my basement are installed so the plug goes in horizontally. I will check the other floors later. I never thought about that in my life.)
(@jtvoar: All of the outlets are horizontal…house built in 1986.)
I asked my grandmother, and she said he rewired the whole house when they moved in… incompetently. I am surprised the plugs are even english, let alone installed in any fashion but inside-out.
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